Chalk up another victory for the Duchess of Sussex!
For much of her time in the international spotlight, Meghan Markle has been wrapped up in various legal entanglements.
And you probably won’t be surprised to learn that most of this unpleasantness has involved the British tabloid press and/or the awful family who raised Meghan.
Obviously, we’re not talking about her awesome mom, Doria Ragland, but rather her conniving father and half-sister.
In case you’ve managed to remain blissfully unaware of their existence, Thomas and Samantha Markle have both managed to make careers out of publicly bashing Meghan.
If a media outlet is willing to pay for some trash-talk about the Duchess, you can bet that either Tom or Sam will be first in line with their hand out.
It’s tough to decide which of their shameless cash grabs is most nauseating, but one of the grossest instances landed Meghan back in court this week.
Back in 2018, Thomas Markle sold a letter from Meghan to a tabloid and granted them permission to publish it.
In response to this gross violation of her privacy, Meghan sued the Mail on Sunday and won.
The outlet appealed the decision, of course, and this resulted in another messy round of legal wrangling.
The appeal led to further violations of Meghan’s privacy, such as when her text messages were read in court in a vain effort to prove that she knew the letter would be published.
Thankfully, in the end, justice was served, and the appeal was thrown out of court.
“Those contents were personal, private and not matters of legitimate public interest,” the court said in a summary of the judgment on Thursday.
“The articles in the Mail on Sunday interfered with the duchess’s reasonable expectation of privacy,” the decision continued.
Following the judgment, the Mail’s publisher ANL said in a statement that it was “very disappointed” and is considering an appeal to the UK’s Supreme Court.
“It is our strong view that judgment should be given only on the basis of evidence tested at trial, and not on a summary basis in a heavily contested case, before even disclosure of documents,” the statement read.
Meghan issued a statement of her own in which she celebrated the victory and hoped that it would put the rest of the British tabloid industry on notice.
“This is a victory not just for me, but for anyone who has ever felt scared to stand up for what’s right,” the Duchess said.
“While this win is precedent setting, what matters most is that we are now collectively brave enough to reshape a tabloid industry that conditions people to be cruel, and profits from the lies and pain that they create.”
Meghan also criticized the publisher for extending the lawsuit and “making a straightforward case extraordinarily convoluted in order to generate more headlines and sell more newspapers — a model that rewards chaos above truth.”
“In the nearly three years since this began, I have been patient in the face of deception, intimidation, and calculated attacks,” she said.
“Today, the courts ruled in my favor — again — cementing that The Mail on Sunday, owned by Lord Jonathan Rothermere, has broken the law.”
Meghan and Harry have filed numerous lawsuits in the past year, most of them against overzealous media outlets.
Obviously, the Duke and Duchess don’t need the money, but by winning cases like this one, they send a powerful messsage about what they’re willing to put up with.
And you can bet that the couple’s litigious nature has already entered into the decision-making process of quite a few editors and paparazzi!
