Samantha Markle Defamation Lawsuit Against Meghan: Netflix Series

Three of the alleged defamatory statements in Harry & Meghan are Meghan’s remarks about her childhood. Markle says Meghan’s statement that her father “had two adult children who had moved out of his house” was false, as was Meghan’s claim that she “[didn’t] remember seeing [Markle] when I was a kid at [her] dad’s house, if and when they would come around.” Meghan’s claim that Markle was telling people that she raised her half sister was not just untrue, Markle says, but “incendiary to Meghan’s fans who have harassed and threatened Samantha due to these statements.”

The other alleged defamatory claims in the Netflix docuseries concern a segment on the harassment Meghan experienced on social media and in the press. Markle claims that one of the people interviewed in the documentary was hired by Meghan to make false and damaging statements about her half sister’s online activity. The person interviewed, Bot Sentinel CEO Christopher Bouzy, spoke in the docuseries about the online harassment and misinformation campaign targeting Meghan. 

“Samantha Markle was part of the group that was putting out a lot of this disinformation,” Bouzy said. 

The members of the group, Bouzy said, were motivated by “hatred” and “race” and would use “derogatory terms” including “the n-word.” Bouzy also said that Markle’s primary Twitter account was suspended as a result and claimed that she had “11 different accounts.” 

In the amended complaint, Markle denies being part of a group spreading misinformation and claims to be “the victim of hacking and individuals creating imposter accounts.” She claims that “trolls of Meghan” took over her primary account, forcing her to create other accounts, which were then also taken over by trolls. Her Twitter suspension, she says, was due to her endorsing Ivermectin (in violation of the platform’s COVID-19 misinformation policy).

“The implication of the statements said in the series produced and edited by Meghan through her own words and hand-picked interviewees were incredibly damaging and dangerous,” the complaint states. “The series falsely accused [Markle] to be a member of a hate group.”

In March 2022, BuzzFeed News published an extensive investigation into Markle’s online activity and found evidence of Markle using her Twitter accounts to spread conspiracy theories about her half sister. Markle denied these claims to BuzzFeed News and claimed to have been hacked, but failed to specify which of her accounts were hacked or provide any evidence that she was not in control of the profiles in her name.

Bouzy responded to the amended complaint on the social media platform Spoutible, writing, “Samantha Markle’s lawyers filed this nonsense in court. Meghan Markle never retained Bot Sentinel or me.” BuzzFeed News has reached out to Archewell Productions and Netflix for comment.

Meghan’s lawyers have indicated that they intend to sue for costs under Florida’s anti-SLAPP statute.