Meghan Markle letter delivered to Thomas Markle: First contact in 7 years

A letter from Meghan Markle to her ill father Thomas Markle has been delivered to him in hospital, her spokesperson confirmed.

The Duchess of Sussex spent the weekend ringing round hospitals in the Philippines, where her father had a leg amputated during life saving surgery last week.

A journalist for the Daily Mail had been at his bedside and recorded a video of him thanking people for their support but Meghan had not been able to get a message to him.

A spokesperson for Meghan said in a statement to Newsweek and others: “Given that a Daily Mail reporter has remained at her father’s bedside throughout, broadcasting each interaction and breaching clear ethical boundaries, it has been exceedingly difficult for the Duchess to contact her father privately, despite her efforts over the past several days.

“With the support of reliable and trusted contacts, her correspondence is now safely in his hands.”

Meghan Markle’s Rift With Her Father

Meghan once said she was a “daddy’s girl” growing up but their relationship was destroyed in the run up to her May 2018 wedding when he staged paparazzi photos for money and lied to her about it.

Thomas Markle had been living in Mexico at the time and speculation was rife about whether he would make it over to Britain for the Windsor Castle ceremony, when photos started appearing in British tabloids seemingly showing him preparing, for example, at a suit fitting.

The Mail on Sunday pulled CCTV footage which showed his staging the images with a paparazzo, bringing humiliation on Meghan, whose staff had been pleading for his privacy, days before the wedding.

In the aftermath, Markle Sr. had two heart attacks and was admitted to hospital, definitively ruling him out of the wedding. He gave statements to TMZ about the health scare.

Father and daughter have not spoken since the paparazzi scandal but Meghan did send him a letter in August 2018 begging him to stop giving interviews to the media.

He leaked it to The Mail on Sunday in February 2019, sparking a lawsuit between the duchess and the newspaper after they published extracts. All eyes will be on whether Meghan’s new letter stays private or gets leaked publicly.

Thomas Markle’s Health Problems

Markle went to a small regional hospital near his home in Cebu in the Philippines with leg pain on December 2 and doctors rushed him to a bigger hospital after detecting a 14-inch blood clot.

He had necrosis in his foot and surgeons amputated to stop the spread of infection to other parts of his body. Doctors this week moved him from an Intensive Care Unit to a normal room to continue his recovery, the Mail reported.

Meghan’s spokesperson first said she “reached out” to Markle Sr. on Friday after she sent an email to an address he no longer uses.

The successful delivery of the letter, revealed on Wednesday, came after the Mail reported agents from the U.S. consulate in Cebu visited Thomas Markle’s. hospital room on Monday.

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