Meghan announced her intention to sue Associated Newspapers last October, after the Mail on Sunday and MailOnline published a private letter she sent to her father Thomas Markle. The handwritten note was sent to Mr Markle before her 2018 wedding to Prince Harry, but he reportedly did not pass it to Associated Newspapers until February 2019. The Duchess of Sussex has accused the publishers of misusing her private information, breaching data protection rights and copyright infringement after printing segments of the letter.
However, it has since been noted that the new biography, Finding Freedom, by Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, also printed extracts of the letter.
These extracts appear to have replicated Meghan’s letter which was published through Associated Newspapers.
It then begs the question as to why Meghan does not appear to have objected to Finding Freedom’s authors using the letter.
Unauthorised biographies published in the US have been subject to legal challenges and accused of invasion of privacy in the past, as have those in the UK.
Meghan Markle is currently in the middle of a court case against Associated Newspapers (Image: Getty)
Meghan Markle news: The case revolves around a letter Meghan sent before her wedding to her father, Thomas Markle (Image: Getty)
The first page of ‘Finding Freedom’ reads: “First published in Great Britain by HQ, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2020.”
The following sentence adds: “First published in the United States by Dey Street, an imprint of William Morrow, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, New York in 2020.”
With the biography published in both the UK and the US, it is perhaps a surprise that the book has not faced the same level of criticism as Associated Newspapers — despite including the same material.
Her lawyers have denounced the book this week — one month after its publication, when it has already reached several bestseller lists.
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Finding Freedom, by Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, was released last month (Image: Getty)
Meghan’s legal team dubbed the book “anodyne” and said the anecdotes are “products of creative licence and/or are inaccurate”, in the ongoing court case against Associated Newspapers.
Both the authors and the Sussexes deny collaborating for the book.
The Sussexes have said they were “not interviewed and did not contribute” to the biography, but that it was based on the authors’ work within the royal press pack.
In tune with this claim, Meghan’s lawyers said this week that Mr Scobie and Ms Durand were never shown the letter.
The lawyers say the authors therefore lifted the quotes from the Mail on Sunday’s articles.
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Meghan and Harry have denied any collaborating with Finding Freedom’s authors (Image: Getty)
However, Meghan’s legal team appeared to stop short of objecting to the book’s inclusion of extracts from the letter.
Royal correspondent Camilla Tominey looked at why the Sussexes may not have pulled apart the book in an article from August.
Writing in The Telegraph: “Ordinarily, one would expect a pair as fiercely protective of their privacy as the Sussexes to issue a stern legal rebuke to the grotesque intrusion this book so patently represents.”
Yet, as she pointed out, the book “has strangely heralded not a whiff of discontent” from the couple, despite it being an “unofficial, unauthorised biography”, according to the authors.
But on the final pages of the book, the authors claim to have spoken with the couples’ close friends, royal aides and past and present palace staff, as well as charities they worked with — and, “when appropriate, the couple themselves” for the account.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have not publicly objected to the book (Image: Getty)
Meghan and Harry were senior members of the Firm (Image: Getty)
The biography is widely considered the most sympathetic book written about the couple to date.
Before its release, it was marketed as an attempt “to paint a different perspective of a story that many feel that they already know” which would dispel “rumours and misconceptions that plague the couple”.
The Mail on Sunday’s lawyers told the court that Meghan “does not object to details… being publicly disclosed, provided that such disclosure is couched in terms that are favourable and flattering”.
Meghan’s lawyers have pushed back against this claim.
The lawyer said: “It is also debatable as to whether the examples [from Finding Freedom] paint the Claimant in a good light as claimed.”
Yet, the main difference between the Mail’s version of the letter and that in Finding Freedom is the tone surrounding it.
Meghan and Harry have left the royal frontline and now settled in the US (Image: Getty)
Associated Newspapers explained Mr Markle was “devastated” when he received the letter, and that he “never intended to make it public”.
He said he only decided to release parts of the letter because of the article from Meghan’s friends in People magazine, where the royal’s allies claimed she had tried to mend her relationship with her father.
In Finding Freedom, the authors claimed Mr Markle carried the letter for months “not sharing it with the media because it showed the many discrepancies in his tabloid revelations”.
A confidant told the biographers that it was Meghan who was hurting. They said: “She will always feel devastated by what he’s done. Always, but at the same time she has a lot of sympathy for him.”
‘Finding Freedom’ by Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand was published in 2020 by Harper Collins and is available here.
