Meghan Markle Wins Privacy Case In Court, Says 'The Damage Done Runs Deep'

On Thursday (February 11), Meghan Markle won her privacy lawsuit against Associated Newspapers and The Mail on Sunday. The Duchess of Sussex sued the publishing company for publishing parts of a private letter she wrote and sent to her estranged father, Thomas Markle, after her May 2018 wedding.

Judge Mark Warby, who presided over the proceedings, decided that Meghan "had a reasonable expectation that the contents of the letter would remain private," and, by publishing the letter, Associated Newspapers "interfered with that reasonable expectation."

"Taken as a whole the disclosures were manifestly excessive and hence unlawful," Warby continued. "There is no prospect that a different judgment would be reached after a trial."

Following the judge's decision, Meghan released a statement to Entertainment Tonight Canada. “After two long years of pursuing litigation, I am grateful to the courts for holding Associated Newspapers and The Mail on Sunday to account for their illegal and dehumanizing practices. These tactics (and those of their sister publications MailOnline and the Daily Mail) are not new; in fact, they’ve been going on for far too long without consequence," she wrote. "For these outlets, it’s a game. For me and so many others, it’s real life, real relationships, and very real sadness. The damage they have done and continue to do runs deep."

“The world needs reliable, fact-checked, high-quality news. What The Mail on Sunday and its partner publications do is the opposite. We all lose when misinformation sells more than truth, when moral exploitation sells more than decency, and when companies create their business model to profit from people’s pain," Meghan continued. "But for today, with this comprehensive win on both privacy and copyright, we have all won. We now know, and hope it creates legal precedent, that you cannot take somebody’s privacy and exploit it in a privacy case, as the defendant has blatantly done over the past two years.”

“I share this victory with each of you—because we all deserve justice and truth, and we all deserve better,” she concluded. “I particularly want to thank my husband, mom, and legal team, and especially Jenny Afia for her unrelenting support throughout this process.”

Photo: Getty