Meghan Markle has declared her latest court win “a victory not just for” her, but “for anyone who has ever felt scared to stand up for what’s right.” The Duchess of Sussex released a statement on Thursday after the Court of Appeal ruled in her favor, dismissing the publisher of The Mail on Sunday’s appeal.
© WireImageAccording to the Associated Press , Senior Judge Geoffrey Vos told the court on Thursday that the contents of the letter that Meghan wrote to her father Thomas Markle, parts of which were published, were “personal, private and not matters of legitimate public interest.”
In her statement (via Harper’s Bazaar ), Meghan said, “While this win is precedent setting, what matters most is that we are now collectively brave enough to reshape a tabloid industry that conditions people to be cruel, and profits from the lies and pain that they create. From day one, I have treated this lawsuit as an important measure of right versus wrong. The defendant has treated it as a game with no rules.”
© Getty Images“The longer they dragged it out, the more they could twist facts and manipulate the public (even during the appeal itself), making a straightforward case extraordinarily convoluted in order to generate more headlines and sell more newspapers—a model that rewards chaos above truth. In the nearly three years since this began, I have been patient in the face of deception, intimidation, and calculated attacks,” she continued. “Today, the courts ruled in my favor—again—cementing that The Mail on Sunday, owned by Lord Jonathan Rothermere, has broken the law. The courts have held the defendant to account, and my hope is that we all begin to do the same. Because as far removed as it may seem from your personal life, it’s not. Tomorrow it could be you. These harmful practices don’t happen once in a blue moon—they are a daily fail that divide us, and we all deserve better.”
NBC News reported that an Associated Newspapers spokesperson said that the publisher was “very disappointed” by the decision and was considering an appeal to the Supreme Court in the UK. The spokesperson said, “It is our strong view that judgment should be given only on the basis of evidence tested at trial and not on a summary basis in a heavily contested case.”
