Meghan Markle admits giving personal information to the authors of Finding Freedom

Victoria Ward
·1 min read
The Duchess of Sussex  - Doug Peters/EMPICS
The Duchess of Sussex - Doug Peters/EMPICS

The Duchess of Sussex has admitted that she gave personal information to the authors of Finding Freedom via a third party.

In new documents lodged with the High Court, she reveals she was concerned that “her father’s narrative” - that she had abandoned him and cut off contact - might be repeated, prompting her to intervene.

The Duchess says she gave her own version of events to someone else to pass on, so “the true position… could be communicated to the authors to prevent any further misrepresentation.”

The Duchess insists that she never spoke to Omid Scobie or Carolyn Durand about the book  but admits she does not know if the Kensington Palace communications team provided any information on her behalf.

She also reveals that she wrote to her father, Thomas Markle Senior on the advice of two members of the Royal Family and then shared the draft with both her husband and Jason Knauf, then communications secretary

Finding Freedom - NEIL HALL/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Finding Freedom - NEIL HALL/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Mr Knauf “provided feedback” in the form of “general ideas,” the documents reveal.

The Duchess is suing the Mail on Sunday over the publication of a letter she wrote to her father, claiming it breached her privacy, copyright and data protection rights. 

But lawyers on behalf of the newspaper allege that she breached her own privacy because she “permitted” details about her life to be shared with the authors of Finding Freedom, including “information about the letter”.

In September, a month after the biography was published, the newspaper successfully applied to amend its defence in light of its publication. 

A ten-day trial scheduled for January was postponed for at least nine months after the Duchess won a delay on confidential grounds.

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