Meghan Markle scored a legal victory Tuesday as her years-long legal battle with half-sister Samantha Markle came to a close.
Samantha’s defamation lawsuit, originally brought against Meghan in 2022, was dismissed with prejudice by Judge Charlene Edwards Honeywell. The dismissal with prejudice means Samantha cannot file the claims again.
“[Samantha’s] claims will be dismissed with prejudice, as she has failed to identify any statements that could support a claim for defamation or defamation-by-implication by this point, her third try at amending her complaint, in either the book ‘Finding Freedom,’ the Netflix series ‘Harry & Meghan,’ or [Meghan] and her husband’s hour-long televised CBS Interview,” Honeywell wrote in court documents obtained by Fox News Digital. “As such, the Third Amended Complaint will be dismissed, with prejudice.”
A representative for Meghan did not respond to Fox News Digital’s immediate request for comment.
Samantha had claimed she was defamed by Meghan during the Duchess of Sussex’s 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey along with the Netflix series “Harry & Meghan.”
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“Meghan made these false claims, which are now believed to be true by the public, making it appear that Samantha is a fame-seeking stranger to Meghan,” Samantha’s lawyer, Jamie Alan Sasson, previously told Fox News Digital.
Samantha’s original lawsuit was dismissed as the judge ruled the comments made during the Oprah interview by Meghan were her opinion about the actress’s own childhood.
“As a reasonable listener would understand it, Defendant merely expresses an opinion about her childhood and her relationship with her half-siblings,” the judge wrote at the time.
“Thus, the Court finds that Defendant’s statement is not objectively verifiable or subject to empirical proof. Plaintiff cannot plausibly disprove Defendant’s opinion of her own childhood.”