Meghan Markle allegedly ignored birthday flowers sent by dad Thomas Markle, but he's 'OK with it'
The relationship between Meghan Markle and her estranged father Thomas Markle remains fraught. As per a new report, Thomas has claimed that he sent Meghan a bouquet of roses for her 40th birthday but did not receive any response.
He told TMZ he sent a dozen red roses with two yellow roses in the middle to signify Meghan and Prince Harry’s two children, two-year-old Archie and newborn Lilibet 'Lili' Diana Mountbatten-Windsor. Markle also said he sent a note that said, “Wishing you a happy birthday and brighter days."
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He also told the website that he continued to want to be part of his grandchildren’s lives. Markle also apparently said it was okay that Meghan didn’t respond to him. Back in June, Thomas Markle said that he was "very pleased" to have a granddaughter. He also wished his daughter and Prince Harry "the best of luck" for their future.
The 76-year-old retired Hollywood lighting engineer spoke with the press in the aftermath of the announcement of the newborn’s birth. “I’m very pleased that my daughter and my new granddaughter had a successful delivery," Thomas Markle told The Sun. "I wish them all my love and the best of luck.”
Thomas Markle, as per reports, has also been trying to get in touch with his daughter. In July, a source said he has been “sending letters to the house” hoping it will reach his daughter. But the “letters remained unopened" despite the estranged father's best efforts, the insider alleged. In January, Markle accused his daughter of "cheapening" the royal family and "turning it into a Walmart with a crown on" after they announced their plan to step down as senior royals. In a Channel 5 TV documentary, 'Thomas Markle: My Story', he said Meghan and Prince Harry's conduct had been embarrassing and that they were "turning into lost souls."
"When they got married they took on an obligation, and the obligation is to be part of the royals and to represent the royals," Thomas said. "And it would be foolish for them not to. This is one of the greatest long-living institutions ever." Markle has reportedly not spoken to Meghan since they had a highly publicized falling out before her wedding to Harry in May 2018. Photos of Meghan preparing for her nuptials became public. Soon after, tabloids alleged that the photos were staged and the photos allegedly sold for £100,000 ($1,41,656).
Thomas Markle told the press of faking the pictures and also said that Harry had called him at the time about them. He later admitted, however, that he lied to Harry about staging the photos. He said that Prince Harry told him: "Harry told me that I should never go to the press. That it would end in tears. He said, ‘They will eat you alive.’ He was right.”
In March, Meghan opened up about their relationship in her tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey. Asked if it felt like a “betrayal” when she found out her dad was working with the press, she said, “Because when I asked him when we were told by the comms team, this is a story that was going to be coming out, which, by the way, the tabloids had apparently known for a month or so and decided to hold until the Sunday before our wedding because they wanted to create drama, which is also a really key point in all this.”
“We called my dad and I asked him and he said, no, absolutely not,” she said. “I said, you know, the institution has never intervened for anything for us, but they can try to go in and kill this story. But if they do this once, we're not going to be able to use that same leverage to protect our own kids one day.”