‘I know her smile. I don’t like the one I’m seeing now.’
Meghan Markle and her father Thomas Markle’s relationship is a complicated one, becoming public after he pulled out of walking her down the aisle just days before the royal wedding to Prince Harry.
But it wasn’t just his heart condition that stopped him from walking his daughter down the aisle, with the 73-year-old reportedly left embarrassed after featuring on Good Morning Britain and selling his story to TMZ.
Since the wedding fiasco, Thomas Markle has spoken out about how he feels shunned by the royal family, voicing his sadness this month that the Queen is meeting Donald Trump before meeting him - something she did over the weekend.
This week Thomas Markle has spoken up again, this time expressing his concern for his daughter’s wellbeing to The Sun on Sunday.
‘My thing about my daughter right now is that I think she is terrified,’ the 73-year-old explained. ‘I see it in her eyes, I see it in her face and I see it in her smile.’
He continued: ‘I’ve seen her smile for years. I know her smile. I don’t like the one I’m seeing now. This one isn’t even a stage smile — this is a pained smile.’
‘I think she's under too much pressure,’ he went on to explain. ‘There's a high price to pay to be married to that family.’
Speaking of his reasons for interviewing with Good Morning Britain, Markle explained, ‘I thought that would be a nice way of improving my look. Well obviously that all went to hell.’
He continued: ‘Anyone who makes a profit off the royal family becomes shunned. The royal family is living by rules that are outdated. Half of Great Britain seems to make a fortune selling pictures of my daughter and her husband. Are they shunned?’
Concluding the interview, Thomas went on to deliver a message to his daughter:
‘My message [to her] would be, “I love you, I miss you, I'm sorry for anything that went wrong,”’ he explained. ‘And I want to be her [future] child's grandfather and I want to be near them. I want to be a part of their life. I'd like to put our differences behind us and get together. I miss you very much.’
He continued: ‘I don't care whether she's pissed off at me - I want to see her. I just want to have a father-daughter relationship. I took care of my mother the last five years of her life. My daughter said to me she would take care of me in my declining years. I'm not talking about money — I'm talking about taking care of me. That's important to me.’
‘All I am doing is setting the record straight and reaching out to my daughter.’
Kensington Palace are yet to respond.
