Meghan Markle, Prince Harry’s Royal Wedding Raised $1.2B In Tourism Revenue, Court Documents Claim

Meghan Markle is reportedly claiming that her royal wedding with Prince Harry in May 2018 has brought in over £1 billion ($1.2 billion) in tourism revenue for the United Kingdom.

According to the Daily Mail, the Duchess of Sussex made this claim in the new documents filed for her legal battle against the owner of The Mail On Sunday, Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), over articles that exposed her private communication with her father, Thomas Markle Sr. In 2018, the outlet published parts of her letter to her dad in which she accuses him of lying to the press and attacking her husband, Prince Harry.

In the new court documents, Markle reportedly claimed that the revenue from their royal wedding “far outweighed” the total cost of crowd security for the nuptials, which is estimated to be £30 million ($37 million). Most of this amount was shouldered by the British taxpayers.

The majority of the budget for Markle and Prince Harry’s royal wedding — estimated to be £32 million ($40 million) — went to security, “including costs on protecting Windsor with a heavy police presence, crowd control and restrictions placed on businesses,” the outlet noted. The royal family reportedly paid for the church service, reception and flowers.

Markle and Prince Harry’s royal wedding was “not, in fact, publicly funded, but rather personally financed by HRH The Prince of Wales,” the Duchess of Sussex’s lawyers said.

“Any public costs incurred for the wedding were solely for security and crowd control to protect members of the public, as deemed necessary by Thames Valley Police and the Metropolitan Police,” Markle’s team added.

A previous estimate of the tourism revenue that would be generated by Markle and Prince Harry’s royal nuptials from the consulting firm Brand Finance predicted only $370 million. At the time, experts said this amount would climb to over $1 billion if fashion, retail and other sectors were included in the calculations.

With other sectors factored in, the firm estimated the royal wedding's total revenue for the U.K. economy to be £1.05 billion ($1.3 billion). This amount included £300 million ($374 million) in public relations value, £250 million ($312 million) for retail and restaurants, £150 million ($187 million) for the fashion industry and £50 million ($62 million) for merchandise.

Meanwhile, in the same legal papers submitted to the High Court, Markle allegedly identified the five people who gave statements about her father to People. The former “Suits” actress reportedly maintained that she didn’t authorize her friends to give interviews about her family, another Daily Mail article said.

ANL has argued that it only reproduced the duchess' letters to her dad after these five people spoke to People magazine for an article published in February last year. It remains unclear who these “friends” are, but the magazine described them as “a longtime friend, a former co-star, a friend from LA, a one-time colleague and a close confidante” who were part of “Meghan's inner circle.”

“He knows how to get in touch with her. He’s never called; he’s never texted. It’s super-painful,” the so-called "longtime friend" said of Thomas, who, at the time, allegedly claimed he couldn’t reach Markle.