In March of this year, Samantha Grant (who goes by “Samantha Markle” in the media) filed a defamation lawsuit against her half-sister, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex. How did Meghan allegedly “defame” her half-sister? It was never very clear! Meghan spoke about being industrious and living on a budget throughout her childhood and in Meghan’s interview, she’s never even publicly mentioned her deranged sister. Still, Samantha believes that Meghan defamed her and hurt the sales of Samantha’s pathetic little book. Now Meghan’s lawyers have filed a motion to dismiss Samantha’s struggle lawsuit. Not only that, Meghan wants Samantha to pay for her legal fees. You can read the full document here.

Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, on Friday filed a motion to dismiss the defamation lawsuit brought against her by her half-sister Samantha Markle, describing the case as “without merit” and based on allegations that are “demonstrably false.” The duchess also asked a Florida federal court to order her half-sister to cover attorneys’ fees.

In the complaint filed March 3, Samantha Markle, 57, alleged that Meghan “published and disseminated false and malicious lies designed to destroy [her] reputation” and expose her to “humiliation, shame and hatred on a worldwide scale” in order to paint a false narrative of her childhood. Markle is suing the duchess for damages in excess of $75,000, claiming harm to her reputation as well as lost employment and lost income from the sale of her autobiography The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister.

“We feel confident that we’ll survive a motion to dismiss based on the allegations and the specific falsities that were made by [the duchess],” Markle’s attorney Jamie Sasson told BuzzFeed News Friday.

Although Samantha Markle claims that her half-sister made three defamatory statements during Meghan’s March 2021 blockbuster interview with Oprah Winfrey, the bulk of the case concerns information reported in a 2020 biography of Meghan and her husband Prince Harry titled Finding Freedom.

In the motion to dismiss filed Friday, Meghan’s lawyers denied all of Markle’s allegations — and stated that even if they were true, the duchess’s half-sister would still have no case. First, because the statements that Meghan made about Markle in her 2018 briefing email to Knauf were made outside of Florida’s two-year statute of limitations for defamation. Second, because Meghan didn’t write Finding Freedom. And finally, because Meghan’s statements about her half-sister in the email and in the Oprah interview are substantially true — and protected by the First Amendment. The filing included an itemized list of responses to all 17 of the statements that Markle claimed were defamatory.

The motion’s request that Markle be compelled to pay Meghan’s legal fees is based on a Florida law that prohibits lawsuits filed against individuals who are exercising their right to free speech in connection with public issues.

[From Buzzfeed News]

My guess is that Samantha believed Meghan would throw some money at her to shut up, and/or Samantha is such a deranged famewhore that she believed this lawsuit would get her more time on British TV shows. In either case, Meghan isn’t playing. It’s my hope that when all is said and done here, Meghan wipes the floor with Samantha, takes all of her money and exposes her for being the nasty piece of trash she is. Samantha is such a big part of the hate campaign online against Meghan as well.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid and WENN.