Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, says she barred her father from her children after abuse allegations surfaced years ago, as Philippines police now confirm they are investigating him.
Meghan confronted her estranged father, Thomas Markle Sr., over child sexual abuse allegations and has now tied that rupture to a single stated purpose: keeping her children away from him. Philippines police confirmed last week they are investigating the 82-year-old over alleged possession of child sexual abuse photos and videos turned in by his son, Thomas Markle Jr.
In a statement issued Friday, Meghan said she first learned of the claims in 2018, when a letter sent to London’s Metropolitan Police and its Royalty and Specialist Protection Command was shared with her. She said she received assurances then that the matter was under investigation.
Meghan framed the years of distance that followed as a protective choice, not a media invention.
In her Friday statement, she 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,"
She continued:
"I hope it can now be understood that, despite certain media publications' distortion over the years, any distance from my father and my choice to not allow him to have contact with our children, was for one reason: to protect them,"
She also said she was "deeply distressed" by word of the Philippines investigation.
Reporting from BBC News, CBS News’ British partner, described a letter Meghan sent that Markle accepted last year. The Daily Mail said it obtained video of that moment in a U.S. hospital room in December 2025.
Per BBC reporting on the letter’s content, Meghan wrote that she and authorities "knew he had abused young girls." The same account said the letter made plain he would never meet her children with Prince Harry, Archie and Lilibet.
That confrontation came roughly six years after she was first told of the claims. Harry and Meghan together decided to cut Markle off from contact with the children based on what she learned in 2018, her account states.
Philippines police confirmed last week they are investigating Thomas Markle Sr. over alleged possession of a large stash of child sexual abuse photos and videos. Thomas Markle Jr. handed the materials to authorities there.
No arrests or charges are described as completed in the available reporting. The current status of that inquiry beyond the confirmation itself has not been detailed.
Thomas Markle Sr. has denied the allegations in quotes to the Daily Mail.
On Friday he said he had "never downloaded anything like that in my life." He dismissed the claims as "sick lies."
On Sunday, also to the Mail, he said that "if Meghan says that's what she wrote, then she's probably right." He said he had paid for sex in the Philippines, denied sex with anyone under 18, and vowed to cooperate with authorities.
A Metropolitan Police spokesperson addressed reports about the 2018 letter:
"We are aware of media reports that officers from the Met's Royalty and Specialist Protection Command were involved in the passing on of a letter in 2018,"
The spokesperson added:
"We are undertaking enquiries internally in an effort to confirm this."
It is understood London police are not currently investigating Thomas Markle. Over the weekend, The Sun reported that the Met was made aware in 2019 of a number of claims against him, including alleged sexual abuse of a child, and that those claims were passed to the Duchess of Sussex’s office.
Who sent the 2018 letter has not been named. Full contents of that letter, and the full text of Meghan’s later letter beyond the reported fragments, have not been published in this reporting.
Roya Nikkhah, a CBS News contributor and royal editor for the Sunday Times, told CBS News on Monday that the public can separate this family crisis from the couple’s long-running fight with the royal institution.
"I don't think the wider public can not have sympathy for Meghan going through this,"
She called it "an ordeal, an extraordinary thing to learn about your own father," and said the British public’s harder feelings have centered on how Harry and Meghan left the royal family and what they have said since, "completely separate to this."
Nikkhah noted the couple is now back in Britain for what is understood to be a considerable period, and said she expects sympathy on the father story. She did not claim that sympathy will erase public judgments about the past six or seven years.
Protecting children from a parent under active investigation for alleged child sexual abuse material is basic duty, not spin. Allegations this grave still demand proof, process, and a finished inquiry, not a press cycle that treats denials, letters, and police confirmations as interchangeable facts.
