In March, the Daily Mail published what Caroline Graham presented as a heartwarming romance between Thomas Markle Sr. and a Filipino nurse 35 years his junior. Meghan Sussex’s estranged father had supposedly found love again after years of loneliness, illness and family estrangement.
Now, a Sky News correspondent reporting from the Philippines has challenged that entire narrative. And the consequences for the woman at the centre of the story are heartbreaking.
According to Sky News Asia correspondent Cordelia Lynch, a colleague of Rio Canedo told her that the nurse was never romantically involved with Thomas Markle. Instead, she was a nurse caring for him during his recovery. Lynch reports that the publicity surrounding their supposed relationship left Canedo so humiliated that she resigned from her job. If this account is correct, Caroline Graham and the Daily Mail have serious questions to answer.
Sky News Challenges the Daily Mail’s Romance Story
On October 29, Lynch responded to a Substack article by Guardian columnist Marina Hyde examining the disturbing relationship between Thomas Markle, Caroline Graham and the British media. Lynch revealed that she had visited the hospital in Cebu where Graham had previously reported on Markle’s supposed romance.
According to Lynch’s account, a colleague of Canedo told her there had been no romantic relationship.
Lynch wrote on X:
She continued:
Lynch concluded that the worldwide publicity embarrassed and upset Canedo so badly that she felt compelled to resign. Lynch based her reporting on a conversation with Canedo’s colleague, rather than Canedo herself, and independent sources have yet to confirm the circumstances surrounding the nurse’s resignation.
Nevertheless, the allegations are extraordinary, particularly when compared with what Graham published seven months earlier.
What Caroline Graham Told Daily Mail Readers
On March 28, the Daily Mail published Graham’s account of Thomas Markle finding happiness with Canedo, then 46. The article portrayed the pair as romantically involved, described their affectionate behaviour and discussed the possibility of marriage. Thomas himself was quoted enthusiastically discussing the supposed relationship. In one passage, he said: “Rio makes me happy.”
Thomas also discussed marrying Canedo if it benefited her, while Graham described their interactions at his rehabilitation facility as evidence of a developing romance.
But Lynch highlighted one crucial detail: the Daily Mail never included a direct statement from Rio confirming her romantic involvement with Thomas Markle. For a story involving an elderly patient and a much younger healthcare worker, that omission now looks particularly significant.
Did Graham ask Canedo directly whether they were dating? Did Canedo know how the newspaper intended to present the photographs and interviews? More importantly, did she consent to the Daily Mail portraying her internationally as Thomas Markle’s girlfriend? Those are basic journalistic questions, and the Daily Mail should answer them.
We Questioned This Story Back in March
On March 29, we questioned Graham’s extraordinary access to Thomas and the supposed romance. At the time, we assumed Rio Canedo knew how the newspaper would use the photographs, and we speculated that financial motives might explain her involvement. If Cordelia Lynch’s reporting is accurate, our earlier speculation about Canedo’s motives was unfair, and we owe her an apology.
What makes the story even more troubling is how easily it reinforces racialised and misogynistic stereotypes of Asian women as romantic companions to older Western men. If Canedo never consented to that portrayal, the Daily Mail turned a Filipino healthcare worker into a romantic character in Thomas Markle’s story without giving her a voice.
The story also deserves scrutiny because of Graham’s unusually close personal relationship with Thomas. Her dual role as journalist and trusted confidante makes it especially important to establish whether she independently verified the supposed romance.
For years, British tabloids pressured Meghan to reconcile with her father, while the Daily Mail’s coverage of his private life may have caused serious harm to a Filipino nurse who had nothing to do with their estrangement.
The irony is appalling. The British press expected Meghan to protect her family relationships at all costs, while its own journalists may have cost a Filipino nurse her livelihood by failing to protect her privacy.
Caroline Graham’s Relationship With Thomas Markle Deserves Deep Scrutiny
Caroline Graham’s relationship with Thomas Markle has long blurred the boundaries between journalism and personal loyalty. She has described him as a father figure and reportedly learned about his leg amputation before his other two children, despite their continued contact with him.
This raises serious concerns about her editorial independence, particularly given her involvement in publishing Meghan’s private letter. In 2021, Meghan successfully sued The Mail on Sunday’s publisher, Associated Newspapers, for copyright infringement and misuse of private information after Thomas supplied Graham with Meghan’s private letter, which the newspaper subsequently published in substantial extracts.
The Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics outlines four principles: Seek Truth and Report It, Minimize Harm, Act Independently, and Be Accountable and Transparent.
Graham’s conduct deserves examination against those standards. There is also the question of Thomas’s reported dementia diagnosis. While dementia does not automatically remove someone’s capacity to consent, interviewing a vulnerable individual requires particular care, especially when discussing serious criminal allegations and complicated family relationships.
Journalistic independence becomes difficult to defend when a reporter develops such a close personal relationship with the subject of her reporting.
Graham’s involvement in the copyright dispute, her personal attachment to Thomas and the latest controversy demand accountability from both her and the Daily Mail.
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What About the Woman Who Lost Her Job?
For years, British tabloids gave Thomas Markle a platform to complain about his estranged daughter. His interviews generated headlines, sympathy and endless opportunities to criticise Meghan.
But Rio Canedo was not part of that family dispute. She was a Filipino healthcare worker whose photograph and identity became international news.
Now Cordelia Lynch’s reporting suggests that the supposed romance never existed and that Canedo lost a job she loved because of the publicity.
The Daily Mail owes readers an explanation. Did Graham independently verify the relationship? Did Canedo consent to the portrayal? If the newspaper published an inaccurate account, will it issue a prominent correction?
IPSO should examine the reporting if someone submits a complaint raising possible breaches of the Editors’ Code. Until Canedo’s account receives independent confirmation, questions remain about exactly what happened. But the newspaper should not need a formal complaint to investigate concerns about its own reporting.
If Lynch’s account proves accurate, a Filipino nurse paid a devastating price for a romance story that Thomas Markle and the Daily Mail presented to the world as fact.
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Substack article by Guardian columnist Marina Hyde examining the disturbing relationship between Thomas Markle, Caroline Graham and the British media.
In this article Marina Hyde expresses incredulity about Caroline Graham claiming NOT to have either read Meghan’s letter to her dad nor having asked him about the contents with him. She had embedded herself in T Markle’s life for years just say she could get EXCLUSIVE ACCESS and CONTENT. She was at his bedside in the hospital and even filmed with her phone the delivery of Meghan’s letter into his hands, she claims at his express wish. NO Way is Graham going to tactfully retire, leave him alone with his letter and then not discuss its contents with him?. She went to years of effort cultivating him to be able to be at his side if his estranged daughter ever wrote to him again. Marina mocks Graham claim that she respected Meghan’s right to privacy by not reading or discussing letter with dad!? Graham has glued herself to T Markle for years purely to be in a position to regularly publish interview with him. She’s not spending time with him just to play scrabble is she?
So what is also ETHICALLY dubious is Graham reading that letter in December 2025 and knowing exactly why Meghan was permanently estranged from him and protecting her children. Graham is supposed to be a journalist and indeed any one with a shred of decency would have been very concerned and demanded to know from T Markle , were the allegations true after reading the letter ?
Graham conveniently claims NOT to have read the letter because she isn’t interested in the truth, is she? The truth exonerates Meghan Sussex totally from the charge of abandonment of her father and neither Graham nor the Mail want that outcome. Graham and the Mail wanted to continue to portray this man as a pathetic pensioner , abandoned by his youngest daughter in his hour of need for no good reason. She could hardly portray him as an unjustly neglected pensioner when the letter states exactly why his daughter wants nothing to be with a man accused of travelling abroad to abuse children. No responsible parent is going to let someone accused of being a paedophile be around their children, are they?
Graham should have been horrified to read the letter and demanded answers diligence from T Markle and done some research but no, she doubles down and continues to platform him as a victim and call for Meghan to relent and visit him so she gets another exclusive.
Prince Harry and other claimants had a court case beginning in January 2026 against ANL publishers of Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday so there was no way that Graham reporter for both those papers was ever going to do anything but trash Meghan Sussex
How could she risk sympathy , support and understanding being generated for Megan Sussex as happened once it became public that her father was subject to an ACTIVE investigation into criminal activity.
Hi Anonymous, I too have questions for and about the Graham woman and her intimate involvement in all things Thomas Markle.
As far as we know, she’s been hanging around him since before the Sussexes’ wedding in 2016 in Mexico, and then as he’d moved to Thailand and then the Philippines. They were very close by her own account.
She’d been responsible for Meghan Sussexes’s private letter to him being shared across the world for which her publishers were sued, quite rightly so, and successfully too.
Now, she’s with him when another private letter from Meghan Sussex was sent to that man in the Philippines, and she claimed not to have read it but somehow we have seen references in the media and tabloids to what she’d written in that letter. So my question is how did she know about that information, and does she expect the world to be gullible and stupid enough to believe that she didn’t read that letter?
Of course she read the letter ! so it stands to reason that, if what she said it contained included accusations of child abuse, why did she continue to propagate the false “victim hood” of that man, by continuing to attack Meghan Sussex as the uncaring daughter?
More importantly, whilst she may not have serialised this letter in her trashy publications this time, she has revealed the contents of Meghan Sussexes’s personal and private letter to that man.
Isn’t that another breach of her right to privacy?
I know she’s threading very carefully given the outcome of the legal action for her actions the previous time. But IMO, even divulging the details that she has should invoke a legal notice of some kind from the Sussexes’s team – a cease and desist letter, no less!
The daily fail clearly does not abide by the IPSO CoP. They routinely flout it and bear no consequences because the are the IPSO. It is a useless and ineffective tool.
And because of the power that they wield, and the closeness of Associated News in particular, to the most powerful and influential people and institutions in the UK including the British RF, they will never be held accountable for any breach of their own IPSO CoP.
The recent bizarre decision by the UK Judge in the CoA case brought by seven claimants with real hard evidence and testimony, that didn’t find Associated News liable for even one single claim out of the tens of very credible claims – IMO – that had been brought against them! Shocking to me, but not at all surprising.
I also totally agree with all the questions raised in Feminegra’s authored article here.
These are important, pertinent and serious questions that ought to be addressed by the relevant parties and entities involved. But I’m not going to hold my breadth on that for now – but I’m also an optimist so I continue to live in hope.🤞🤞🤞
The Metropolitan Police has referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) over a letter containing allegations about the Duchess of Sussex’s father Thomas Markle.
The force previously said it had shared the letter with Meghan but did not inform other forces about the accusations.
The Met has now said a voluntary referral has been made to the IOPC “in respect of the decision not to inform other law enforcement agencies, and the decision to pass the letter to the office of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex”.
The force has also now said it intends to “make a number of referrals to relevant overseas law enforcement agencies in relation to the allegations contained within the letter”.
“That process is under way and will be completed in the coming days.”