Meghan has struggled to contact her father after his life-saving surgery because she has lost his phone number and he has stopped using his email address, it is claimed.
Sources close to the Duchess of Sussex insisted she contacted Thomas Markle by email on Friday, but that she no longer had his phone number after several years of estrangement.
In an interview with the Mail on Sunday, Markle, 81, said doctors had amputated his leg to save his life after a major blood clot in his foot threatened to give him sepsis.
He said his daughter had not called him or his hospital in the Philippines, begging her to see him “one more time before I die”.
A source close to the Sussexes said she had tried to get in touch, including emailing him on Friday morning and contacting the newspaper to ask for an up-to-date contact.
The source said: “The Mail made no attempt to contact the duchess’s team prior to publication to verify the claims in their report.
• Meghan emails her gravely ill father Thomas Markle in hospital
“Had they asked, particularly in light of the quotes they relied upon from Mr Markle and hospital staff, we would simply have told them to ask Mr Markle to check his email.
“We first saw the story only after it was published. We immediately informed the Mail that the duchess had in fact emailed her father, a detail we had deliberately chosen not to share in order to avoid further dragging this private matter into the public eye.”
Meghan’s husband, Prince Harry, has not met her father but asked for her hand in marriage over the phone
KEITH BIRMINGHAM/MEDIANEWS GROUP/PASADENA STAR/GETTY IMAGES
It was claimed that the email was sent to an address he had not used for five years but sources said it appeared to have been delivered and the duchess received no bounceback.
Markle said he was “confused” by reports that Meghan, 44, had tried to contact him, as his phone had no messages and the hospital had also received no contact. He said he had never changed his number because he “always wanted Meg to be able to call me”.
It is understood Meghan does not know what hospital her father is in and no longer is in possession of his phone number, which has either been lost or deleted. She remains reticent about speaking to him owing to fears their conversation would not remain private.
Markle told the Mail that he “would love to speak to her”.
“Of course I want to speak to her but I am not sure if these are the right circumstances,” he said. “I’ve always said I am open to reconciling with my daughter. I have never stopped loving her. I don’t want to die estranged from Meghan. I want to meet my grandkids. It might be nice to meet her husband, too.”
Meghan with her father and relatives
ENTERPRISE NEWS AND PICTURES
Markle underwent emergency surgery to remove his left leg, preventing an infection in his foot, caused by a 14-inch blood clot, spreading to his body. His foot was black-blue and swollen to twice its normal size.
One of his doctors said, with Markle’s permission, that the surgery was a matter of “life or death”.
“We had to remove the foot. There was a massive blood clot in his thigh and that had stopped circulation to his foot and lower leg,” the surgeon told the Mail. “It was life-or-death surgery. Had the infection in the foot moved to his heart, it would most likely have been fatal. He is doing well but he is not out of the woods yet.”
The Times has been unable to independently verify his condition and no hospitals in Cebu have confirmed he is a patient, although due to patient confidentiality, this is not unusual.
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In recent days Meghan has continued promoting the Christmas special of her Netflix show, With Love, Meghan, in which she talks about a Christmas tree encapsulating a “family’s story”.
In a video posted to her 4.2 million followers on Instagram she is seen making a homemade advert calendar for the children and saying “thank you so … honestly so, so much” to the television crew.
Her brand, As Ever, has been been posting on Instagram advertising her range of goods, which includes champagne, high-end honey, chocolate and her now-famous jam.
Markle is yet to meet his grandchildren, Lilibet, aged four, and Archie, six, or his son-in-law, Prince Harry, although he did receive a call asking for his daughter’s hand in marriage.
Markle and his daughter have been estranged since the run-up to her wedding to Harry, 41, in 2018.
Harry and Meghan married in May 2018
BEN STANSALL/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Her father had been due to walk her down the aisle at St George’s Chapel in Windsor but strained relations and two heart attacks led him to pull out, citing ill health.
Relations became strained after it emerged that he had staged pictures with a paparazzi photographer. In his absence Charles, Prince of Wales, gave Meghan away.
This year Markle moved from his home in Mexico to the Philippines. He now lives with his son, Thomas Markle Jr, 59, who has urged his half-sister to contact their father.
DMG Media, which owns the Mail on Sunday, said: “Mr Markle does not have an active email address but his phone number, which the duchess has previously used for him, remains unchanged. Any suggestion we have ‘puppeteered’ Mr Markle is entirely false and strongly denied.”