Duchess Meghan’s half-brother, Thomas Markle Jr., said in a new interview that the queen should step in to help heal the family’s bitter rift.
Markle Jr. — who shares the same father, Thomas Markle, with the former Suits star — told the Sunday Mirror that Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Harry’s father, Prince Charles, should help reunite the Markles.
Meghan, 37, has not spoken to her father since the day after her wedding to Harry in May 2018, which the 74-year-old couldn’t attend as he’d suffered a heart attack in the wake of a paparazzi photo scandal he was involved in.
The retired TV lighting director has spoken out in a number of interviews about his fractured relationship with his only daughter from his marriage to now ex-wife Doria Ragland.
Since the Duchess of Sussex now has a child of her own, 2-month-old Archie, Markle Jr., 53, is hoping she will be inspired to heal the rift with her family.
“Now you’re a mother, I hope you’re grown up and mature enough to figure out family is very important,” the window fitter said in his message to his sibling, who he hasn’t spoken to in years.
He told the Mirror that he thinks “the queen should step in and tell Meghan to make amends with her father and family.”
And if the British monarch won’t, then Meghan’s father-in-law “should step in and say, ‘Something’s not right.’ They should force her into this, or it’s just going to continue to cause problems in her life.”
Markle Jr. also took aim at the former actress and her luxury lifestyle, saying, “Personally, I feel I don’t know this Meghan anymore. My father doesn’t know this Meghan anymore. This is a different Meghan than we all grew up with. It’s very, very strange.”
A source told Us Weekly in May that Meghan’s father is “devastated” over not being given the chance to see his grandchild.
“Some day I hope you’re smart enough and mature enough to open up and let your family into your life, and baby Archie’s life,” Markle Jr. — who made headlines in January when he was arrested in Oregon for DUI — said in his message to the royal. “Most of all I hope you can call your father and let him be at least a part of yours and Archie’s life. You owe him that.”
