In a letter reportedly written in the months after her wedding, an anguished Meghan, Duchess of Sussex begs her father, Thomas Markle, to "stop lying and creating so much pain" and says his actions have broken her heart into "a million pieces."
The deeply personal letter was published in part by Britain's Mail on Sunday over the weekend. NBC News has not independently confirmed that the handwritten letter is from the duchess. Kensington Palace issued a "no comment," but a royal source told NBC News that the palace "won't deny" that the letter is genuine.
According to the Mail, Meghan sent the letter to her dad about three months after her wedding to Prince Harry, a ceremony Thomas Markle did not attend amid a controversy over staged paparazzi photos. Harry's father, Prince Charles, stepped in to walk Meghan down the aisle in her father's absence.
"Your actions have broken my heart into a million pieces not simply because you have manufactured such unnecessary and unwarranted pain, but by making the choice to not tell the truth as you are puppeteered in this. Something I will never understand," the letter read.
Thomas Markle, 74, announced after the photo controversy that he was recovering from heart surgery in California and couldn't attend the wedding.
"So the week of the wedding to hear about you having a heart attack through a tabloid was horrifying. I called and texted…I begged you to accept help — we sent someone to your home…and instead of speaking to me to accept this or any help, you stopped answering your phone and chose to only speak to tabloids,'' the letter read.
Meghan, 37, also allegedly disputed her father's claim to the Mail in July that she changed her phone number and won't answer his messages.
"You haven't reached out to me since the week of our wedding, and while you claim you have no way of contacting me, my phone number has remained the same," the letter said.
"If you love me, as you tell the press you do, please stop,'' it continued.
"Please allow us to live our lives in peace. Please stop lying, please stop creating so much pain, please stop exploiting my relationship with my husband. I realize you are so far down this rabbit hole that you feel (or may feel) there's no way out, but if you take a moment to pause I think you'll see that being able to live with a clear conscience is more valuable than any payment in the world."
NBC reached out to Thomas Markle for comment. He referred back to the Mail on Sunday article about the letter, saying that he wanted to be respectful of his daughter but also wanted to address rumors being spread about him.