In 2022, Samantha alleged that Carolyn Durand and Omid Scobie's book Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family contained defamatory comments about her. The book contains a chapter titled "A Problem Like Samantha."
Samantha also claimed that Meghan made defamatory statements about her during the couple's 2021 CBS interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Samantha, who shares the same father as Meghan, said that these alleged "defamatory statements" had caused her irreparable harm to her reputation, anxiety, and emotional distress, and that she had received hate mail, ongoing negative press, and was stalked by one of Meghan's fans. However, the judge dismissed all of Samantha's allegations.
The judge stated that Samantha's "claims based on Finding Freedom will be dismissed with prejudice, as [she] cannot plausibly allege that [Meghan] published the book, and amendment of these claims would be futile." With regard to Meghan's "only child" comments in the Oprah interview, the judge ruled that it was merely an expression of an opinion about her childhood and her relationship with her half-siblings, and therefore not objectively verifiable or subject to empirical proof.
The judge also found that two other alleged defamatory statements Samantha claimed Meghan made to Oprah were not actually found in the interview transcript. The duchess' sister, he noted, "does more than paraphrase [Meghan's] words—she substantively changes the meaning of what was said."
Samantha can file an amended complaint regarding claims related to the Oprah interview within 14 days, and she plans to do so. Her attorney, Jamie A. Sasson, said in a statement to E! News that they "look forward to presenting an even stronger argument for the defamation and losses that our client has had to endure."
Samantha has been criticizing Meghan and Harry publicly for several years, including comparing the duchess to the Disney villain Cruella de Vil on Twitter just a few months after Harry and Meghan's 2018 wedding, which Samantha was not invited to. She also published a memoir in 2021 that refers to Meghan as "Princess Pushy."
