Piers Morgan Platformed Thomas Markle. Now He Questions Why Meghan Stayed Silent

Piers Morgan has spent years criticising Meghan Sussex over her estrangement from her father, Thomas Markle. He interviewed Markle on television, praised him in MailOnline and told Meghan she should repair their relationship.

Now Markle faces a federal charge involving child sexual abuse material allegedly found in California storage units. He has denied the allegations and has not been convicted. Meghan says police had previously assured her that earlier allegations against him were being investigated.

The revelations raise questions about Morgan’s coverage and about what information was available to the media organisations he worked for.

A “decent man” and a paid interview

In June 2018, Morgan and Susanna Reid interviewed Markle on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, weeks after Meghan and Harry’s wedding. ITV confirmed that the programme paid him, though it did not disclose the amount.

Morgan was also MailOnline’s US editor-at-large. In a column after the interview, he described Markle sympathetically and said he had changed his mind about Meghan’s father. In July 2018, he used another column to question Meghan’s compassion and urge her to show her father “some damn heart”.

By December, Morgan was again telling Meghan to contact him. His MailOnline headline urged her to call her “grieving” father before it was too late.

The pattern was unethical, intrusive and relentless. Markle’s complaints received airtime and sympathetic headlines, while Meghan was expected to defend her decision to keep her distance. A woman should not have to satisfy a presenter’s demands about her family relationships.

Morgan’s demands expose a clear double standard. He told Meghan to reconcile with her father, while calling for Harry and Meghan to lose their royal titles and ties to the royal family. Morgan demanded that Meghan repair one family relationship while calling for the Sussexes to be cut off from another.

Morgan and the Mail’s access

Morgan’s columns appeared as the Mail’s relationship with Markle was growing. Caroline Graham, US editor of the Mail on Sunday, developed a close friendship with him beginning in 2018, according to the newspaper’s parent company. She later travelled to his hospital bedside in the Philippines in 2025.

By January 2019, according to the Met, police received Roslyn Loveless’s letter containing allegations about Markle and shared it with Meghan. Meghan says she was assured the allegations were being investigated. That same month, she has said, she experienced suicidal thoughts and was denied the professional help she sought by the palace.

In February 2019, the Mail on Sunday published extracts from Meghan’s private letter to her father. Court evidence recorded Graham’s involvement in the reporting; Markle said he had contacted her and wanted parts of the letter published. Meghan sued the newspaper’s publisher, Associated Newspapers, and won her privacy and copyright case.

In 2017, the Mail reported on a storage facility associated with Markle, as we previously reported. The paper also enjoyed years of close access to him through Graham. Yet it published Meghan’s private letter while its commentators continued to criticise her. An independent inquiry should examine that reporting with the same intensity the media brought to her family relationships.

A public challenge—and Morgan’s departure

Consider the pressure: while Meghan believed serious allegations against her father were being investigated, newspapers continued to platform him, and commentators including Morgan and Dan Wootton urged her to reconcile. Morgan questioned her compassion. Too often, accounts of media intrusion overlook how her father’s public complaints were used to challenge her boundaries.

The question is not just what Markle told journalists. It is how readily they promoted his account while treating Meghan’s boundaries as evidence against her character.

After Meghan publicly described her suicidal thoughts in the 2021 Oprah interview, Morgan used his position on Good Morning Britain to say he did not believe her. It was a callous dismissal of a woman speaking about a mental health crisis.

The next day, weather presenter Alex Beresford challenged Morgan’s treatment of Meghan on air. Morgan walked off set and later left the programme following discussions with ITV.

The broadcasts drew tens of thousands of complaints, including one from Meghan. Ofcom later ruled that the programme had not breached its rules, while acknowledging that Morgan’s comments were potentially harmful.

A different standard for Beatrice and Eugenie?

Since the allegations against Thomas Markle emerged, Piers Morgan has questioned why Meghan did not go public. He also said Markle should face the law if found guilty.

However, earlier this year, Morgan took a different approach when historian Tessa Dunlop raised Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie during a discussion about Jeffrey Epstein. Documents released in 2026 suggest their mother, Sarah Ferguson, planned to visit Epstein with both daughters days after his 2009 release from prison following a conviction for sex offences involving a minor.

Beatrice also attended a preparatory meeting for Prince Andrew’s infamous 2019 BBC Newsnight interview about Epstein. The programme’s producer later described her as important to securing it.

Morgan called Dunlop’s criticism of the sisters a “low blow”. He was willing to defend two white princesses when their family connections to a prolific abuser were raised. Yet he questions why a Black duchess did not go public about her estranged father, even though she says police assured her the allegations were being investigated and she had cut off contact with him.

The Met has acknowledged that it did not pass those allegations to other law enforcement agencies. Morgan, who spent years urging Meghan to reconcile with her father, now asks why she did not go public, even though she says she believed police were investigating. Some may call it a case of being damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t. We call it racism.

For us, the double standard is glaring. An independent inquiry should examine the media’s conduct: who decided to give Markle a platform, how his complaints were used to criticise Meghan, and what journalists knew. Those questions deserve examination through a second Leveson Inquiry.