Co-written and edited by Etta Ibok
An In-depth Look at How the Markle Clan Abused and Used the Duchess of Sussex for Money
A few weeks later, Thomas, Jr., would change his tune, telling the Mirror that his sister was going to be “the best thing to happen to the royals”. According to Thomas, Jr., the reversal occurred after Thomas Sr. blamed the letter for his heart attack. Of course, Thomas, Jr. also claimed that he was at a “breaking point” and had experienced a “moment of madness” when he wrote the infamous letter thoroughly trashing his half-sister.
Thomas Jr. did not apologize to his half-sister for the cruel and mean things he had said about her. Instead, Thomas, Jr. maintained that his letter was not “designed to humiliate” his half-sister, “but more hoping we could get the help we needed”. Presaging the strategy that both his father and older sister would deftly employ to shift blame from themselves, Thomas Markle, Jr. placed the blame for his indiscretion squarely on his half-sister’s shoulders, complaining: “Ever since her relationship with Harry emerged two years ago, our lives have been changed forever”. Whether Thomas Markle, Jr. was paid for his interview with the Mirror is not known.
Thomas Markle, Jr. has a son. His name is Tyler Dooley. Dooley is 26 years old, the younger of Thomas Jr.’s two boys. Dooley is a businessman. His business is marijuana, which he grows in commercial quantities. There is nothing wrong with that. Dooley lives in Oregon, a state that legalized marijuana in 2015 and he is licensed to grow the stuff. According to his Bio, Dooley started out in the business “by finding marijuana growers a suitable piece of land to cultivate the plant”, from which he earned commissions. From there, Dooley progressed into growing the plant himself by teaming up with other marijuana growers. Dooley also co-owns, with his mother, a legal marijuana business called “Royally Grown”. Apparently, “Royally Grown” was established after Duchess Meghan’s relationship with Prince Harry became public and Dooley hoped to capitalize on his relationship with Duchess Meghan. Dooley claims he also makes money by offering expert advice “in working out complex lighting and watering systems to grow the perfect” marijuana plants.
Reportedly, after Prince Harry’s and Meghan Markle’s engagement announcement, Dooley announced a new strain of marijuana, “Markle Sparkle”, which, he admitted, he developed in honor of his famous aunt. Dooley is reported to have said at the time: “Prince Harry enjoys a good party. I’d be happy to show them around if they ever come out here and educate them on the medicinal benefits of marijuana which helps everything from post-traumatic stress syndrome to insomnia to pain in cancer patients”.
In late 2018, Dooley also participated in the short-lived MTV show – “The Royal World” – which, to attract viewership, was heavily promoted with promises of bombshell disclosures about Duchess Meghan and her white family. Apparently, Dooley disclosed no bombshells because the show, which was slated to run for nine episodes, folded after the sixth episode.
Unlike Grant and his father, Thomas Markle, Jr., Dooley has not said anything negative about his aunt. To the contrary, he came out strongly in her defense and distanced himself from his grandfather, his father and Samantha Grant. In an interview with The Sun Online in December 2018, Dooley shared his belief that his father, Thomas Markle, Jr. and Samantha Grant have both sold out Duchess Meghan. Reportedly, Dooley said:
“It was never like we had a super tight-knit family before to be honest. But the fact that now the whole world gets to see how my father or aunt Samantha behave, it is like an open wound for everyone to see. That’s the hardest part, the fact that there is no privacy. It is hard to deal with. It is embarrassing and sad all at the same time. My father and aunt Samantha have sold my grandfather out, sold my family out, sold Meghan out. It has been hard to deal with”.
Although not invited, Dooley traveled with his mother to London to, as he put it, “support my aunt Meghan [because] with the controversy that’s happened with my family, all I wanted to do was just show my support”.
Dooley has been criticized for trying to capitalize and “cash in” on his famous aunt. In this case, however, the criticism is overstated. There is a whole industry in Great Britain that exists on complete or partial reliance on the royal family. Carol Middleton, the mother of Catherine Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge and Queen Consort-in-waiting, owns and runs a business that has capitalized on her daughter’s fame and position in the royal family. As a matter of fact, Carol Middleton has capitalized on and monetized the Duchess of Sussex, and is even now milking every penny she can out of Master Archie’s fame.
Observers have noted that, currently, Carol Middleton offers more cakes with Archie’s image and name on it than those of her three grandchildren combined. Nobody has criticized the mother of the Queen Consort-in-waiting for using her proximity to the British throne to generate wealth to the extent she is not selling out her famous daughter in the process. Similarly, Dooley is not selling out his aunt. Like Carol Middleton, he is engaged in a legitimate business and, ultimately, that business will succeed or fail based on his hard work.
Samantha Grant’s attempt to secure an invitation to her half-sister’s wedding through humiliation and intimidation was an epic failure. Neither Grant, nor any other Markle, or Ragland for that matter, except the bride’s mother, Doria Ragland, was invited to the wedding. Of significance, Joffrey Ragland, and Ashleigh Hale, respectively Duchess Meghan’s half-brother and niece (Hale is Samantha Grant’s daughter), attended the wedding without fanfare or drama in a quiet, dignified but firm show of love and support for the bride.
Thomas Markle, Sr. should have been at the wedding and should have walked his daughter down the aisle, but that did not happen. And so, Ms. Ragland, the stunning mother-of-the-bride, sat alone, proud and dignified, in a chapel full of celebrity and childhood friends of the royal couple and members of the royal family. Occasionally overcome by emotion, Ms. Ragland watched as her exquisitely turned-out daughter calmly and confidently walked by herself into the Church and partway down the chapel to the beginning of the Quire, where Prince Charles, father-of-the-groom, was waiting to escort her the rest of the way.
Even though she made six figures from hosting a media-sponsored viewing party of the royal wedding in her home, Samantha Grant was not happy. If that was not obvious already, Grant’s exclusion from her half-sister’s wedding confirmed her irrelevance to that half-sister; a threat to what had become a lucrative source of income. As already pointed out, at this time, Samantha Grant was charging an hourly rate of two thousand dollars ($2,000.00) for media interviews and she was not about to give all that up without a fight.
The fall-out from Mr. Markle’s collusion with paparazzi for money, a collusion which Samantha Grant engineered, would provide the perfect opportunity for Grant to continue to monetize her half-sister. Perhaps unwittingly, or maybe out of fear, coercion or both, or maybe, out of spite, as it increasingly seems with each new interview he gives, Thomas Markle, Sr. joined forces with his oldest daughter, a self-proclaimed mental health counselor, against his youngest daughter, now a Duchess, in a cold, calculated, relentless and terrifying public campaign of emotional and psychological bullying and abuse that seems to have no legitimate purpose other than generating as much publicity and income as possible, primarily for Samantha Grant. Conveniently for the co-conspirators, the golden goose would soon announce the incubation of a golden egg, opening a fresh front in the gold rush.
The coordinated psychological bullying and abuse started immediately after the wedding when, even as he acknowledged that Prince Harry rightly warned him against involvement with the media, Mr. Markle decided to engage in a string of media interviews, seemingly timed to ensure that his one-sided feud with his now-royal daughter was always in the news. Predictably, each interview generated several days, if not weeks, of unfavorable headlines and negative media scrutiny of Duchess Meghan, on top of the routine vitriolic attacks that she was already being subjected to on a daily basis by the British tabloids.
Monetizing Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex Part 5
Monetizing Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex Part 1
Monetizing Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex Part 2
Monetizing Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex Part 3