8 Biggest Bombshell Revelations From New Thomas Markle Documentary In Which He Says 'The Royals Owe Him'
"What I’ve been through I should be rewarded for," he claims.
Now that the news about how Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will give up their royal titles to step back from the royal family, all of us who’ve been following their story knew that it was only a matter of time before her estranged and outspoken father, Thomas Markle, would decide to weigh in.
He’s done a lot more than that! He has his own documentary, Thomas Markle: My Story hitting Britain’s Channel 5. Entertainment Tonight has a bunch of highlights from it, and he’s been on the interview circuit, talking about the documentary and his troubled relationship with his daughter to British TV shows and papers — okay, tabloids — to help promote it.
Here are eight of the biggest bombshells from the new Thomas Markle documentary:
1. He’s going to keep giving interviews until they respond to him.
Unhappy with how he’s been cut off by his daughter, Markle has a new strategy to get communication going again between the two of them: he’ll keep giving interviews until she does something about it. In the documentary, he says, “My deal was that I’d talk and do something and wait thirty days to get a response from Meg and Harry. If I didn’t get a response, I’d try it again.”
He spelled it out more clearly in a post-doc interview. “That’s about the only shot I have,” he insisted, explaining that that he’s sent them letters, and reached out to Meghan’s mom, Doria, as well, to no avail. “I’m at their mercy,” he says.
2. He has plans to see her in court.
Of course he has a plan in case his interview strategy doesn’t work out. Meghan is suing a newspaper for publishing a personal letter she sent to him in the summer of 2018, and he’s already agreed to be a witness if it goes to trial — for her opponents.
According to British copyright law, the letter cannot be legally published without the author’s consent, so it shouldn't matter that her dad gave them excerpts from it, but he feels the need to step up and speak.
“I wish it hadn’t come to this, but I’ll testify,” he says. He’s clearly anticipating fireworks, though. “When me and Meghan end up in a courtroom together, it will be quite stunning for everybody.”
He does say he’s making the moral choice on this one. “I put the newspaper in this position by offering up a portion of that letter, which led to them being sued,” and added, “It’s a responsibility thing. Maybe it’s because I was a Boy Scout.”
No word yet on whether the not-royals-anymore will want to take things this far.
3. He has “reasons” for publishing her letter in the first place.
So why did he publish that letter in the first place? You’d think that when he finally heard from his daughter, he’d feel appeased, but any chance of that disappeared when some friends of hers started talking about it.
“People Magazine has an article by quote-unquote ‘friends’ of Meghan,” he reveals in the doc, reporting that they “were saying that she wrote a conciliatory letter to me. She was reaching out to me and trying to make peace with me. And she was being loving. They dissed me, calling me a liar so I published part of the letter.”
4. He says he’s not doing all this for the money, but he’s raking it in ... and says the no-longer-royals owe him.
Not only did he get paid to do the documentary, he also gets paid for anything else he does that makes the most of his relationship with Harry and Megan. And he says he deserves whatever he can get.
“My daughter told me that when I reach my senior years, she’ll take care of me,” he says in the documentary. “I’m in my senior years now. I’m 75 years old. So it’s time to look after Daddy.”
And he takes issue with her claim that she paid her way through college at Northwestern University. “I paid for her college, and it took me years to get it paid off. To hear that I’m ghosted and I don’t exist, and she did this on her is very hurtful.”
And, he adds, they owe him. “The royals owe me,” he said. “Harry owes me. Meghan owes me. What I’ve been through, I should be rewarded for."
5. He had a motive for those staged "paparazzi" photos.
Markle says he was frustrated by the way he was being portrayed before Megan and Harry’s 2018 wedding.
“Every paper seemed to want to make me look like a dumb, fat slob,” he complained, and so he was interested when he was approached by someone who offered to change his image. So they took a bunch of “candid” shots of him going through his normal daily routine, and even though they thought it was a little cheesy, he got talked into it in the hopes of turning things around.
And of course, he makes money from those too, every time they’re used. “Those pictures will sell forever,” he said.
6. He wants Archie to look like him.
Thomas reveals he still hasn’t seen the royal baby in person — he caught his first glimpse along with the rest of us.
“The first time I saw pictures is when Harry carried him outside for the first time,” he reports.
Even without being able to see more than a tiny bit of his grandson’s face, he has high hopes for his genetics making their presence known.
“I hope he has my nose,” he says, “because then every time they see Archie, they’re going to see me.”
7. He thinks they’re shirking their royal responsibilities.
He also has strong opinions about Meghan and Harry's decision to step away from their lives as official royals, and says he’s embarrassed by it.
“I think when they got married, they married into royalty and they knew what they were getting into,” he said in an interview about the documentary. “That’s been Harry’s life and Meghan’s had a similar kind of life.”
He even got into how Harry’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, may have hurt feelings about the whole thing. “I think they’re hurt the Queen. I think they’ve hurt the royals and it just doesn’t work to be going to another country and serving England. It’s never going to work. I’m little embarrassed for them and I’m feeling very sorry for the Queen.”
He's also suspicous of his daughter's take on the racism she's been experiencing from the press.
8. He suspects they’ll never want to see him again — and even called Harry 'whipped' and a 'candy-ass.'
No big surprise there, especially if he keeps up his strategy of trying to get their attention with more of these kinds of interviews, especially if he keeps joking around about how he’d like to have a duel with Harry.
“I’d be happy to duel with Harry anytime. One round in the chamber. Cocked. Ten steps, turn and fire. That’d settle the score. The way he’s been acting, I think he’d crouch on the ground before he gets to 10 steps. He’s a candy ass. He’s whipped."
But the estranged dad seems aware of the fact that comments like those, as well his other actions, are making the distance between himself and the couple even greater.
“The last time they might see me is being lowered into the ground. I don’t think at this point they’re thrilled to see me or want to talk to me.” Time will tell.
Laurie Ulster is a writer, TV producer, and Star Trek nerd.