Meghan Markle’s father, Thomas Markle Sr., is reportedly under investigation in the Philippines after his son told police he found alleged child abuse material among his belongings.
Thomas Markle Jr., 60, Meghan’s half-brother, says he found “hundreds, if not thousands” of images and videos of child abuse material among his father’s belongings at his former home in Cebu when looking for a phone for his girlfriend’s dad.
According to his account, the material was on old mobile phones and hard drives packed in four large boxes, which also held family keepsakes, books and professional papers.
One of the images on the phone was a photo of the screen of a laptop that was in a room he recognised in his father’s former home in Rosarito, Mexico, according to him. A computer technician helped him get into the drives.
Markle Jr. says he reported what he found to the FBI hotline, the National Center for Exploited and Missing Children and Pennsylvania state police in July, and later gave a sworn statement to child abuse police in the Philippines.
“I had no option but to report my dad,” he told The Sun.
Meghan’s dad is calling the claims “a bunch of lies”
According to The Sun, police in Cebu are preparing to seize the material, and an anti-trafficking task force run by the Women and Children’s Protection Centre has been appointed. The FBI reportedly confirmed receiving the affidavit, and an agent asked for the Philippine investigators’ contact details.
Markle Sr. is a US citizen and now lives in the US. No charges have been filed, he hasn’t been arrested, and no public findings have established what the material is or whether it is linked to him.
He told the Daily Mail the claims are “a bunch of lies” and said he is “shocked” and “hurt” that his son is making them. He claims the devices have not been in his possession since he moved from Mexico to the Philippines in January 2025, though the reports do not say where he claims they were.
His daughter Samantha Markle said there is “no merit” in the allegations and accused her brother of making them up for financial gain. She also said the devices had been out of her father’s possession for about two years, that he is in a rehabilitation facility without access to them, and suggested others could have accessed them.
Meghan’s distressed statement
On Friday, Meghan said she is “deeply distressed” and that her thoughts are “with any children who may have been harmed.” She also revealed that in 2018 a letter was sent to the Metropolitan Police and to the unit that protects the royal family, and that it was later shared with her.
The letter made “troubling and disturbing allegations” against her father, and she was told they were being investigated. She said she decided then to keep him away from her children to protect them. Who sent the letter and what exactly it alleged haven’t been made public.
Thomas Markle Sr., 82, is a retired Hollywood lighting director with three children. Samantha and Thomas Jr. are from his first marriage, to Roslyn Loveless, which ended in divorce in 1975.
Meghan, the youngest, is his daughter with Doria Ragland, which makes Samantha and Thomas Jr. her older half-siblings. Markle Sr. was Meghan’s main carer from the age of nine, but she has had no contact with him since 2018, when he missed her wedding to Prince Harry after staging photos with paparazzi beforehand.
Meghan is also estranged from both half-siblings. Samantha has supported their father in the US, while Thomas Jr. reportedly cared for him after a 2022 stroke and moved near him in Cebu in January 2025.
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