Overnight, the first three episodes of the Netflix documentary series, Harry & Markle were released; and everyone seems to have an opinion on the new show that explores the lives of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Including Samantha Markle, Meghan’s half-sister.
Samantha appeared on Sunrise this morning and certainly did not hold back; she even called Harry & Meghan a “flop-umentary”!
WATCH: The official trailer for Harry & Meghan
“First of all, I will not call it a documentary. When I was trying to appropriately name it, it was a flop-umentary. It is so much rhetoric at this point and so many lies have been thrown out there, debunked, and yet still there is this repeated need to push this narrative. It is ridiculous. It borders on comedy. It is that bad,” Samantha said.
Sunrise hosts, Nat Barr and Matt Shirvington then asked Samantha how she felt about the comments made about her specifically in the third episode of Harry & Meghan, by both Meghan and her biological daughter, Ashleigh Hale.
For context, Meghan reveals that she was never close with Samantha in the Netflix series but she did become close with Samantha’s daughter, Ashleigh.
She discloses that she and Ashleigh travelled together before she met Harry, and were extremely good friends.
Ashleigh echoes these sentiments and describes Meghan in Harry & Meghan as a “sister”, “maternal” figure and “best friend” all rolled into one.
However, Ashleigh was not invited to Meghan’s wedding to Harry. Meghan explains in the docuseries that because there was so much drama surrounding her half-sister, Samantha, the British royal family advised her not to invite Ashleigh because she was related to Samantha.
“So, with Ashleigh, the guidance at the time was to not have her come to our wedding,” Meghan said.
Ashleigh admitted that really hurt her because she was not raised by Samantha; in Harry & Meghan, Ashleigh explains that she was raised by her grandparents and while she did reunite with Samantha in 2007, she quickly fell out with her due to their difference in opinion about Meghan.
“To know that it was because of my biological mother that this relationship that’s so important to me [Ashleigh’s relationship with Meghan] was impacted in that way… To feel like, because of her [Samantha], it was taken away, it’s been hard,” Ashleigh said.
In response to Nat and Matt’s question, Samantha said on Sunrise that Meghan lied about the entire situation and that Ashleigh not getting invited to the wedding was not the royal family’s decision; it was Meghan’s. She also said that Ashleigh not getting invited had nothing to do with her.
“No, I knew [Ashleigh] was not at the wedding and it kind of saddened me but it is surprising to hear that there was a narrative spun that made Ashleigh feel like she was not invited because of something having to do with me,” Samantha said.
“Well, I heard from a royal insider who knows that [decision] was up to Meghan. So Meghan lied to my daughter, which made my daughter, I think, feel begrudging of me a little bit, thinking it was my fault. And remember this is at the beginning when everyone believed Meghan and everyone thought I was a horrible person, and the world had not seen the string of lies that even people like Meghan Kelly had come out and pointed out and Piers Morgan, the porky pies.”
“But then I can see how my daughter would have felt, sort of torn between the two, and then feeling perhaps like she couldn’t go to the wedding because of me. Well, that’s not true, that’s a lie,” Samantha continued.
“I found out that the royals did not say that, Meghan said that. Meghan then lied to my daughter and made my daughter feel like there was something wrong with me that prevented her from going to the wedding.”
“So, what a horrible lie, what horrible manipulation. And you know what? I’m just gonna call it totally dishonest slop. But more than that, to pit family members against one another using lies and manipulation, no, the buck stops here. So, totally ridiculous and I’m sorry she did that to my daughter. That is very sad,” Samantha concluded.
