Meghan Markle Will Receive a Front-Page Apology From British Tabloids
After Meghan Markle won her privacy claim against Associated Newspapers Limited, the publisher of British tabloids The Mail on Sunday and MailOnline, she scored yet another win from the High Court.
On March 5, a judge ruled that Associated Newspapers must print a front-page apology from both tabloids after publishing a private letter to her father, Thomas Markle. This comes after the same judge, Mr. Justice Warby, determined bac in February that AN infringed on Markle’s privacy as well as her copyright.
According to legal papers obtained by People, both tabloids have been ordered to print a statement that “The Duchess of Sussex wins her legal case for copyright infringement against Associated Newspapers for articles published in The Mail on Sunday and posted on Mail Online – see page 3,” followed by a larger “notice” within the newspaper that the court found “Associated Newspapers infringed her (Meghan’s) copyright by publishing extracts of her handwritten letter to her father in The Mail on Sunday and in Mail Online.”
Not only will these statements appear on the front page of The Mail on Sunday, but they must remain on the Mail Online home page for a period of one week and include a hyperlink to the full ruling.
On Tuesday, March 2, the judge also ruled that Associated News must pay 90% of Markle’s legal expenses, starting with an “interim payment” of $625,000.
Last month, Meghan Markle released a personal statement about her legal victory. “After two long years of pursuing litigation, I am grateful to the courts for holding Associated Newspapers and The Mail on Sunday to account for their illegal and dehumanizing practices,” she said in the statement. “These tactics (and those of their sister publications MailOnline and the Daily Mail) are not new; in fact, they’ve been going on for far too long without consequence. For these outlets, it’s a game. For me and so many others, it’s real life, real relationships, and very real sadness. The damage they have done and continue to do runs deep.”
