Meghan Markle's Childhood Boyfriend Does Not Believe Bullying Allegation Against Her

Meghan Markle is not a bully, according to her childhood boyfriend, Joshua Silverstein.

Silverstein spoke with Us Weekly about his ex-girlfriend, the Duchess of Sussex. He told the media outlet that he doesn't believe the allegation that Markle bullied the palace staffers because he couldn't see her mistreating people.

"I see her doing whatever it is she feels like she should do in order to be happy and coexist within a system that has probably not been very welcoming to who she is and where she comes from," Silverstein said.

"When you find women of color — particularly Black women — standing up for themselves and speaking out and speaking against what they feel [is] disrespect or oppression, often times whiteness tends to classify that in negative ways because they don’t want that to happen. It’s almost like people are expected to know their place and whenever they don’t fall in line with that, then people say it’s a problem."

In the same interview, he also shared his encounter with Markle's parents because he knew them growing up. According to him, Markle's dad, Thomas Markle Sr., wasn't always present that's why the father and daughter shared a complicated relationship.

"I knew her dad growing up as kids," he said. "I didn’t see him often … but I did know that Meghan’s relationship with her dad was complicated and I understood that as most teenager-to-parent relationships are."

He was closer to Markle's mom, Doria Ragland, who split from the lighting director in 1987. However, Silverstein have "very cordial" interactions with her father and he believed that Markle's relationship with her dad "might have been strained" due to the divorce.

Meanwhile, Thomas wanted to sue Markle's five friends who spoke with People in 2019 over alleged defamation. According to him, Markle's pals spread "lies" about him, so he released a copy of Markle's letter to him because they were the first to make a reference to it.

"There were lies told about me, it’s defamation. The magazine might be liable too and the people who gave the information – but nobody seems to want to give up their names," Thomas said.