Meghan Markle allowed third party to speak to Finding Freedom authors ‘to prevent misrepresentation’, documents show

Documents also reveal Duchess sought advice from two senior royals over how to stop estranged father from speaking to the press

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The Duchess of Sussex allowed an unnamed individual to speak to the authors of Finding Freedom, a biography about her and the Duke of Sussex that was published in the summer, according to new court documents.

The admission was made in court documents used as part of Meghan’s ongoing legal battle with Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL) over the publication of a “private and confidential” handwritten letter she sent to her estranged father, Thomas Markle, in August 2018.

Meghan is seeking damages after claiming misuse of private information, copyright infringement, and breaching the Data Protection Act.

The latest documents submitted to the high court by Meghan’s legal team state that she allowed someone to speak to authors Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand in order to prevent “further misrepresentation" from being published about her relationship with her father.

The documents state that the Duchess was “concerned that her father’s narrative in the media that she had abandoned him and had not even tried to contact him (which was false) would be repeated” in the book.

"Accordingly, she indicated to a person whom she knew had already been approached by the authors that the true position as above (which that person and several others who knew the claimant already knew) could be communicated to the authors to prevent any further misrepresentation,” they add.

The Duchess is said to be unaware as to the extent of which “this one item of information concerning her communications with her father” was shared with the authors.

Meghan’s team have previously stated that the couple themselves did not meet with the authors “for the purposes of the book” and that Meghan’s PR representative was not given the book beforehand to suggest proposed changes to the text. 

A spokesperson for the couple previously told The Independent on numerous occasions that the couple were not involved and that Finding Freedom was based on the authors’ own experiences in the royal household.

The documents also reveal that, prior to writing the letter to Mr Markle, Meghan sought advice from two senior members of the royal family on how best to handle the surge. of media coverage around him. It was on their advice that she wrote the original letter.

The document did not name which members of the royal family had spoken with Meghan.

ANL wholly denies the Duchess’s allegations, particularly that the letter was edited in any way that changed its meaning.

The trial had originally been scheduled for January but has since been pushed back to autumn 2021.

The Independent has contacted a spokesperson for the Duchess for further comment.