Meghan Confronted Father Over Abuse Claims In Hospital Letter

Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, told her estranged father in a 2025 letter that she and authorities knew he had abused young girls, according to reporting from BBC News, the British partner of CBS News. The letter was delivered to his hospital room in the United States in December 2025.

Police in the Philippines confirmed last week they are investigating Thomas Markle Sr. over his alleged possession of child sexual abuse photos and videos. His son, Thomas Markle Jr., handed the material to authorities. Markle Sr. is 82.

Meghan said in a statement last week that she was "deeply distressed" by word of the investigation. She said she first learned of allegations against her father in 2018, when London's Metropolitan Police shared a letter with her laying out related claims. She said it was based on that information that she and Prince Harry decided to cut her father off from contact with their children.

The letter Meghan sent to her father in December 2025 stated that she and authorities "knew he had abused young girls," and that he would never meet Meghan and Harry's children, Archie and Lilibet, according to the BBC. Video obtained exclusively by the Daily Mail shows Markle accepting the letter in his hospital room.

Markle Sr. told the Mail in a Sunday article that he did not remember what was written in the letter from his daughter, but added, "if Meghan says that's what she wrote, then she's probably right." On Friday, he was quoted by the Mail as saying he had "never downloaded anything like that in my life," and dismissing the allegations against him as "sick lies." A Sunday article in the same tabloid quoted him as saying he had paid for sex in the Philippines, while reiterating his denial of possessing child sexual abuse materials and insisting he never had sex with anyone under the age of 18. He vowed to cooperate with authorities.

The Sun reported over the weekend that the Metropolitan Police were made aware in 2019 of a number of claims against Markle, including alleged sexual abuse of a child, and that they had passed them on to the Duchess of Sussex's office at that time. In her Friday statement, Meghan said: "In 2018, a letter was sent to the Metropolitan Police and Royalty and Specialist Protection. That letter was subsequently shared with me. It made troubling and disturbing allegations against my father and I was given assurances that these were being investigated."

A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said last week that the force is aware of media reports that officers from the Met's Royalty and Specialist Protection Command were involved in passing on a letter in 2018. "We are undertaking enquiries internally in an effort to confirm this," the spokesperson said. It is understood that the London police are not currently investigating Thomas Markle.

Roya Nikkhah, royal editor for the Sunday Times newspaper and a CBS News contributor, told CBS News on Monday that the revelations were likely to garner new public sympathy for the duchess. "I don't think the wider public can not have sympathy for Meghan going through this," she said. "It's an ordeal, an extraordinary thing to learn about your own father."

It remains unclear what allegations were in the 2018 letter about her father that Meghan says police shared with her, or what allegations she was referring to when she wrote to him in December 2025.