Meghan Markle’s Reputation Could Be Severely Tarnished If She Does Not Drop Her Lawsuit Against the Tabloids, Critic Claims
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex has been at odds with the British media ever since she was first announced as Prince Harry’s girlfriend in 2016. Unfortunately, things did not get any better for her even after she married into the royal family and became a mother.
After years of enduring negative headlines and intense scrutiny, Meghan and Harry decided to file a lawsuit against a few tabloid outlets in 2019. While the move could be seen as a way to force the press to treat Meghan and Harry more fairly, a critic recently pointed out the lawsuit could have the opposite effect and said here is a chance Meghan’s reputation could be severely tarnished.
Why is Meghan Markle suing the tabloids?
A huge part of Meghan and Harry’s lawsuit concerns an invasion of their privacy. One newspaper they are suing is The Mail on Sunday, which published a personal letter Meghan wrote to her father. The Sussexes also assert the newspaper edited the letter to paint Meghan in a negative light.
According to court documents, Meghan’s reason for suing comes down to her feeling “unprotected” by the royal family. Because royals typically do not speak out against the press, she was expected to “never complain, never explain” and keep quiet even when she was being verbally attacked.
Meghan has also been trying to protect her friends
Court documents also reveal Meghan has been trying to protect her friends’ privacy after The Mail on Sunday tried to uncover the identity of five friends who contributed to a People article about Meghan.
“[The women] made a choice on their own to speak anonymously with a U.S. media outlet more than a year ago, to defend me from the bullying behavior of Britain’s tabloid media,” Meghan said in a witness statement, as reported by The Telegraph. “These five women are not on trial, and nor am I.”
Critic says Meghan needs to drop the lawsuit before her reputation gets tarnished
It seems Meghan is not backing down from the lawsuit anytime soon. But a critic now says she should be careful and “drop her libel lawsuit immediately.”
Writer Maureen Callahan of the New York Post compares Meghan’s lawsuit to Johnny Depp’s recent court battle against British newspaper The Sun, which ended up revealing a lot of unsavory information about Depp’s marriage to the public.
“Libel lawsuits in the UK, as Depp is learning, are far more brutal than those in the US,” Callahan writes. “Depp filed suit over just one adjective, ‘wife-beater.’ But instead of a trial narrowly focused on that word, the world has been made privy to the most grisly, humiliating details of his ill-fated marriage to ex-wife Amber Heard — evidence submitted in everything from Depp’s drug binges at breakfast to Heard, or one of her friends, pooping in the marital bed.”
Callahan continues, “And just like that, the Coolest Guy in the World has become, perhaps irrevocably, a sad caricature of an aged-out, irrelevant movie star.”
According to Callahan, Meghan’s reputation could be going down the same path with her and Harry’s insistence on going through with the lawsuit. Callahan argues this is unnecessary because Meghan’s personal letter and the People interview with her friends mostly made her look good.
Moreover, Meghan and Harry are working with royal reporter Omid Scobie on a book about themselves, which Callahan believes goes against their wish for privacy.
“Meghan can’t have it both ways,” Callahan says. “She can’t sue for intrusion of privacy while doing everything she can to stay in the spotlight.”
