Meghan Markle is trying to stop a British paper from naming five friends who spoke to People magazine for an anonymous cover story last year. The friends defended her from what they said was an all-out racist assault from British bloids.
Now, the Duchess of Sussex’s legal team is going to court in the U.K. to stop the Mail on Sunday from revealing the sources. This is the latest in an ongoing battle Meghan and Prince Harry have launched against the papers for running portions of a private letter from her to her estranged father Thomas Markle.
In a legal filing submitted Thursday, she wrote: “Associated Newspapers, the owner of The Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday, is threatening to publish the names of five women—five private citizens—who made a choice on their own to speak anonymously with a U.S. media outlet more than a year ago, to defend me from the bullying behavior of Britain’s tabloid media.”
In February of 2019, five of Meghan’s good friends referenced the letter’s publication when decrying what they said was the “global bullying” of her.
She continued: “These five women are not on trial, and nor am I. The publisher of the Mail on Sunday is the one on trial. It is this publisher that acted unlawfully and is attempting to evade accountability; to create a circus and distract from the point of this case—that the Mail on Sunday unlawfully published my private letter. Each of these women is a private citizen, young mother, and each has a basic right to privacy. Both the Mail on Sunday and the court system have their names on a confidential schedule, but for the Mail on Sunday to expose them in the public domain for no reason other than clickbait and commercial gain is vicious and poses a threat to their emotional and mental wellbeing.”
In response, a Mail on Sunday spokesperson said they “had absolutely no intention of publishing the identities of the five friends this weekend. But their evidence is at the heart of the case and we see no reason why their identities should be kept secret. That is why we told the Duchess’s lawyers last week that the question of their confidentiality should be properly considered by the Court.”
In insider tells People that the judge and newspaper have received the names in confidence already.
