Samantha Markle says Harry is in no position to fight misinformation: 'Needs to get a grip on what truth is'
Samantha Markle, the half-sister of Meghan has said that Prince Harry is in "no position" to "fight misinformation" after the Sussexes’ tell-all interview with Oprah earlier this month. Samantha’s comments arrive in the wake of reports of Prince Harry joining the Aspen Institute’s Commission on Information Disorder to fight what he called an "avalanche of misinformation" in the digital world.
Harry, 14 other commissioners, and three co-chairs — journalist Katie Couric, Color of Change president Rashad Robinson and Chris Krebs, the former director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency — will conduct a six-month study on the state of American misinformation and disinformation. "This information crisis undermines confidence in our democratic institutions and strikes right at the foundation of society," Krebs said in a statement.
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Speaking about the position, Prince Harry said, "as I've said, the experience of today's digital world has us inundated with an avalanche of misinformation, affecting our ability as individuals as well as societies to think clearly and truly understand the world we live in. It's my belief that this is a humanitarian issue," he said, "and as such, it demands a multi-stakeholder response from advocacy voices, members of the media, academic researchers and both government and civil society leaders. I'm eager to join this new Aspen commission and look forward to working on a solution-oriented approach to the information disorder crisis."
Samantha suggested in an interview that Prince Harry and Meghan made a number of false claims during their interview with Oprah Winfrey. She said Harry was in "no position to join a company that deals in misinformation..." until "he gets a grip on what the truth is".
Speaking on New Zealand journalist Heather Du Plessis-Allan's Newstalk ZB radio show, Samantha said that the Sussexes had wrongly told Oprah they got married three days before their Royal Wedding. She said: "There was no secret wedding with the Archbishop of Canterbury — that was debunked. And, like [Fox News host] Megyn Kelly said, if one part of something is wrong then probably the rest of it is."
Earlier this week reports suggested that the Sussexes’ nuptials took place on May 19, 2018, at Windsor Castle. And the official who drew up the license said Meghan is “obviously confused” over the marriage after she told Oprah she and Harry tied the knot three days previous.
But the Sussexes revealed much more than that in the interview. Speaking about racism around her son Archie and him not receiving the prince title, Meghan said, "They didn't want him to be a prince or princess, not knowing what the gender would be, which would be different from protocol, and [said] that he wasn't going to receive security.”
“In those months when I was pregnant... we have in tandem the conversation of, you won't be given security, not gonna be given a title and also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he's born,” she said. She also spoke about suicidal thoughts she had and how Buckingham Palace did not help her.
Samantha has been very critical of the Sussexes in the past as well. Last year, she called them “horribly cruel” for abandoning the royal family when the UK is in the grips of a coronavirus pandemic. "Just the idea of abandoning both families during such a horrific time, without so much as a phone call is shocking. Considering [Thomas Markle] went through two heart attacks without so much as a call, I guess this is status quo for her," she said.