Meghan Markle has prevailed in her drawn-out court battle with Associated Newspapers, the publishers of Mail on Sunday.
On Thursday, the Court of Appeal in London ruled in her favor. Meghan sued them after they printed parts of a private letter she penned to her father, Thomas Markle.
The Duchess will be on the receiving end of ample monetary damages as well as a public apology printed on the front page of the Mail on Sunday— and the homepage of the Mail Online.
“This is a victory not just for me, but for anyone who has ever felt scared to stand up for what’s right,” she wrote in a statement. “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 continues: “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.
The UK media has been relentless in its mission to harass and humiliate the country’s only Black royal.
Meghan and Harry left the UK after being repeatedly harassed by the media. Harry posted a letter to his official website back in October 2019, drawing parallels between the treatment of his wife and that of his late mother, Princess Diana.
“Unfortunately, my wife has become one of the latest victims of a British tabloid press that wages campaigns against individuals with no thought to the consequences – a ruthless campaign that has escalated over the past year, throughout her pregnancy and while raising our newborn son,” he wrote at the time. The royal continued: “I have been a silent witness to her private suffering for too long. To stand back and do nothing would be contrary to everything we believe in.”
In her statement today, Meghan made it clear that what happened to her, could happen to you.
“Today, the courts ruled in my favor—again—cementing that The Mail on Sunday, owned by Lord Jonathan Rothermere, has broken the law,” Meghan added in her statement. “The courts have held the defendant to account, and my hope is that we all begin to do the same. Because as far removed as it may seem from your personal life, it’s not. Tomorrow it could be you. These harmful practices don’t happen once in a blue moon—they are a daily fail that divide us, and we all deserve better.”
