Meghan Markle is set for a courtroom showdown with her half-sister, Samantha Markle – just one week after her birthday this summer. A judge at the 11th Circuit Court of Appeal in Atlanta, Georgia, set the date for Samantha to try and revive her libel case against the Duchess of Sussex in the week commencing August 11, it has been revealed.
Samantha sued the Duchess of Sussex, 43, over remarks made in the Sussexes’ interview with Oprah Winfrey and Netflix documentary but lost in March 2024. A court filing, which was seen by Newsweek, said that the case was “assigned to tentative calendar number 21 in Atlanta during the week of August 11, 2025.” The 60-year-old is Meghan’s half-sister from her father’s side of the family. Meghan also has a brother named Thomas Markle Jr.
Meghan, who now resides in California with Prince Harry and their two children, will celebrate her 44th birthday on August 4.
Samantha first filed her libel lawsuit against Meghan in late 2022 – two years after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex stepped down as senior working royals. At the time, one of the Duchess’ lawyers said they would “give it [the case] the minimum attention necessary, which is all it deserves.”
Speaking after the release of the couple’s docuseries, Harry & Meghan, Samantha’s lawyers claimed that a number of comments by the Duchess and an interviewee on the Netflix programme – when viewed together – amounted to a campaign to unfairly undermine Samantha.
When interviewed by Oprah Winfrey in 2021, Meghan revealed that she “grew up as only child” and that she would like to have had siblings to grow up with – with Samantha and Tom Markle Jr. having already moved out of Thomas Markle Sr’s home.
Moreover, Meghan and Harry’s docuseries included a segment which looked at the trolling suffered by the former actress on social media – which included racist posts.
Samantha’s team previously alleged that the show guided viewers into believing that Meghan’s half-sister played a role in orchestrating the hate campaign against the Duchess of Sussex. They also said this is an unfair characterisation.
Meghan never explicitly mentioned Samantha when addressing the hate messages targeting, and the section of the episode dedicated to that topic related to trolling being carried out by several accounts.
The Duchess’ lawyers said in their own past filing: “An implicit or express statement that [Samantha] belongs to a hate group spreading disinformation about Meghan is an opinion protected by the First Amendment.”
Meanwhile, Meghan’s lawyers have argued many of the statements Samantha complained about are not actually about her and do not reference her.
An example of this is one of Meghan’s comments in the docuseries. She said in the Netflix documentary: “You are making people want to kill me. It’s not just a tabloid. It’s not just some story. You are making me scared.”
Should Samantha be successful in reviving the case, it would likely prove a headache for Meghan, who is unlikely to attend the August event in person.
