Meghan Markle To Pay $90K After Losing First Stage Of Court Battle Against Tabloid

Meghan Markle has agreed to pay nearly $90,000 in legal fees after losing the first leg of her court battle against a British tabloid, court documents reveal.

The Duchess of Sussex sued Daily Mail for publishing parts of her letter addressed to her dad, Thomas Markle Sr. However, she lost the early ruling in May and on Wednesday agreed to pay the British equivalent of $88,500 in legal fees, Page Six reported.

Markle sued the tabloid for breach of privacy and copyright. She also claimed that it acted "dishonestly." However, the judge did not agree that it acted "dishonestly" by quoting only passages of the letter.

Justice Mark Warby found Markle’s "dishonest" claim against Daily Mail "vague and lacking in particulars."

“The pleaded case as it stands is ‘embarrassing’ in the old sense that it places the defendant in an impossible position, whereby it cannot tell what case it has to meet,” the judge said.

Markle is still waiting for the verdict in the latest round as she battles to keep her five friends who spoke with People in her defense anonymous. Daily Mail's lawyers refer to her five pals as A to E in court but argued that they should be identified because it was their interview that prompted her dad to bring her letter to the outlet and the latter to publish it.

Earlier this month, Markle released a statement to protect the identities of her pals. The Duchess of Sussex said that it was not necessary for her friends' names to be revealed because they have the basic rights to privacy.

“The publisher of the Mail on Sunday is the one on trial. It is this publisher that acted unlawfully and is attempting to evade accountability; to create a circus and distract from the point of this case—that the Mail on Sunday unlawfully published my private letter,” Markle stated.

“Both the Mail on Sunday and the court system have their names on a confidential schedule, but for the Mail on Sunday to expose them in the public domain for no reason other than clickbait and commercial gain is vicious and poses a threat to their emotional and mental wellbeing.”