The Royalist

Tom Sykes is joined by royal editor Robert Jobson to unpack the explosive Thomas Markle scandal and its implications for Meghan and Harry. Is Meghan using this disturbing family story to portray herself as the victim of a media campaign? Tom and Robert examine the mysterious letter, the disputed timeline, the Sussexes’ media strategy, and whether King Charles should finally make a definitive break with the couple. Plus, in Royal News Update, Tom looks at Prince Harry’s plans for Remembrance Sunday and whether he can avoid another royal PR storm. And in Tea with Tom, NewsNation’s Paula Froelich ( @PaulaFroelich  , https://thescoopwithpaulafroelich.substack.com/) joins Tom to dish on King Charles’ Caribbean tour, his dancing and rum-drinking, and the growing controversy over slavery reparations and the King's refusal to apologize. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

YES FOLKS BOWER IS BACK ON THE ROYALIST!!!! Tom Bower, the author of BETRAYAL and REVENGE and the most feared investigative biographer in Britain, has said nothing about the Thomas Markle story. UNTIL NOW. Join us this evening for a VERY SPECIAL LIVE SHOW, his FIRST since the news broke that Meghan’s father is under investigation over allegations he possessed child sexual abuse material, that his own son turned him in, and that the Markle family has split down the middle over it. Today he breaks his silence, live and exclusively on The Royalist, a man who has spent decades taking apart the powerful, and it is exactly why I wanted him on the show rather than another talking head with a hot take. Bower knows the Markles better than any journalist alive. He has investigated them, and he has watched their stories shift for years. He is the right person to ask the questions that matter: what do we actually know, what is being claimed, who is saying it, and what should we make of the fact that different members of the same family are telling completely different versions of events? We will go through the timeline from the beginning. We will look at what Thomas Markle Sr. has said, what Thomas Jr. has said, what Samantha has said and we will talk about what has to happen next. And we will get to the question everyone is really asking, how bad is this for Meghan? This is a live conversation, so MEMBERS PLEASE bring your questions, and I will put as many MEMBER'S QUESTIONS to Tom as I can. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When the news broke last week that Thomas Markle had been accused of hoarding a stash of child sex abuse material, a certain kind of comment piece went round the, ahem, progressive end of the media almost instantly. The headlines were all variations on the same theme: how long before Meghan’s father allegedly hoarding pedophile material turned out to be "Meghan’s fault?" Not long, was the implication, if the wicked tabloids had anything to do with it. A week on, there is an alternative spin on offer, and it is coming from the Sussexes’ new house magazine, The Telegraph, and what it looks very much like, to my eye, is Meghan’s side trying to lump at least some of the blame for what happened to that letter onto William and Catherine. The same double standard runs through everything. In February 2020 they announced that by giving up public funds they had removed the “supposed ‘public interest’ justification for media intrusion.” In September this year their office issued a media advisory headed “PRINCE HARRY, DUKE OF SUSSEX SEPTEMBER PUBLIC ENGAGEMENTS,” and their friends briefed that they are public figures, not private citizens. They are whichever suits the day. And so it is with the letter: private when it protects her, public when it convicts the press, and now, apparently, a matter for the wider royal household when the question turns to who sat on it. I find the choice of vehicle fascinating. This is The Telegraph that last week fired around 100 staff as its new owner, Axel Springer (which bought the paper in June for £575 million), announced its intention to turn it into a “global, AI-powered premium media and intelligence business.” I called that a Slopbait factory in a Substack Note last night, and I stand by the coinage (neologisms are what Substack is for). Any tidbit about Harry and Meghan drives traffic, and what we appear to be watching is a paper abandoning basic journalistic principles and taking what it is fed on trust from a team that has been shown, again and again, to be highly manipulative and to say things that are not true when it suits them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

First, the Metropolitan Police has referred itself to the police watchdog, the Independent Office for Police Conduct, over its handling of the January 2019 letter in which Thomas Markle’s first wife, Roslyn Loveless, accused him of child sex offenses. That is the Met admitting, in its own words, that it got this wrong. Not in a lost-the-paperwork way (although it did lose the paperwork, we’ll come to that). Wrong in two specific decisions that the watchdog is now going to investigate. Second, and this is the one that should be setting off alarms at Buckingham Palace: Richard Eden in the Daily Mail reports today that there is growing concern inside the Palace about what the Met’s review is going to uncover, and that a royal source has told him it is “unthinkable” the Royal Household was not told about that letter at the time. The source’s argument is simple. Harry and Meghan would not have been handed something like this on their own. The police had a duty to inform the Palace, and the source says they will have done so. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Please remember to like and subscribe! Check out my Substack: https://theroyalist.substack.com/ Check out my new book - The Dukes / Dukes of Hazard - here!: United States: https://a.co/d/0gmvpeQz Australia: https://amzn.asia/d/01Y4mpkj UK: https://amzn.eu/d/01mSqQKa And come to the launch party!: Ireland https://luma.com/8mthatr8 NYC https://luma.com/zlval2ce London https://luma.com/kj60msvh Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Either Meghan believed in 2019 that her father was a pedophile, in which case she lied to Oprah about what was really tormenting her, or she didn’t, in which case last week’s statement was pure opportunism. There is no third option. In this video I lay out why the Sussexes’ handling of the Thomas Markle allegations (which he denies, and which are a matter for the courts) has turned whatever sympathy initially flowed Meghan’s way into something close to disgust. The whole story hinges on a letter, allegedly sent to the Metropolitan Police in January 2019 by Thomas Markle’s first wife, Roslyn Loveless, accusing him of traveling to the Philippines for sex with children. A copy, we are told, reached Harry and Meghan via their bodyguards. Meghan now says that letter is the one reason she cut off her father and kept him away from Archie and Lili. Yet the police lost it, had to ask the Sussexes for a copy, and then dated it to 2019 rather than 2018, at which point Meghan’s much-vaunted record keeping fell apart and her spokesman had to correct her. So why did nobody follow up? Meghan had five police officers around her for another year. She allowed friends to tell People magazine, a month after the letter supposedly arrived, that she had written to her father: “I love you. I have one father. Please stop victimizing me through the media.” Harry praised Thomas in Spare. Her lawyers blamed the tabloids for the estrangement. Everybody’s actions suggest neither the Met nor Meghan found the letter credible. And if she did believe it? Then she sat opposite Oprah and blamed her suicidal ideation on racist press coverage and a heartless royal family (the bridesmaids’ dresses, the lip gloss, the sofa) while saying nothing about a father she was convinced was an abuser. That narrative built a global brand. A pedophile father would have destroyed it. Meanwhile Meghan has launched a $550 As Ever “Library basket,” signed up for MasterChef Australia, and let staff brief that she has fled the UK in tears. The public verdict is in, and it is grim. In Spare, Harry raged at William for urging him to take his time getting to know “this girl.” If only he had. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The latest allegations surrounding Thomas Markle, Meghan Markle’s estranged father, are raising new questions about one of the royal family’s most publicized family feuds. On this episode of The Royalist, Tom Sykes examines the disputed claims, a letter from 2019, and the complicated circumstances surrounding Meghan’s estrangement from her father. Could this overlooked chapter change how we understand Meghan’s account of the family feud—and the events that shaped her relationship with the royal family? Plus, Tom sits down with Paula Froelich ( @PaulaFroelich  , https://thescoopwithpaulafroelich.substack.com/) to discuss Prince William’s appearance on The Graham Norton Show and why the Prince of Wales made such a strong impression. Follow Tom Sykes on Substack: https://theroyalist.substack.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Metropolitan Police, the force charged with protecting the royal family, has had to go cap in hand to Meghan Markle and ask whether she still had a copy of a letter it was sent in 2019, because it had lost its own. That letter, according to The Times and The Telegraph, was written by Roslyn Loveless, the late ex-wife of Thomas Markle Sr. and the mother of Samantha Markle and Thomas Markle Jr. In January 2019 it was sent to the Fixated Threat Assessment Centre, the specialist Scotland Yard unit that assesses risks to the royals, and it contained serious allegations of child sexual offences against Meghan’s father, along with a warning that he could pose a security risk to Meghan, Prince Harry and Doria Ragland. What did the Met do with it? By its own admission, following a review of its systems and records, it decided simply to hand it on to the Sussexes’ office. No referral to other agencies at home or abroad. And then, it appears, the original went missing. Meghan says she was assured at the time that the allegations were being investigated and was told not to discuss them. She has not spoken to her father since. For seven years she has been portrayed as the daughter who coldly cut off a sick old man; it now appears she was sitting on a police warning she had been instructed to keep to herself. The story has resurfaced because Thomas Markle Jr. says he found child abuse images at his father’s home in the Philippines earlier this year and reported him to Philippine police and the FBI. Philippine authorities have confirmed an investigation, and the FBI’s Tampa office is said to have joined it. Thomas Markle Sr. has not been charged with any offence. In this video I go through what the Met knew, what it did (and did not do), why Meghan is reportedly upset and frustrated, and what this does to the narrative of the Markle family feud that has dominated royal coverage since 2018. The Royalist keeps you up to date on all the latest royal news. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Thomas Markle story has taken its darkest turn yet. The Sun reports that Meghan’s estranged father is under investigation over claims he kept child sexual abuse images at his former home in the Philippines, allegations he flatly denies (he told the Daily Mail they are “sick lies”). The claim is said to have come from his own son, Thomas Markle Jnr, who alleges he found the material at the house his father left after moving there in 2025 following a series of strokes. Now the Duchess of Sussex has broken her silence, and her statement is extraordinary. Meghan says she is “deeply distressed” by what has emerged, but the real bombshell concerns 2018. According to Meghan, a letter was sent that year to the Metropolitan Police and to Royalty and Specialist Protection (the unit that guards the royal family) containing “troubling and disturbing allegations” against her father. That letter was later shared with her, and she says she was assured the claims were being investigated. It is understood she received it in the summer of 2018, in the months after her wedding to Prince Harry that May. That timeline matters. For eight years Meghan’s refusal to speak to her father, and her decision to keep him away from Archie and Lilibet, has been painted as cold, calculating, even cruel. Today she says there was only ever one reason: to protect her children. In this video I go through exactly what Meghan has said, what Thomas Markle has said in his own defence, and the questions this raises for the police, for royal protection officers, and for the palace. What was known in 2018, who knew it, and what, if anything, was done about it? Thomas Markle is now reportedly in a rehabilitation centre in Florida after having his left leg amputated last year. Meghan wrote to him in December after he said he did not want to die estranged from his daughter. Any hope of reconciliation now looks a very long way off. These remain allegations under investigation, not findings, and Thomas Markle denies them in the strongest terms. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Emergency live. The Sun reports tonight that Thomas Markle Sr., the Duchess of Sussex’s estranged father, is under investigation by police in the Philippines over an alleged hoard of child sex abuse images, and that the person who reported him is his own son. Thomas Markle Jr., Meghan’s half-brother and until this week his father’s carer and most loyal defender, has lodged a sworn statement with specialist child abuse officers in Cebu. The Sun’s Nick Parker was with him as he did it. Thomas Jr. says he found “hundreds, if not thousands” of abuse images and videos in four boxes of his father’s belongings, left behind when Thomas Sr. was flown back to the United States in May after losing his leg. Old phones. Three hard drives. Photography books. Film negatives. He says he reported it to the FBI in July, heard nothing, and went back to the boxes himself. The Sun says a task force has been appointed, the boxes are going for forensic examination, and an FBI agent has asked for the Philippine investigators’ details. The police declined to comment. No charges have been brought. Thomas Sr., now in a Florida nursing home being looked after by Samantha, has not responded. And a source close to Meghan has already told The Sun: “Now maybe people will finally understand why she has had nothing to do with her father since 2018.” That quote needs explaining, because nothing in this story suggests Meghan knew anything about what her brother says he found. Which brings me to the part I think matters most. This whole story rests on the word of one Markle about another. Thomas Jr. has a gun arrest, a drunk-driving arrest, a father who once said he “has a serious problem,” a sister who said “he always drank,” and a YouTube rant from last December in which he encouraged people to throw excrement at Meghan. Thomas Sr. has admitted lying on television. Samantha sued her sister and lost. All three have spent eight years monetizing Meghan. None of that makes the allegation untrue. A sworn statement cannot be deleted in the morning, and if those boxes contain what he says they contain, the forensics will prove it. But tonight, nobody outside the Markle family has looked in them. Full write-up in tomorrow morning’s newsletter. Tell me what you make of it in the comments. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The law firm at the heart of Prince Harry’s war on the British tabloids has gone bust. Thomson Heath Jenkins & Associates (the boutique London practice that acted for Harry, Sir Elton John, David Furnish, Elizabeth Hurley, Sadie Frost, Baroness Doreen Lawrence and Sir Simon Hughes in their failed privacy claim against Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail) has reportedly shut its doors and called in insolvency practitioners. According to the Telegraph, the collapse came as a shock to staff. Just a week ago, the firm was still boasting on its website about its rankings in the Chambers & Partners 2027 guide. This was no bit-part player. Founded in 2009 by Cambridge graduate Mark Thomson, the firm built its reputation on phone hacking litigation and helped prove the generic case against Mirror Group Newspapers. Seven of its solicitors worked on the case against the Mail. But in July, after an eleven-week trial, Mr Justice Nicklin threw out every single one of the claimants’ allegations, ruling that suspicion is not proof. Harry and his co-claimants were then ordered to pay £9.5 million as a first instalment towards Associated’s legal costs, with the total bill for both sides estimated at £40 to £50 million. So where does this leave Harry? The claimants are pursuing an appeal, and they must now do so without the firm that ran their case, while staring down a potential multimillion-pound costs liability should they lose again. It is hard to imagine a more humiliating coda to what Harry called his “mission” to reform the British press. In this video, I explain what we know about the firm’s collapse, what it means for Harry’s appeal and his finances, and why the Duke’s long crusade against the tabloids is proving so ruinously expensive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I have just spent the entire day in Aberfan. I stood in the crowd, as a member of the public, in the freezing cold, for hours. I shook hands with the King, the Queen and Prince William, one after the other. And I talked to the people who were there, listened to them and watched them. This video is what I saw. Sixty years ago today a colliery spoil tip slid down the mountain and buried Pantglas Junior School. 144 people died, 116 of them children, killed at their desks in the first minutes of the school day. Today the King, the Queen and the Prince of Wales laid their tributes in the memorial garden on the site of the school, stood in silence beside Mair Morgan, the last surviving teacher, met the survivors and the bereaved families, and then walked a line of easily a thousand people and shook hands with every single one of them. Bottom line: they absolutely aced it. A textbook royal performance. I’ll introduce you to Bonita Smith, whose father Robert was one of the first firemen digging in the slurry that morning, and who stopped the King and told him her dad’s story. That is what the monarchy is, at its best. I’ll explain why being in the cheap seats with the public beats the royal rota every time. And I’ll tell you honestly how the King looks in person, because you’d want me to. Then the bigger picture. Minutes after the Sultan of Oman’s state visit got underway on Tuesday, Harry’s GQ interview dropped, with the Duke complaining that “some people don’t want it to work out.” Everybody heard “some people” and thought William. That same evening, at the Windsor banquet, Charles stood up in front of 160 guests and talked about his son and “our successors.” Today, father and son stood at the memorial together. The line runs from Charles to William, full stop. It was deliberate, and we need to see a lot more of it (and some much tougher language about Harry). Finally, the anger. Not at the royals, but at the institutions: the Coal Board that was warned and did nothing, nobody sacked or prosecuted, the money taken from the disaster fund, and 2,589 disused coal tips still sitting above Welsh villages sixty years on. The royal family is the last institution these people still have faith in. That is exactly why what Harry is doing is so dangerous. Full write-up, with all my pictures and video, in tomorrow morning’s free Substack newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

#ad Make laundry day the best day of the week! Get 20% off your entire order @LaundrySauce with code ROYALIST at https://laundrysauce.com/ROYALIST  #laundrysaucepod On this episode of The Royalist, Tom Sykes is joined by Paula Froelich ( @PaulaFroelich  , https://thescoopwithpaulafroelich.substack.com/) and investigative biographer Tom Bower for a revealing discussion of Prince Harry, Meghan Markle and the latest royal drama. Did Queen Camilla see trouble brewing from the beginning? Tom Bower revisits the explosive claim that Harry was “brainwashed” and examines the Sussexes’ ambitions, their relationship with the Royal Family and the challenges facing King Charles. Plus, Paula Froelich weighs in on Meghan’s Netflix projects, With Love, Meghan, and the latest twists in her Hollywood ambitions. From the Sussexes’ royal status to the future of the monarchy, this episode unpacks the stories making headlines in the world of royal news. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tom was joined by writer and podcaster Molly Mulshine to discuss Harry's astonishing interview with GQ. Prince Harry has said he wants to reconcile with his brother, but suggested WILLIAM is to blame for their ongoing estrangement! That's the big line from a new interview with GQ, published today as part of the magazine's One More Question series. It dropped just as King Charles was hosting a state visit for the Sultan of Oman. Asked whether he grieves his "complicated relationship" with Prince William and his father, Harry says: "Yes, of course." He calls family estrangement "another massively relatable issue for so many people," and then says: "Some people don't want it to work out. I want it to work out." Asked whether he really does, he insists: "Of course I do. Again, with everything else that's going on in the world, the most important thing is to reconcile. That's the key point." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The cheering crowds in Nottingham were not what they seemed. I was on the ground for Harry and Meghan's charity visit on Thursday, and I can tell you the crowds were coached to cheer for Meghan. The walkabout at the first engagement, at the Community Recording Studio, was more or less fake. Everyone taking part had been invited. Children were brought in from the neighboring school, young adults were brought in from the local Mencap, and the cameras were positioned to make the scene look busy. My own footage shows the rest of the street was entirely empty. I counted perhaps half a dozen genuine passers-by. At the Himmah Hub, people stopped because they saw cameras, not because they had come for the couple. By Epic Partners it was complete chaos, ending with a teacher from the school next door begging the crowd to part so the children could get out of the building. And the day ended, as I exclusively revealed, with the couple leaving their final event 15 minutes early to collect their own children from school. Why stage-manage a crowd? Because the Sussexes are desperate to be seen as royals. Days later, a conveniently placed "friend" (whom anyone on this beat will recognize as their press office) told the Sunday Times that Harry and Meghan hate being called anything other than members of the royal family. That is a direct rejection of the King's ruling, sent by the Lord Chamberlain, Lord Benyon, that their position is "akin to private citizens with commercial and charitable interests." In this video I explain why a manufactured royal welcome is so dangerous for the monarchy, why the Palace is in a state of dismay and has no idea what to do, and why the couple's camp says they might do "one or two more things together" before the end of the year. My bet is Remembrance. I also explain why Nottingham proves they can never be given police security: outriders at events like these would make them look exactly like members of the royal family again. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Duncan joins me to discuss Meghan's latest headache, which has her fans and her critics reading the same story two very different ways. Supporters see a working mom juggling job and family. Critics see fresh proof that the half-in, half-out model the Sussexes are trying to make work simply doesn't. So which is it? Tom Sykes breaks down what really happened, what it tells us about how the Sussex operation is run, and why this one will be hard to shrug off. Subscribe to The Royalist for daily analysis of the British royal family, from the only royal journalist who has been on the beat since Diana's funeral. Read more and join the conversation at The Royalist on Substack. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

"It's unforgivable." A friend of the Sussexes has told Hello! magazine that Harry and Meghan never agreed to the Sandringham settlement the late Queen hammered out in January 2020, and do not consider themselves bound by it. "They never agreed they wouldn't be half in half out," the friend said. "That was what was decided and foisted upon them." "Half in, half out" was the very thing Queen Elizabeth II ruled out at Sandringham. It was the central tenet of Megxit, and the basis on which the entire post-Megxit structure was built (the HRHs held in abeyance, the loss of the military appointments, the end of public funding). Six years on, the Sussexes' position is that none of it counts. Tom Sykes reports on why the statement has gone down so badly with friends of the late Queen and the King. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Harry and Meghan are back in Nottingham, and The Royalist has been there all day - and is going live with FOUR special guests to bring you every twist and turn. This is Meghan's first public appearance in Britain since the Sussexes left Montecito and moved back to the UK in August. Harry has been out and about on his own, with Invictus and the WellChild Awards, but today is the first time the couple have stepped out together on British soil in six years. And they chose the location very carefully. Nottingham is where, in December 2017, just days after announcing their engagement, they did their first walkabout as a couple, to a sea of camera phones and chants of "Harry! Meghan!" Nearly nine years on, the itinerary looks remarkably familiar: the Community Recording Studio in St Ann's, the Hubb Community Kitchen (born out of the Grenfell tragedy) and the youth charity Epic Partners. It looks, sounds and feels exactly like a royal engagement. There is just one problem. It isn't one. Only last month, the King had the Lord Chamberlain write to senior officials making it clear that the Sussexes are not working royals and should be treated as private citizens. Their office declared itself "surprised". Today's outing, with all the trappings of a royal tour, looks very much like their reply. So is this an olive branch, or a rival court setting up shop on the King's doorstep? With their security still unresolved and Christmas at Sandringham already off the table, what does it mean for relations with Charles, William and Catherine? And, belieev it or not, CHARLES was the one who got booed today. I've got a brilliant line-up to pick it all apart with me. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tom was live in Nottingham. Listen here to hear the full scoop! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to The Royalist. Today I am delighted to welcome back a friend of the show, the Daily Mail’s Editor at Large, Alison Boshoff. Alison has done something nobody else seems to have bothered to do: she has actually done the math on Meghan’s big charity gesture. Last week, after a “private” tea at Claridge’s that somehow ended up all over Instagram, Meghan announced that 100 percent of net proceeds from a day’s sales of As Ever jams and teas would go to Malala Yousafzai’s Malala Fund, in honor of International Day of the Girl. “Tea for Two has never felt so good,” she told her 4.9 million followers. So how much did the Malala Fund actually get? Meghan’s office won’t say. But Alison has gone back to the only hard sales data that has ever leaked out of As Ever (a website glitch in January that briefly exposed how many units were selling), and the answer looks distinctly modest. Even assuming a wildly generous 50 percent margin, a day’s jam and tea proceeds come to roughly $2,500 (about £1,900). That is less than the outfit she wore to tea. The wide white Ralph Lauren trousers alone cost $2,247, and the cashmere sweater another $832. To be fair, a source close to Meghan says any figure is speculative and argues the real value lies in the attention the gesture brings, encouraging others to give. But is there a gap between the size of the fanfare and the size of the check? And who really benefits most from these one-off acts of charity? We also get into what those January figures reveal about As Ever more broadly (not a single bottle of the $89 Napa Valley Brut sold in a day, with the $42 jam trio the best-seller), Meghan’s plans to start shipping to the UK, talk in California that the brand is a minnow in decline, and the suggestion (dismissed by Team Sussex) that money worries lay behind the move back to Britain. If not jam, then what? Acting, reality TV, Harry’s speaking circuit? Alison has her ear to the ground like nobody else. Don’t miss it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices