Meghan Markle’s Sister Admits She Helped Stage Photographs of Their Dad

Meghan Markle’s half-sister, Samantha, has finally published her memoir. And if you were wondering how she feels about her sister, there is a clue in the title of the work, which is called The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister.

In it, she writes of how she was involved in setting up the staged photographs of their father, Thomas, with a paparazzi photographer, that are thought to have triggered a heart attack that caused him to miss his daughter’s wedding.

Samantha writes in the book, excerpts of which are published in Newsweek Friday, that she “knew something was tragically wrong” when Thomas could not be tracked down in the days before the royal wedding.

Samantha describes how she heard from her father on May 13, the day he was exposed by the British newspaper the Mail on Sunday for staging paparazzi photos for money.

“I was worried, because I had not heard from him for several hours through early evening, and I was speaking to him twice a day, prior to that,” the book, published on Barnes and Noble’s self-publishing platform, says. The book is not available in electronic format.

“I called friends whom I knew spoke to him periodically, but who lived in another country, and no one could get a hold of him,” Newsweek quotes the book as saying.

“I could feel my heart pounding, and I knew something was tragically wrong. I wanted to call the police in Mexico, or anybody just to have somebody track him down.

“I didn't hear from him until May 13, when he let me know that he was in a small charity hospital in Mexico after having a small heart attack, and all they could do there was stabilize him and his doctor had him go to Chula Vista Hospital in San Diego.”

The book states, “He had a stent planted in his heart, and a filter to prevent clots from getting into it, but the stent procedure would allow him to be up and moving more quickly, and was a less invasive procedure than heart surgery many years ago, when open-heart surgery was performed.

“I wanted to get out there, but at the time I had no way of getting out there and wheelchair accessibility would be a problem on short notice.”

Samantha Markle also describes how she set up the controversial photos of her father in what she has said is only the first installment of a two-part memoir.

She writes, “I got a call from someone offering to connect me with a photographer friend by the name of Jeff [Rayner], who promised to discreetly take photographs of my father, putting him in an honest light, because other photographers had been so disparaging, intentionally.

“I received no money for the deal per my request, and the goal for my father was not money, because he had been turning down $50,000 interviews. It was just allowing the Royals and the world to see him in his proper light, because he was so horribly labeled and photographed.

“It was like watching vultures feast. The photographer said, ‘Don’t worry, I will take good care of your dad, and nobody will even see.’”

Samantha, who previously used the surname Grant, said she asked the photographer to stay 100 yards away and be “discreet” but was ignored.

Samantha wrote, “When I saw some of the photographs, I was delighted, until I saw an article that said he ‘staged photographs.’”

“I nearly choked, when I saw photographs of the photographer walking three feet behind my father, as seen on an Internet Cafe surveillance camera. I was guaranteed that he would not be visible, and I’m sure he knew that the camera was there on the ceiling, so I felt as though I had been baited, and so had my father.”

“I was guaranteed it would be discreet, and then he publicly allowed himself to be seen walking 3 feet behind my father with the long lens camera, and furthermore, bragged about it on his Facebook page the following day.

“I sent an email to the photographer, letting him know that I was horribly upset by what had occurred, and he said that he would arrange ‘something’ with my father that would make him happy, and that he would ‘fix the situation.’ The damage was done, and the thought of ‘fixing it’ was tragicomedy at best.”

Samantha is not believed to have seen her sister since 2008.

In a letter Meghan sent her father after the wedding, an extract of which was recently published as part of court filings, Meghan wrote, “I pleaded you to stop reading the tabloids. On a daily basis you fixated and clicked on the lies they were writing about me, especially those manufactured by your other daughter, who I barely know.”

It adds, “You watched me silently suffer at the hand of her vicious lies, I crumbled inside.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!

Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.