Duchess of Sussex insists she attempted to contact her father after leg surgery
Thomas Markle is reported to have had his leg amputated in a hospital in the Philippines.
The Duchess of Sussex insists she has attempted to contact her estranged father and has asked for help identifying which hospital in the Philippines he is at, it is understood.
Thomas Markle has had his left leg amputated, according to reports, and told the Mail on Sunday he does not want to die distanced from his daughter, and wishes to meet Meghan’s children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, and her husband, the Duke of Sussex.
On Friday, a spokesperson for Meghan said she had “reached out” to her father, whom she has been estranged from since her 2018 wedding when he was caught staging paparazzi photos in the run-up to the big day.
But The Mail on Sunday reported Mr Markle was “confused” by the suggestion and added he said that he had not received any messages despite not changing his phone number.
The paper also reported Meghan contacted an email address that had not been used “for at least five years” and that Mr Markle “never uses email”.
A source close to the duchess said: “The Mail made no attempt to contact the duchess’ team prior to publication to verify the claims in their report.
“Had they asked – particularly in light of the quotes they relied upon from Mr Markle and hospital staff – we would simply have told them to ask Mr Markle to check his email.
“We first saw the story only after it was published. We immediately informed the Mail that the duchess had, in fact, emailed her father – a detail we had deliberately chosen not to share in order to avoid further dragging this private matter into the public eye.”
It is understood that Meghan has contacted reporters at the Mail to provide any means of contacting her father, as well as the name of the hospital where he is being treated but had not received any response.
And she has also rung around several hospitals in the Philippines but has been unsuccessful, it is understood.
Also, Meghan does not have a phone number for Mr Markle and is also of the belief that he does not have a phone in his possession in hospital, it is understood.
Meghan is said to have tried to reach out to her father in the past.
The source also accused the Mail of “puppeteering this desperately sad situation”.
A spokesperson for the Daily Mail’s parent company DMG Media said in a statement: “Our journalist, Caroline Graham, has had a close relationship with Mr Markle since 2018.
“He contacted Ms Graham when he was taken ill and asked her to travel to the Philippines to be with him.
“Nothing has been published without his specific consent, and that of his son.
“Ms Graham has confirmed to the Duchess of Sussex’s representative that Mr Markle does not have an active email address but that his phone number, which the duchess has previously used for him, remains unchanged.
“Ms Graham has made clear that if she can do anything to facilitate contact between Mr Markle and his daughter to have a conversation, then she would be happy to do so. That remains the case.
“Any suggestion we have ‘puppeteered’ Mr Markle is entirely false and strongly denied.”
Mr Markle told the Mail on Sunday: “I’ve always said I am open to reconciling with my daughter. I have never stopped loving her.
“I don’t want to die estranged from Meghan. I want to meet my grandkids. It might be nice to meet her husband too.”
Mr Markle, who moved from Mexico to live in the Philippines, has never met his grandchildren Archie, six, and Lilibet, four.
The retired TV lighting director ended up in intensive care on Wednesday after a three-hour emergency operation, the Daily Mail reported.
He was later said to have had his leg amputated below the knee after his foot turned black.
Mr Markle pulled out of attending Harry and Meghan’s wedding seven years ago after he was caught staging photographs for the paparazzi in the US, and then suffered a heart attack.
Harry’s father, now the King, stepped in to walk Meghan down the aisle.
Mr Markle went on to repeatedly speak to the media and later claimed he had been “shunned” by Meghan.
He criticised the duchess but still said he wanted to reunite with her, and publicly pleaded to be able to see Archie and Lili, saying in 2023: “She is not the person I knew as my daughter.”
The duchess won a High Court privacy and copyright claim against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) over articles that reproduced parts of a “personal and private” handwritten letter she wrote to Mr Markle in a bid to get him to stop talking to the press.
The Duke of Sussex, who is also estranged from his brother the Prince of Wales and has a troubled relationship with the King, has never met Mr Markle in person.
Harry reunited with the King face to face at a private tea in Clarence House in September after 19 months apart, after previously telling how Charles would not speak to him amid the duke’s High Court battle with the Home Office over security.
