Five of Meghan Markle’s best friends could be called to give evidence

Five of Meghan’s best friends could be called to give evidence in court. The ‘inner circle’ could be asked on oath if they colluded with the Duchess of Sussex to reveal that she had sent a letter to her father, Thomas. 

Mr Markle says he shared the letter with The Mail on Sunday only after Meghan’s friends gave an interview about it to the US magazine People, and did so to show the world it was not the tender message her friends had suggested, the newspaper has said in its defence. 

In the bombshell February 2019 interview with the anonymous five women, one of them disclosed the existence of the letter but the duchess claims she was ‘distressed’ about this when she found out, according to a legal statement of her case lodged by her lawyers. 

Meghan initially declined to comment on the newspaper’s claim that she had ‘knowingly’ allowed her friends to leak details of the letter, effectively breaching her own privacy. 

But this week she raised the stakes with an emphatic denial. Her lawyer David Sherborne wrote in the document filed to the court: ‘[She] did not know that her friends were giving an interview to People magazine, let alone that one of them would refer to the letter.’ 

If the case proceeds to trial, it is possible the five friends could be asked to testify on oath about Meghan’s claims. They have never been named, with People magazine referring to them as ‘Meghan’s inner circle – a longtime friend, a former co-star, a friend from LA, a onetime colleague and a close confidante’.