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Leaked Texts Show Meghan Markle Discussed Letter To Her Father With Employee

Lucy Devine

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Leaked Texts Show Meghan Markle Discussed Letter To Her Father With Employee

Featured Image Credit: PA

Meghan Markle's private messages to her former aide have been revealed in the midst of the ongoing lawsuit with the Mail on Sunday.

Meghan, 40, sued the publication after it published a letter she had sent her father after her wedding to Prince Harry.

Although the Duchess of Sussex won the case earlier this year, the Mail on Sunday appealed the decision.

Now, private messages allegedly sent between Meghan and former aide Jason Knauf - who was communications secretary to Meghan and Harry until March 2019 and accused the Duchess of "bullying" - have been revealed during the second day of an appeal by the publisher against the decision that the publication of the letter was “unlawful”.

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Meghan, 40, sued the publication after it published a letter she had sent her father after her wedding to Prince Harry (Credit: ITV)
Meghan, 40, sued the publication after it published a letter she had sent her father after her wedding to Prince Harry (Credit: ITV)

Prior to sending the letter back in 2018, the message to Jason reads: "Obviously everything I've drafted is with the understanding that it could be leaked so I have been meticulous in my word choice but please do let me know if anything stands out to you as a liability."

Meghan added: "Honestly Jason, I feel fantastic, cathartic and real and honest and factual.

"If he leaks it then that's on his conscience but at least the world will know the truth, words I could never voice publicly."

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The messages continue: "Given I've only ever called him 'Daddy' it may make sense to open as such (despite him being less than paternal), and in the unfortunate event that it leaked it would pull at the heartstrings."

She added: "The rest is in the spirit of facts without seeming orchestrated simply an appeal for peace and a reminder of what's actually happened."

Jason was communications secretary to Meghan and Harry until March 2019 (Credit: Alamy)
Jason was communications secretary to Meghan and Harry until March 2019 (Credit: Alamy)

Jason said: “On the specific issue of the letter, the Duchess indicated in messages to me that she recognised that it was possible that Mr Markle would make the letter public.

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“She wanted to write a letter rather than an email or text message – other options she had considered and discussed with senior Royal Household staff – as a letter could not be forwarded or cut and pasted to only share one small portion.

“As part of a series of messages on 24 August 2018, she explained that she had given careful thought to how to prevent the letter being leaked in part or in a misleading way.

“In the event that it was leaked she wanted the full narrative as set out in the letter to be understood and shared. She said she had ‘toiled over every detail which could be manipulated’.”

Andrew Caldecott QC, representing Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), told the Court of Appeal: “The picture presented to the judge on behalf of the claimant... was that this was an entirely private letter crafted for Mr Markle’s eyes only.

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"... The position we now have is a different position and a more nuanced one, that the letter was written and crafted with readership in mind, and indeed she was happy for the public to read it if Mr Markle were to leak it.”

The paper is arguing that the messages contradict Meghan's case, due to the fact the Duchess recognised it could be leaked.

The letter was sent in 2018 (Credit: Alamy)
The letter was sent in 2018 (Credit: Alamy)

Meghan’s lawyers are opposing the appeal and ANL’s bid for the Court of Appeal to take Jason's evidence into consideration.

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In a statement, she said she had decided to write the letter after discussions with unnamed senior members of the royal family.

She said she did not think her father would leak the letter, as it would show him in a “bad light”.

“The proposition that saying that I recognised that it was possible that my father would leak the letter, albeit unlikely, is the same as saying that I thought it likely that he would do so is, I would suggest, absurd," she said.

“It is correct that, as I said in my texts to Mr Knauf, the situation was putting significant pressure on my husband, both externally and by his family, and I felt strongly that I needed to do something about it.

“I felt that, even if my attempt to stop my father talking to the media failed, at least my husband would be able to say to his family that I had done everything I could to stop it.”

She added: "To be clear, I did not want any of it to be published, and wanted to ensure that the risk of it being manipulated or misleadingly edited was minimized, were it to be exploited."

Topics: Meghan Markle

Lucy Devine
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