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Celebrities

Is Meghan Markle’s ‘bullying’ half-sister Samantha to blame? The Oprah Winfrey interview reminded us of the other family drama Buckingham Palace would rather avoid

STORYLynn Farah
Half-sisters Samantha and Meghan Markle. Photo: @samanthamarkle/Twitter
Half-sisters Samantha and Meghan Markle. Photo: @samanthamarkle/Twitter
Royalty

  • Samantha was not invited to her half-sister Meghan’s royal wedding to Prince Harry and was later turned away from Buckingham Palace – did she deserve it?
  • Her memoir The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister Part 1 has been labelled a ‘cash-in’ and she was also suspended from Twitter for accusations of cyberbullying

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s tell-all Oprah Winfrey interview set tongues – royal and otherwise – wagging, after the Duchess of Sussex took shots at “The Firm” in the already infamous two-hour CBS special.
The couple have previously spoken about the attacks they have received from the British press, but this time they used the interview to dish the dirt on Markle’s alleged treatment from the royal family itself. Much of the controversy was said to be around Meghan’s race and also the drama within her own family.

The major source of Markle family secrets is her half-sister, Samantha. After not getting invited to the royal wedding (nor was she at Meghan’s first wedding to Trevor Engelson in 2011), Samantha went on the rampage, blasting her sister for, well, everything. In January 2021, she even released a memoir, The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister Part 1, continuing to ride on the Meghan fame-train. 

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Here’s what else you might need to know about Markle’s half-sister, Samantha.

The Markle connection

Samantha and Meghan share the same father, Thomas, but they have different mums. Samantha is 17 years older than Meghan and the age-gap meant that although they were siblings, they were never particularly close. In an interview with US Weekly in 2017, after Meghan and Harry announced their engagement, Samantha admitted it had “been a bit” since she had spoken to her sister.

A bit? E! News reported that at the time of the engagement, they had not spoken for 23 years. Samantha lives in Florida with her boyfriend. She has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair.

The change of surname

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