A series of court documents obtained by 'E!
News' reveal how
Meghan Markle
played a role in creating the unauthorized biography 'Finding Freedom'.
In those documents, filed in High Court on Wednesday, November 18, the Duchess of Sussex's attorneys claim that neither she nor Prince
Harry
spoke or collaborated with
Omid Scobie
and
Carolyn Durand
on the biography.
However, legal representatives revealed that Meghan spoke to a friend, who knew she was working with the perpetrators, fearing that her fight with her father,
Thomas Markle
, would be misrepresented.
The documents say: "The plaintiff [Meghan] was concerned that her father's narrative would be repeated in the media that she had left him and had not even tried to contact him (which was false), when in fact she she had tried calling him, and texting him, and had even written him a letter trying to persuade him to stop dealing with the media. "
As a result, the lawyers state in the record: "Consequently, she indicated to a person whom she knew had already been approached by the authors, that the true position mentioned above could be communicated to the authors, to avoid further misrepresentation. It is not known to what extent or in what terms this information regarding his communications with his father was shared with the authors ", it is added.
In addition, the Duchess's lawyers clarify that Meghan did collaborate with Prince Harry and Communications Secretary
Jason Knauf
, on the content of the letter he sent to his father, but not as part of a "media strategy", as the 'Mail on Sunday' alleges.
"Once it was decided that the applicant would write to her father, the applicant informed Mr. Knauf, who was not only a trusted advisor, that he had spoken with the applicant's father repeatedly," the documents indicate .
"He was also responsible for reporting (as required by palace protocol) the fact that the claimant was going to write to her father, to the older persons in the royal houses, all of whom had to be informed of any problems of facing the public (the media spectacle that surrounds Mr. Markle is one of those problems) ", concludes the text.
The lawyers further claim that Meghan first wrote the letter to her father on her iPhone, and that she shared it with Jason and Prince Harry for support, as this was a deeply painful process they experienced with her.
After Markle, Jason, and Harry agreed on the final draft, she wrote the letter to her father, which was later published on Sunday.
Getty Images
Meghan's legal team also refutes the idea that she and Harry had final approval on the content of 'Finding Freedom', as well as the idea that they have received financial help from taxpayer funds.
The duchess's attorneys made these claims in response to Associated Newspapers, which is suing for privacy violation, copyright infringement and data protection violation.
'The Mail on Sunday' previously argued that she and Harry gave up their right to privacy when they allegedly collaborated with the authors of 'Finding Freedom' on the content of the book.
Representatives for Meghan and Harry told 'E!
News ', "The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were not interviewed and did not contribute to' Finding Freedom. 'This book is based on the authors' own experiences as members of the royal press corps, and on their own independent reporting."
The privacy trial was scheduled to begin in January 2021, but Meghan's legal team received her request to delay the trial until the fall for "confidential" reasons.
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