Meghan Markle has won a defamation lawsuit filed by her half-sister Samantha Markle.
U.S. District Attorney Judge Charlene Honeywell dismissed the case — in which Samantha, 59, claimed Meghan, 42, defamed her in multiple interviews, including her CBS interview with Oprah Winfrey — with prejudice in court documents filed Tuesday and until of which PEOPLE came.
A Florida judge said in a filing that the motion to dismiss the case was granted after Samantha failed to provide statements supporting her defamation claim. Honeywell wrote in the filing that the allegations “suggest” that Samantha “disagrees” with Meghan’s “opinions rather than statements of fact.”
In a statement obtained by PEOPLE, Meghan’s attorney, Michael J Kump, said, “We are pleased with the court’s decision to dismiss the case.”
Samantha, who is Meghan’s half-sister through their father Thomas Markle, will not be able to file the lawsuit again because it was dismissed with prejudice. The author demanded $75,000 from the Duchess of Sussex for defamation.
Samantha Markle; Meghan, Duchess of Sussex pictured. FOX; Karwai Tang/WireImage Meghan Markle wins bid to dismiss defamation lawsuit filed by half-sister Samantha Markle
Samantha claimed in her original filing that the Duchess of Sussex made defamatory statements during an interview with Winfrey when she said she “grew up as an only child.” She said in the documents that she and Meghan “were close during their childhood” but fell apart after Meghan began dating Prince Harry.
She also claimed there were defamatory implications when Meghan said during an interview that Samantha “changed her last name back to Markle” after she started dating Harry, and said she received negative press criticism after she was interviewed in December In 2018, she said that their father should be at Meghan and Harry’s royal wedding.
Samantha also had problems with the content of the chapter entitled “Problem as Samantha” in the book Finding freedomwritten by Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand in August 2021, which focused on Harry and Meghan’s love story and stepping back from their roles as senior royals.
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Honeywell ruled in a March 2023 ruling that Meghan could not be “held responsible for statements in a book she did not publish” and that telling Oprah she “grew up as an only child” could not be falsified because it was a protected opinion.
“As a reasonable listener would understand, [the] The defendant is only expressing her opinion about her childhood and her relationship with her half-siblings. Therefore, the Court finds that the defendant’s statement is not objectively verifiable or subject to empirical evidence,” Honeywell wrote at the time.
The judge concluded that Samantha’s claims were based on Finding freedom to be “dismissed with prejudice” and to be “allowed one last opportunity to repeat her claims” related to the Winfrey interview “because of a prejudicial lie.”
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