Last year Meghan Markle's father almost ruined her wedding to Prince Harry by staging paparazzi photos days before the big event and then claiming he had a heart attack [click here if you missed that].
Friends of Megan tell what REALLY happened in the aftermath...
From People
In various interviews, Thomas Markle has claimed that he has no way to reach his daughter.
“He knows how to get in touch with her. Her telephone number hasn’t changed,” says a longtime friend. “He’s never called; he’s never texted. It’s super painful, because Meg was always so dutiful. I think she will always feel genuinely devastated by what he’s done. And at the same time, because she’s a daughter, she has a lot of sympathy for him.”
In the week before Meghan’s May 19 wedding to Prince Harry, Thomas decided not to attend after an arrangement with paparazzi to stage several photoshoots ahead of the big days was revealed.
Since then, Meghan’s half-sister Samantha, who claimed responsibility for arranging her father’s paparazzi photos before the wedding, has continued to speak critically of her to the U.K. tabloids.
After the paparazzi photos emerged, “Meg and Harry were still so focused on getting [Tom] to London,” says the close friend, one of five who spoke to PEOPLE for this week’s story. “At no point was there talk of ‘Now that we know he lied, he’s in trouble.’ Tom wouldn’t take her calls, wouldn’t take Harry’s calls.
“The next morning when the car got there [to take him to the airport], he wouldn’t get in. [Later] Meg heard he had a heart attack and she’s calling and texting, even up to the night before the wedding. It was like, ‘Please pick up. I love you, and I’m scared.’ It was endless.”
“After the wedding she wrote him a letter. She’s like, ‘Dad, I’m so heartbroken. I love you. I have one father. Please stop victimizing me through the media so we can repair our relationship.’ Because every time her team has to come to her and fact-check something [he has said], it’s an arrow to the heart. He writes her a really long letter in return, and he closes it by requesting a photo op with her. And she feels like, ‘That’s the opposite of what I’m saying. I’m telling you I don’t want to communicate through the media, and you’re asking me to communicate through the media. Did you hear anything I said?’ It’s almost like they’re ships passing.”
