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Anyone else think Thomas Markle is not coming across well?

255 replies

LadyLightning · 22/01/2020 21:30

He just sounds like a nightmare dad, despite doing his best to present himself as the victim here. The comment about Harry being his family whether he liked it or not? And 'what was happening was not making me happy@. He sounds like a self centred man, I think she may be much better off with no contact.

OP posts:
Snugglepiggy · 22/01/2020 22:55

Oh dear .What a sorry mess.For both of them.On the one hand I found it deeply uncomfortable that he has done this.Yet if he truly was left alone with no visit,guidance or support in the run up to the wedding even if they hadn't been close since her late teens that's tough.He seems like a broken,bewildered and now bitter man.Did Meghan start to freeze him out after high school as she got ever more ambitious and successful ?Or was he too suffocating and needy and as she became an adult she just had to distance herself ?What is odd is how warmly she spoke about him in that speech,as recently as 2015.By then she is transformed into a polished performer.Only 3 years later she's engaged and yet never introduces him in person to Harry.Bizarre.And very sad.

derxa · 22/01/2020 22:55

A very mixed picture. No one comes out well here but things could have been handled better. He definitely put her through university and she lied about it though.

divawithafever · 22/01/2020 22:56

He had a f'in heart attack and was hospitalised and they didn't seem to visit or even care.
She married a prince who couldn't be arsed to meet him in person.
These are two of the most privileged people in our country and beyond and this is how they treat a 75 year old guy who's her biological father and clearly living a very basic life compared to theirs.
I think they're both an utter disgrace and how dare she doe eye the camera at a dogs home when she can't even make amends with her own father.

divawithafever · 22/01/2020 23:00

She froze him out as soon as she got her part in Suits. Then married Trevor whoever they got divorced five minutes later then she rang him to say she had met a prince and it all fell apart right there. Doesn't take Einstein to see she ditched Him (her father) as soon as she got her big break. It even showed him taking her to all her auditions. You can't doubt his support for her career.

Kokeshi123 · 22/01/2020 23:07

I suspect that it's a dysfunctional relationship and that neither of them is 100% innocent. Because that, in my experience, is generally what you find when a family relationship breaks down.

LoisWilkersonsLastNerve · 22/01/2020 23:08

Neither of them come out well, yes he's been a pest but it's very odd that she's cut him out so completely. I think there's more to this.

FuckeryOmbudsman · 22/01/2020 23:08

He should be able to prove he put her through college, which does make her speechifying rather hollow.

Key unanswered question for me is why did she choose to live wth him (and not her mother) during her teen years. Obviously that's private, but it might unlock the many contradictions here. Not least why it all changed after 2015 (for MM was still publishing pieces praising her father until at least then)

It's a sorry mess, but he came across better than I expected, and his account is internally consistent and has several points which couid easily be proved/disproved,

Paperdolly · 22/01/2020 23:08

MnH confuse me by lecturing us on mental health and then treating family to appealingly cruel and disrespectful behaviour. They need
their bumps felt!

TheFairyCaravan · 22/01/2020 23:10

I thought he was awful and I really can't blame her for going no contact with him. I've always thought he has come across badly tbh.

I don't believe that the rest of the letter Meghan sent him was too offensive to be published. Had it have been it would have been on the front of every tabloid in the land

tempester28 · 22/01/2020 23:13

I don't think he is coming across that badly? He has made some mistakes, but it seems they didn't give him enough support and didn't really fully include him.

roseapothecary · 22/01/2020 23:15

He is just awful. Poor Meghan

Equanimitas · 22/01/2020 23:15

They didn't have to include him or support him. He's a grown man who treated his family dreadfully.

PanickedMondays · 22/01/2020 23:15

I refused to watch it.

This is a parenting site. He is an abusive parent. Why is he getting oxygen? I am not bumping up the ratings for C5 and their ‘two sides to every story’ publicity line for the programme.

What other abusive men would they trumpet that about?

Too right, he would be picked apart on ‘Stately Homes’.

princessTiasmum · 22/01/2020 23:15

I don't think she treated him very well, all the money she made and look where he lives, she could have made his life more comfortable,
She told him she had met a prince, and that seemed to be the end of their relationship, she has got the life she wanted, but doesn't want now, because she can't cope with it
I bet if Harry had met and married anyone else all this breaking away wouldn't have happened
Meghan is a manipulator
Her father must have been so hurt, like being dumped because he is not important to her anymore
This marriage wont end well

shirleyschmidt · 22/01/2020 23:15

Very mixed feelings over here. I'm not a fan of hers but I actually think it wasn't the disaster for MM that it could have been. Mr Markle seemed very self-centered and manipulative at times.

I definitely don't think Harry helped the relationship - the fact he never bothered to meet TM in person, even before anything bad gone wrong, is inexcusable from both of them. It should have mattered to them both, and the fact it obviously didn't is telling.

I can't blame TM for being bitter at this point. He'll just see his daughter living the dream while he continues a somewhat isolated, basic existence - and while being totally ignored by Meghan will no doubt will be influenced by the opinions of the jealous sister.

Ultimately though, he'd have been better off keeping quiet. All the interview does is justify MM and PH's decision to keep a distance. It's a sad situation.

PortiaCastis · 22/01/2020 23:18

The writer of a text or letter owns copyright so here lies the issue, it is not ownership.
My Father is dead but if he'd ever given a letter I'd written to him to the gutter press I would never speak to him again, what a despicable thing to do no matter what!

MarthasGinYard · 22/01/2020 23:18

'I definitely don't think Harry helped the relationship - the fact he never bothered to meet TM in person, even before anything bad gone wrong, is inexcusable from both of them. It should have mattered to them both, and the fact it obviously didn't is telling.'

This

I think it could have been a different story

Quite sad viewing really, such a downward spiral.

JeansNTees · 22/01/2020 23:20

@FuckeryOmbudsman I agree that they left out a huge part of the story. I didn't even have to go far, just Wikipedia, to learn that Thomas won $750,000 in the lottery in 1990. Meghan moved in with him when she was 11, so around 1991. He went bankrupt in 2015, and so did Doria around then as her Wikipedia entry says. He was working until 2011 so would have been comfortably off from 1990 to 2011 with the lottery money and working income. He paid for Meghan's private schooling from the age of 2.

MarthasGinYard · 22/01/2020 23:23

I wonder why she chose to live with him from 11 to 16.

Smellbellina · 22/01/2020 23:24

Well, he’s very candid isn’t he

Smellbellina · 22/01/2020 23:25

I wonder why she chose to live with him from 11 to 16.

🤣

MarthasGinYard · 22/01/2020 23:26

Blimey Jeans

Didn't realise he'd had a lottery win Shock

scubadive · 22/01/2020 23:28

What is absolutely ironic is that they gave him no support at all when being constantly hounding by the press before the wedding. No protection, no privacy, nothing, the poor man couldn’t even buy milk and now M and H have too much press attention, despite security and huge private grounds, staff etc they need to move across the world and hide.

He says Harry told him if he hadn’t spoken to the press none of it would have happened but if they had moved him somewhere safe and private none of it would have happened.

To not contact him in hospital. Shock

Pixxie7 · 22/01/2020 23:29

I think he is desperate, whilst it’s true he has made a lot of mistakes but haven’t we all. At the end of the day he raised her and clearly loves her I think he is hurting and who can blame him.

Defenbaker · 22/01/2020 23:30

I watched the C5 documentary with some preconceptions about this man, as by all accounts he had been overly keen to make money from his daughter's marriage to Harry, but by the end of the programme I felt convinced that this man has had quite a raw deal in some respects.

He clearly was ill equipped to cope with the press interest, and it seems he was given no support or advice other than 'don't talk to them'. Easier said than done when he was getting hounded every time he left the house. I feel that he just caved in under the pressure, and thought he may as well make some cash out of the situation. The pictures he staged were only of him "getting fit" in preparation for the wedding. Harmless really. OK, he lied about his involvement, but actually I'm not sure they did any harm to Meghan's reputation.

He admitted she had given him money, but then made the point that he'd paid her college fees, etc, and said he didn't expect her to pay him back, but the money she gave him wasn't a huge amount, considering her earnings from Suits and what he'd done to support her over the years.

I can't help thinking that if this man was thinner, better educated and better dressed, people might be less prejudiced against him. Home video footage shows that he was a big part of her teenage years - I wonder what went wrong later? I certainly don't think he deserves the bad press that he's had, and I feel sorry for him.