Meghan Markle has finally received a front page, printed apology today from the publishers of Mail On Sunday.
The apology was mandated by the London High Court after they were found to have breached Markle’s privacy in February 2019 by printing parts of a five-page letter to her father after her wedding to Prince Harry in 2018.
“The Duchess of Sussex wins her legal case for copyright infringement against Associated Newspapers for articles published in The Mail on Sunday and posted on Mail Online,” the apology reads.
“Following a hearing on 19-20 January, 2021, and a further hearing on 5 May, 2021, the Court has given judgment for the Duchess of Sussex on her claim for copyright infringement. The Court found that Associated Newspapers infringed her copyright by publishing extracts of her handwritten letter to her father in The Mail on Sunday and on Mail Online. Financial remedies have been agreed,” the apology continued.
The Duchess was also awarded monetary damages. She will receive nearly $1.7 million—90% of her legal fees.
“This is a victory not just for me, but for anyone who has ever felt scared to stand up for what’s right,” Markle wrote in a statement following the judgment. “While this win is precedent setting, what matters most is that we are now collectively brave enough to reshape a tabloid industry that conditions people to be cruel, and profits from the lies and pain that they create.”
Her statement continued: “From day one, I have treated this lawsuit as an important measure of right versus wrong. The defendant has treated it as a game with no rules. The longer they dragged it out, the more they could twist facts and manipulate the public (even during the appeal itself), making a straightforward case extraordinarily convoluted in order to generate more headlines and sell more newspapers—a model that rewards chaos above truth,” she asserts.
