Thomas Markle asked ex-wife Doria why Meghan 'won't speak to me'

Duchess Meghan‘s father, Thomas Markle, said in a new interview that he asked her mom, Doria Ragland, why his daughter “won’t speak” to him.

“I have been frozen out and I can’t stay silent,” the former TV lighting director, 74, told the Mail on Sundayin an interview posted on Sunday, December 9. “I have made dozens of attempts to reach my daughter via text and letters, but she and Harry have put up a wall of silence.”

Markle, who lives in Mexico, hasn’t spoken to the former Suits star since the day after her May wedding to Prince Harry and he has never met his son-in-law. The estrangement came after Meghan’s father was involved in a staged paparazzi photo scandal in the lead-up to the couple’s wedding at Windsor Castle in England. He subsequently suffered a heart attack and was unable to walk his daughter down the aisle.

Since then Meghan’s father has spoken out several times about his frustration over his fractured relationship with his only daughter with ex-wife Ragland, even going as far as comparing the British royal family to a cult “like Scientology” and blaming Harry for their rift.

Markle told the Mail on Sunday that he has repeatedly tried to reach out to his daughter, who is pregnant with her first child. (Us Weekly previously reported that the duchess didn’t tell her father she was expecting before she and Harry announced the news in mid-October.)

“I’ve sent several texts. Her number hasn’t changed and they haven’t bounced back,” he said, insinuating that she has seen the messages but has chosen not to respond.

“I’ve pleaded with her to pick up the phone. I wrote her a two-page letter and sent it by certified mail via her representative in Los Angeles. I asked her why she was believing the lies,” Markle added. “I even hand-delivered a letter to Doria asking her why our daughter won’t speak to me.”

The Emmy award-winner says that every attempt to contact the California native “has been met with a stony silence,” adding that the royal couple’s to speak to him “means people continue to attack me and write lies about me.”

As he shared dozens of cards and notes that he’d received over the years from his daughter, whose childhood nickname was Bean, Markle said that he never had any problems in the past with Meghan, who lived with him from the age of 11 until she went to college.

“If she would just speak to me, things could be different,” he told the Mail on Sunday. “I love Meghan very much. I want her and Harry to have a beautiful, healthy baby and a great life. But I want them to stop believing the lies.”

A source told Us in July that Markle was “walking a fine line” with his public outbursts. “This blabbing needs to stop if he wants to maintain any relationship with Harry and Meghan.”

While Markle is hoping for a card or phone call from his daughter this festive season, his ex-wife is heading to London to spend the holidays with Meghan. As Us previously reported, an insider said Ragland, 62, will “very likely” be at Sandringham for Christmas and “will be spending the holidays with Harry, Meghan and other members of the royal family.”