Meghan Markle urges tabloids to change after legal victory

A UK court on Thursday handed Meghan Markle her second win in court against a newspaper group that had tried to appeal a verdict ruling it had violated her privacy.

The Duchess of Sussex said she hoped the ruling would embolden others to hold tabloid newspapers to account and provoke reform.

"This is a victory not just for me, but for anyone who has ever felt scared to stand up for what's right," she said in a statement

"While this win is precedent-setting, what matters most is that we are now collectively brave enough to reshape a tabloid industry that conditions people to be cruel and profits from the lies and pain that they create," the duchess added.

Letter 'not of legitimate public interest'

In February, a High Court judge ruled that Associated Newspapers, which owns British tabloids The Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday, had unlawfully published excerpts of a private letter the duchess had sent her father Thomas Markle in 2018.

The media organization was ordered to print front-page apologies and pay Meghan Markle's legal fees. However, that order was on hold while Associated Newspapers appealed the decision.

On Thursday, three Court of Appeals judges upheld the original ruling, saying that the letter was "personal, private, and not matters of legitimate public interest."

The duchess wrote the letter shortly after her marriage to Prince Harry, asking her father to stop making false statements about her in tabloid interviews.

Associated Newspapers had originally argued that she should have expected the contents to be leaked, but the courts disagreed.

es/rc (AFP, AP)