Royals / World — The Thomas Markle Philippines investigation became public on Friday, October 23, when Philippine justice officials confirmed that a specialist task force in Cebu is investigating allegations that Meghan, Duchess of Sussex’s estranged father possessed child sexual abuse images. Meghan said she was “deeply distressed,” revealed she had first been told of “troubling and disturbing” allegations in 2018, and said she had kept her children away from their grandfather to protect them. Thomas Markle, 82, denies the allegations outright, calling them “sick lies.” No charges have been reported, and the investigation is at an early stage.
MANILA / LONDON — Authorities in the Philippines are investigating Thomas Markle, the father of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, after allegations that he possessed child sexual abuse images, a senior Philippine justice official confirmed on Friday. “Our Anti-Trafficking and Anti-OSAEC (online sexual abuse and exploitation of children) task force in Cebu is currently investigating the matter,” Nicholas Ty, the Philippine justice undersecretary, told Reuters. The Philippines Justice Department’s child abuse unit separately told CNN on Friday that the matter was “under investigation.”
The allegations were first published by Britain’s Sun newspaper. According to the Sun, Meghan’s half-brother, Thomas Markle Jr., reported his father to police in Cebu, in the Philippines, where the elder Markle had been living, after finding what he described as a large collection of child sexual abuse images at his father’s house. Markle Jr. told the Sun the material numbered “hundreds, if not thousands” of images, found in storage boxes and on computer hard drives. “When I found this material I was horrified and I had no option but to report my dad,” he said.
Thomas Markle Sr. has denied the allegations vigorously. Reuters, which could not immediately reach him for comment, reported he was quoted by Britain’s Daily Mail as saying the allegations were untrue and “sick lies.” Speaking to the Mail, he called them “a bunch of lies” and “the worst thing anyone could accuse me of,” and said the computers in question had not been in his possession since he left Mexico with his son in 2025. “I’m shocked, I’m hurt and I’m very upset that my son is making these accusations against me. I could never do what I’m being accused of,” he told the Mail, which said it spoke to him from a rehabilitation centre in Florida, where he is learning to walk with a prosthetic limb after his leg was amputated last year following a blood clot.
What Meghan said — and what she says she knew in 2018
Meghan, who married King Charles’s younger son Prince Harry and whose royal title is Duchess of Sussex, issued a statement on Friday that reframed eight years of public estrangement. “I am deeply distressed at the news that has come to light in the last 24 hours, and my thoughts are with any children who may have been harmed,” she said. “My sincerest hope is that justice will be fully served and that the priority remains the safety and protection of innocent children.”
She said she had known about allegations against her father, 82, since 2018 and had prevented him having contact with her children Archie, 7, and Lilibet, 5, to protect them. “In 2018, a letter was sent to the Metropolitan Police and Royalty and Specialist Protection. That letter was subsequently shared with me,” she said. “It made troubling and disturbing allegations against my father and I was given assurances that these were being investigated.” She added: “I trusted that the authorities were doing the same for other families,” and “Although the breadth of what has now been uncovered is more sickening than one could ever imagine, my sincerest hope is that justice will be fully served.” It is not clear what specific allegations the 2018 letter contained, and Meghan did not say. British police did not immediately respond to a request for comment, Reuters reported.
“I hope it can now be understood that, despite certain media publications’ distortion over the years, any distance from my father and my choice to not allow him to have contact with our children, was for one reason: to protect them,” she said.
The family is split over the account
The Markle family is not speaking with one voice. Thomas Markle Jr. also told the Sun that he had reported the discovery to the FBI hotline in the United States, the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the state police in Pennsylvania, where his father was living at the time. The Sun also said Markle Jr. had contacted the FBI over the allegations; the FBI did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment, and no US agency has confirmed opening any investigation.
Thomas Markle Sr.’s other daughter, Samantha Markle, told the Mail the allegations were not true and that her brother had made them up. She said her father “had no access to those computers for two years,” arguing that other people “could have had access to them” — a version that aligns with her father’s own account that the devices had been out of his possession since 2025. Those competing accounts — what was found, whose it was, and who had access to it — are precisely what investigators in Cebu will have to test against the physical evidence, and none of them has been tested in any court.
Why this matters
The first reason this matters has nothing to do with royalty. Child-protection investigations stand or fall on evidence, not on the fame of the people around them, and the Philippine task force named by Undersecretary Ty — the anti-trafficking and anti-OSAEC unit in Cebu — is the specialist body that handles online sexual abuse and exploitation of children cases in the region. If the material described exists as described, there may be child victims behind it, which is why Meghan’s statement, the Sun’s reporting and this article all lead with the same priority she named: the safety of any children who may have been harmed. Readers should hold two facts at once: the allegations are grave, and they are, at this point, allegations — denied by the man accused, disputed inside his own family, and not yet the subject of any reported charge.
The second reason is what Meghan’s statement does to a story the public thought it knew. For eight years, the estrangement between Meghan and her father has been covered as a family drama: staged paparazzi photographs he admitted posing for, his decision days before the 2018 wedding not to attend, citing ill health, interviews given against her wishes, and a long public argument about contact and grandchildren he had never met. Her statement asks the public to re-read all of it through a different fact — that in 2018 she was shown a letter to British police containing “troubling and disturbing” allegations and was told they were being investigated. That does not prove the allegations, then or now. It does explain, in her words, a boundary that was widely reported as coldness: no contact, and no contact between her father and Archie and Lilibet, “for one reason: to protect them.”
An estrangement that began before the wedding
Meghan has been out of contact with her father since the run-up to her 2018 wedding to Prince Harry. Days before the event, Thomas Markle said he would not attend due to ill health, after he earlier admitted posing for paparazzi pictures — an admission that broke the relationship in public and set the pattern for years of claim and counter-claim conducted through television interviews and tabloid exclusives. Later coverage, including the Sussexes’ own accounts of those years, returned repeatedly to the same unresolved questions: why the contact stopped, and whether it would ever resume. Harry and Meghan and their children relocated to England in August after living in California for six years, Reuters reported — a return that had already revived reporting about family reconciliation, including Harry’s contacts with King Charles. Meghan’s statement, and the Cebu investigation, land in the middle of that coverage and change its terms: whatever reconciliation debate continues around the Sussexes and the wider royal family, she has now put child protection, on the record, as her stated reason on this side of the family.
Related coverage: Harry and Meghan’s first joint UK appearance, the delayed Harry–Meghan–King Charles reunion and King Charles and Harry’s private Balmoral meeting.
What happens next
Three things will decide where this goes. First, the Cebu investigation itself: whether Philippine investigators recover and forensically examine the devices and boxes described, and whether they find the material as described, something different, or nothing that supports a case. Second, attribution: both Thomas Markle Sr. and Samantha Markle argue the computers had been out of his hands — his account says since he left Mexico with his son in 2025, hers says for two years — so investigators will have to establish possession and access, not just content. Third, the other agencies named: both the FBI and the Metropolitan Police have now responded, in statements set out in the update below. Until one of those bodies confirms a step — a search, a seizure, an arrest, a charge, or a decision to close the matter — the honest summary is narrow: a specialist Philippine task force is investigating grave allegations against an 82-year-old man who denies them completely, and his younger daughter has explained, publicly and for the first time, why she cut him off eight years ago. Signal Post News will update this story as officials confirm further steps.
Update: the FBI and the Metropolitan Police respond
Later on Friday the FBI commented for the first time. In a statement to PEOPLE, the bureau said: “The FBI is aware of the allegations and will provide support, as appropriate, to the Philippine authorities. We will also investigate any related allegations of federal violations of U.S. law.”
The Metropolitan Police responded too. A spokesperson told PEOPLE: “We are aware of media reports that officers from the Met’s Royalty and Specialist Protection Command were involved in the passing on of a letter in 2018. We are undertaking enquiries internally in an effort to confirm this.” The Met added that it had not previously investigated, and was not currently investigating, a man in his 80s residing outside the UK. Buckingham Palace declined to comment, saying the matter was one for the Sussexes.
Interior Minister Jonvic Remulla told Reuters, meanwhile, that Thomas Markle Jr. had provided police with evidence including a laptop, and that Thomas Markle Sr. was believed to be back in the United States. The allegations remain under investigation in the Philippines; no charges have been reported, and Thomas Markle Sr. denies them completely.
Sources
Reporting based on Reuters (October 23, 2026), CNN (October 23, 2026) and USA Today (October 23, 2026), including statements attributed to Philippine justice undersecretary Nicholas Ty, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and — via the Daily Mail as reported by Reuters and CNN — Thomas Markle Sr. and Samantha Markle. The original allegations were first published by the Sun. No charges have been reported.