Meghan Markle’s estranged father wants to meet his grandkids before it’s too late.
“I’m heartbroken. I am very upset. This is a cruel thing to do to a grandparent, to deny the right to see a grandchild,” Thomas Markle said on “Good Morning Britain” Monday in what has been dubbed his “final” interview.
Despite being caught staging paparazzi photos for money ahead of Meghan and Prince Harry’s 2018 wedding and repeatedly blasting the couple on TV, Thomas insisted he has not done anything wrong.
“In California, I can actually sue to see [Prince Archie, 4, and Princess Lilibet, 2], but I don’t want to do that,” he said. “The other thing is I’ve done nothing wrong. There’s nothing that points to say I’m a bad guy.”
The retired TV lighting director, 79, asserted that he is a “really loving father” and that the Duchess of Sussex, 42, “knows that.”
“There’s no excuse for treating me this way, no excuse to treat grandparents that way,” he said.
Thomas — who divorced Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, in 1987 after seven years of marriage — claimed to have seen the “Suits” alum change as she got older.
“Meghan lived with me from sixth grade to high school, and I never saw anything like that,” he said of the current drama between them. “I never saw the kind of woman she turned into. I am shocked. She is not the person I knew as my daughter.”
But the Emmy winner denied Harry, 39, played a hand in Meghan’s choices, arguing that she wears the pants in the relationship.
“I think she has an influence on Harry more than he does on her,” he said. “I am always here for her. I still love her. I’ll love her forever. That will never change, but I want her to reach out to me and let me see my grandkids and let me have a little peace.”
Thomas then pleaded for forgiveness, noting that people have done far worse and received much less punishment.
“People go to prison for five years and they’re forgiven. I didn’t do anything. So forgive me, I guess,” he said. “I would always apologize for anything I’ve done wrong. I’m sorry if I have.”
The father of three compared his estrangement with Meghan to Harry’s tense relationship with his father, King Charles III.
“King Charles has done nothing wrong, too, and he is denied the kids as well as I am,” he claimed.
Harry notably attended Charles and Queen Camilla’s coronation ceremony sans Meghan in May, but he only stayed in the UK for a few hours before returning to California. He has since steered clear of the other royal family members.
Thomas believes “it was for the best” that Meghan skipped the coronation altogether.
“There are too many disagreements between Meghan, Harry and the royals,” he explained.
Thomas, who suffered a stroke in 2022, has not seen Meghan in five years, and he was not present at her royal wedding following his photo scandal. He also leaked a personal letter from Megan to the tabloids.
The duchess is also estranged from her half-sister, Samantha Markle, who sued her for defamation in 2022.
Meghan described her father’s “betrayal” over his paparazzi snafu as unforgivable during her and Harry’s bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021.
“I look at Archie, I think about this child, and I genuinely can’t imagine doing anything to intentionally cause pain to my child,” she said while pregnant with Lilibet. “I can’t imagine it, so it’s hard for me to reconcile that.”
The former actress also pointed out that her mother, Ragland, 67, never spoke to the media despite the press’s aggressive efforts to get her to talk.
Meanwhile, Harry took some responsibility for Meghan’s broken relationship with her dad.
“She had a father before this, and now she doesn’t have a father,” he said in the couple’s Netflix docuseries, “Harry & Meghan,” in 2022. “And I shouldered that. If Meg wasn’t with me, then her dad would still be her dad.”
Thomas claimed that he has attempted to mend their severed relationship many times to no avail.
He told TMZ in 2021 that he sent Meghan flowers for her birthday but got no response.
In addition to Meghan’s estrangement from her dad, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been on the outs with the royal family since they resigned from their duties in 2020.
