Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s former PR, Jason Knauf, gave an explosive testimony at the Court of Appeal in a case Markle Vs. The Mail/Associated Newspapers. Supposedly, Markle manipulated the tabloid, thus the public, about the “private letter” she wrote to her father Thomas Markle.
Mr. Markle didn’t appear at his daughter’s wedding in 2018. The two were not on good terms for years, with things taking a dark turn once Meghan became engaged to Prince Harry. After the ceremony ended, and the dust about a divorced Hollywood actress marrying into the Royal family settled a bit, Duchess of Sussex penned an emotional letter to her estranged dad.
According to Knauf, who once handled all the public affairs for the Royal couple, Meghan Markle asked him to review the five-page letter before mailing it because “obviously everything I have drafted is with the understanding that it could be leaked”. The former communication manager further explained that Markle was excessively using “Daddy” and other emotional terms and phrases, in order to “further pull public’s heartstrings”.
The testimony changed the course of the suit Meghan Markle filed against the newspapers. The lawyer for the Mail, Andrew Caldecott explained that it’s obvious that Duchess never wrote the letter with the expectation of privacy, as her PR stated. Further, if the letter was so private, why would Meghan let her manager review such an emotional message to her “Daddy”?
This all comes after Meghan won the case against the newspaper back in February of this year. The court ordered the Mail to apologize on the front page saying that it infringed the Duchess copyright, but the Associated Newspapers filed an appeal that is currently under review along with the Knauf’s testimony.
“The letter was crafted specifically with the potential of public consumption in mind because the claimant appreciated Mr. Markle might disclose it to the media,” Caldecott told the Court of Appeal.
In addition, Jason Knauf stated that Meghan Markle and Prince Harry “authorized specific cooperation” for the controversial bio “Finding Freedom”. The departed Royals extensively denied that they had anything to do with the book and that they were never in touch with the authors.
Now some new evidence is coming to light. Allegedly, Harry gave some guidelines and insight into cyberbullying, media lynch, and private information about Thomas Markle to the authors of the biography. Knauf told the judges that he wasn’t sure about leaking the information, so Harry jumped in saying: “So if you aren’t planning on telling them, can I?!”. Still, Duke and Duchess didn’t want to be linked in any way to the book, so Prince Harry wrote the note to their PR, saying: “I totally agree that we have to be able to say we didn’t have anything to do with it”.
A few days ago, Prince Harry went into an argument with the media again, blaming them for misogyny since they dubbed their departure Megxit. Go figure. If the couple truly wanted to get away from the public attention, then why wage a war against the media? Going into the extensive, and expensive lawsuits is certainly not the way to lay low.
Kim Marks 
Nina Smith