Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex’s estanged father Thomas Markle Snr. has given a scathing verdict of her new cooking show, and has also responded to the bombshell revelation that she no longer goes by the name ‘Meghan Markle’

Thomas Markle Snr, the estranged father of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, has opened up about his daughter’s decision to put aside her maiden name of Markle.

Even though it’s been nearly seven years since she walked down the aisle at Windsor’s St George’s Chapel, the Duchess is still often referred to by fans as simply ‘Meghan Markle’ – but behind closed doors, this apparently isn’t the case

In the second episode of her new Netflix show, With Love, Meghan, the 43-year-old could be seen chatting away about fast food with actress Mindy Kaling, who remarked: “People wouldn’t believe that Meghan Markle ate at Jack in the Box.”

Gently correcting The Office US star, Meghan revealed: “It’s so funny, too, that you keep saying Meghan Markle. You know I’m Sussex now. You have kids, and you go, ‘no I share my name with my children’…I didn’t know how meaningful it would be to me, but it just means so much to go ‘this is our family name, our little family name

Many fans struggled to get their heads around the idea of ‘Meghan Sussex’, and this includes dad Thomas, whose relationship with his famous daughter has been strained since around the time of her May 2018 wedding.

Whilst her relationship with her dad is strained, Meghan spoke fondly about her grandmother in her new show ( 
Image:
Netflix)
In the show, Meghan fondly recalls memories of her grandmother making apple butter and her wish to continue this sweet preserve-making tradition for her own children. Meghan shared: “I think my kids will now connect this to coming home from school and smelling sweetness that wafts through the house when you are slow-cooking fruit.”

However, 80-year-old Thomas believes that Meghan’s grandmother Doris, who passed away in 2011 at the age of 91, would be “disappointed” to learn of Meghan’s name change.

Thomas told the Mail Online: “My mum loved Meghan very much but she would be so disappointed to hear that Meghan no longer wants to use the name ‘Markle’. My mother was proud to be a Markle. So am I. Meghan never had a problem with the Markle name until she met Prince Harry.” He then sarcastically quipped: “Now I have to say, ‘I am Meghan Sussex’s dad.”’

Thomas has hit back at Meghan’s claim that she was a ‘latchkey kid’ ( 
Image:
Netflix)
Retired lighting director Thomas also took issue with Meghan’s claim that she was a “latchkey kid” who “grew up with a lot of fast food and also a lot of TV tray dinners”. He argued: “Like any single father who did a long day’s work, I’d occasionally put a TV dinner in the microwave. But most of the time we’d go out.

“After school, I would either pick her up myself and we’d go out to eat, or I’d send a car to bring her to the set. She grew up on the sets I worked on. She was never a latchkey kid.

“We lived in a great area, which was packed with restaurants. We ate out all the time. At weekends when I wasn’t working I’d take her to a dance class and then invite her and all her friends out for a meal.”

As detailed in the Netflix doc Harry & Meghan, Thomas’ continued interviews with the press, including staged paparazzi photos of him preparing for the Royal wedding, causing the Duchess great distress. In 2019, excerpts of a letter Meghan wrote to Thomas begging him to stop was published in People magazine.

Thomas has never met his young grandchildren, Prince Archie, five, and Princess Lilibet, three.