When Samantha Markle heard the news in October 2016 that her half-sister Meghan was the mystery woman who had been secretly dating a British prince she did not have a typical reaction.

Instead of being happy and celebrating that her sibling had caught herself a catch and that she could soon become a wildly wealthy duchess, Samantha was sour.

And her feelings seemed to burst out when, just two days after the relationship news broke, she appeared on the front page of The Sun with the glaring headline: ‘Don’t fall for my little sis, Harry, she’d be the next PRINCESS PUSHY.’

It was just the beginning of what would be an onslaught of bad press for the future duchess from her now estranged sister.

Samantha became prolific in the news and would do interviews for programmes such as Good Morning Britain to criticise her younger sister, labelling her ‘shallow’ and a ‘social climber’.

Tensions reached an all-time-high after she decided to take Meghan to court after she alleged she had been defamed by her in her tell-all interview with Oprah in 2021.

She challenged Meghan’s claims that she ‘grew up as an only child’ and didn’t have much of a relationship with her sibling – saying it hurt the sales of her self-published book, The Diary Of Princess Pushy’s Sister Part 1.

Samantha also claims she was ‘forced to move residences, retract from public outings’ and ‘faced realistic death threats’ as a result of the royal’s Netflix documentary, according to a court filing.

+22
View gallery

Meghan Markle, now 43, and her half-sister Samantha Markle, now 60, pictured together at Samantha’s graduation in 2008

+22
View gallery

Samantha is the first of two children from Thomas Markle’s first marriage, before he married Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland

Meghan and Harry’s excitement at Pippa’s wedding was short-lived

208.2k viewing now

Last pictures of Liam Payne that raise troubling question

157.3k viewing now

Duchess of Sussex’s half sister Samantha Markle speaks out

59.9k viewing now

She was seeking $75,000 in damages for the alleged defamation but lost the case. However, she has refused to give up the long-running feud, and her lawyer appealed the ruling in April.

But Meghan is not the only close family member Samantha has a difficult relationship with.

Both of her daughters, Ashleigh Hale, 39, and Noel Rasmussen, 25, have previously spoken to the press claiming they have no contact with their mother.

Her third child, a son called Christopher, 38, was raised alongside Ashleigh by their paternal grandparents who later adopted them.

Ashleigh featured in Harry and Meghan’s Netflix documentary to say she doesn’t speak to Samantha after being raised by her grandparents from the age of six.

Meanwhile Noel spoke out against Samantha’s constant sniping against Meghan in the lead-up to the Royal wedding in 2018.

She said she was ’embarrassed’ by the way her mother and other relatives had treated Meghan since the news of the engagement broke.

The fraught family relationships mean Samantha, who turns 60 today, will be spending her birthday in isolation.

Samantha was 17 when her father Thomas, and her new stepmother, Doria Ragland, brought another member of the Markle clan into the world – Meghan.

+22
View gallery

Samantha has claimed Meghan defamed her in her 2021 Oprah Winfrey interview (pictured) and her 2022 Netflix series

+22
View gallery

Meghan is estranged from the majority of her father Thomas’s side of the family, including her dad (in blue) and her other uncle Fred (checked shirt)

It was 1981 and, although Samantha and her brother Thomas Jr came from their father’s previous marriage which ended in divorce in the early 1970s, the blended family were all now living under the same roof in Santa Monica.

But what followed was not domestic bliss. It has been claimed that Thomas Markle was so besotted with gorgeous Meghan that his other daughter quickly became an afterthought.

The arrival of Meghan caused the awkward teenager to feel even more displaced and unattractive, describing her own appearance as like a ‘pear on stilts’, according to royal expert Tina Brown.

And despite Meghan’s parents breaking up when she was two, Samantha continued to see her half-sister over the years.

The resentment only grew when Thomas sent Meghan to a series of elite private schools – allowing her to be the first Markle to get into college.

To make matters worse, after the failure of her own attempt at acting, Samantha was then forced to watch as Meghan’s career took off, while she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2008 and ended up in a wheelchair.

Brown, author of the bestselling royal book The Palace Papers, who had lunch with Princess Diana two months before her death in 1997, wrote that the jealousy inside Samantha had ‘curdled’.

And it seems time has not healed the wound, as despite Samantha saying she last saw Meghan in 2008 when the now Duchess of Sussex flew to see her graduate at the age of 44, Samantha remains bitter.

+22
View gallery

Samantha Markle (pictured in 2017) sued for damages in excess of $75,000 for defamation – and is appealing a court decision that dismissed the claim