Thomas Markle Admits Cocaine Use in Royal Scandal Tape

Thomas Markle has a past that leaves many uncomfortable. His ex-wife Roslyn Loveless struggled with alcoholism, while his son Thomas Jr cut off financial ties after their relationship turned sour. Now, the grimeiest royal scandal in history is finally getting its due.

It started shortly after Meghan married Prince Harry. That summer, Thomas Sr was the face of America's most notorious supermarket tabloid, The National Enquirer. The cover story dropped in October 2018 and offered a stark look at why his absence from the wedding might have been a blessing. The piece relied on a tape recording where the retired TV lighting director spoke about his Hollywood days. He won three Emmys but also had some dark secrets to share.

One excerpt was brazen. Markle talked openly about Class A drugs, admitting: 'In the industry I worked in back in the 70s and 80s there was cocaine around a lot. And I'm sure that I had an occasional sniff of cocaine.' Another part was oddly vague. He addressed claims of paying for sex in South-East Asia during his vacations.

'Have I ever paid for a sex worker? Uh, there was a Playboy Club in the top floor of a hotel in the Philippines [but] I never paid for sex. I would go upstairs and enjoy myself in the Playboy Club, but... not for sex. I didn't get sex out of it,' Markle said on the tape.

But later that weekend he told the Mail on Sunday he did pay for sex in the Philippines. The recording was secretly made by Thomas Jr. Meghan's father, 82 now, has been estranged from his daughter since 2018. Roslyn Loveless lives outside her home in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Thomas Jr lives hand-in-hand with a woman near an apartment building where they stayed in the Philippines on May 10, 2025.

In another interview around that same time, he discussed his father's romantic life. He claimed that between divorcing Roslyn Loveless in 1975 and marrying Doria Ragland in 1979, Thomas Sr had a long relationship with a woman named Marty from the Philippines. 'There's a certain type of woman he likes. He likes Asian women a lot,' said Thomas Jr, before adding enigmatically: 'He likes to go on vacation to Thailand, Vietnam. He likes their culture a lot.'

Eight years later, Meghan's father is once more at the center of a sex scandal that makes people recoil. The setting remains the Philippines. The most explosive details come from Thomas Jr again, one of two children who appear irreparably estranged from him.

Everything kicked off at exactly 10.04pm on Thursday. Filipino police launched an investigation into Thomas Sr after they allegedly found a huge stash of child sex images at his Cebu home. That island sits some 350 miles south-east of Manila. The discovery was purportedly made by Thomas Jr. He told The Sun newspaper he found 'hundreds if not thousands' of images in four cardboard boxes. Those boxes had been shipped from Rosarito in Mexico. Father and son lived there before moving to the Philippines for a fresh start in January 2025.

'When I found this material, I was horrified and I had no option but to report my dad,' he said. 'I have supported, cared for him and helped him for years – but that stops now.

I won't speak to my father ever again unless I'm called to give evidence against him." That is the hard line drawn by Thomas Jr, 60 years old. He claims he stumbled upon the disturbing material in July while hunting for a mobile phone handset to hand over to his fiancee's dad. The bride-to-be is Rose, a 28-year-old woman from the Philippines.

Mr Markle stands accused of child sex offenses which he flatly denies. Speaking to The Mail on Sunday, he stated he was 'not buying' the story that his first wife penned the letter to the Met Police back in early 2019 before her death two years ago.

He said he fired up an old LG device that once belonged to his Dad. Explicit video of 'naked young girls' flashed up on the screen immediately. Other images surfaced on a Lenovo ThinkPad laptop, described by The Sun as victims appearing no older than ten or eleven.

Alleged explicit DVDs and photographs were also found. Some were hidden inside pages of coffee table books owned by Thomas Sr. One volume was titled Lewis Carroll Photographs Of Children: Four Nude Studies. The other read Hollywood Lolitas: The Nymphet Syndrome In The Movies.

Thomas Jr said he reported the discovery to the FBI right away, hoping they would launch an investigation into his father. Thomas Sr had returned to the US in May after suffering serious health issues, including a stroke and a blood clot that led to the amputation of his left leg below the knee.

Yet three months went by with no FBI probe ensuing. So Thomas Jr decided to report the matter to police in the Philippines instead. On Friday morning, he drove four cardboard boxes to the Cebu City police headquarters inside a Toyota HiAce people-carrier while a Sun reporter watched closely.

Thomas Jr had previously sided with his father during various public fights with Meghan. Now he used the newspaper to issue a mea culpa to his estranged half-sister. He said yesterday, 'I'm so, so sorry… I now know I have been protecting the wrong person for the past nine years.'

The Duchess of Sussex was then busy running another hare. On Friday she issued a statement saying she was 'deeply distressed at the news that has come to light in the last 24 hours'. She added that in 2018, the Metropolitan Police shared with her details of a letter containing 'troubling and disturbing allegations against my father'.

She said she was 'given assurances that these were being investigated' before deciding to stop her children from seeing their grandfather. Her goal was 'to protect them'. It later emerged the letter had actually been sent in early 2019, shortly after The National Enquirer revealed Thomas Sr's previous exploits in an 'X-rated jiggle joint' in the Philippines.

The letter came from Thomas Sr's alcoholic ex-wife Roslyn Loveless, who died in 2024. She alleged he admitted going to the Philippines and Thailand to abuse children, according to sources who have seen the contents of that correspondence. The Met is now 'reviewing its handling of the matter' and might yet refer itself to the police watchdog.

One odd wrinkle is that the letter ended up not with officers specializing in child sex abuse but with the Force's 'Fixated Threat Assessment Centre'. This unit is frequently called the 'stalker and obsessive unit', dealing with people who threaten royals, celebrities, and other public figures. It remains unclear whether officers concluded claims made by Ms Loveless suggested she was a potential threat to Meghan or if they were instead concerned about Thomas Sr.

The risk this controversy poses to communities cannot be overstated. Children are at stake here. The delay in action feels alarming. Families wait for answers while allegations fester in the silence of an uninvestigated report.

Either way, an informed source said last night that the Met would almost certainly have no jurisdiction to carry out further inquiries since Mr Markle was not in the UK and neither was his alleged offending nor the purported victims. Another tricky factor for the law enforcement agencies might be the fact that the age of consent in the Philippines was only upgraded to 16 in 2022. Prior to that point it was just 12. Quite how seriously the Duchess of Sussex took the 2019 letter from Ms Loveless is, at this stage, unclear. In February 2019, shortly after it arrived, Meghan authorised five friends to brief her favourite outlet, People magazine, about her estrangement from Thomas Sr. The resulting article suggested the Duchess wished to repair the relationship. Later, in a 2022 Netflix documentary, Meghan declared that she had been 'a daddy's girl my whole life'. She only appears to have categorically cut him off in late 2025, when Thomas Sr was gravely ill in hospital in the Philippines. At that point, a representative was dispatched to hand-deliver a letter in a scene witnessed by the Mail's Caroline Graham. None of which is, of course, to suggest that the Duchess is anything but a victim of this week's appalling developments. One might argue, in fact, she is the only member of her troubled American family who emerges from recent developments with her reputation enhanced. Thomas Jr's motives are, to this end, very much open to question. A twice-divorced window-fitter, with two grown-up sons (one is a marijuana farmer in Oregon, where the activity is legal), his chaotic personal CV includes an arrest for allegedly putting a gun to a girlfriend's head during a drunken row (charges were filed in 2017 but later dismissed after they reconciled) and a court appearance for drink-driving. He also appeared on Australia's version of Celebrity Big Brother in 2022, alleging that he and Meghan had once been close, but that 'money changed her' after she achieved fame. In recent years, the 60-year-old has been almost entirely financially supported by his father. The duo moved out to the Philippines together in January 2025, and Thomas Jr remains there. Thomas Sr, for his part, returned to the US in May to recuperate from the health crisis that saw his leg amputated. He left behind his most recent girlfriend Rio Canedo, a local nurse who he'd met when she treated him in hospital. At 46, she is three and a half decades his junior. Meghan's father initially spent time in Pennsylvania but has lately been in a nursing home in Lakeland, Florida, where he is being supported by Samantha Markle, the Duchess's somewhat outspoken second half-sibling, who is the eldest child of Ms Loveless. Samantha, a former actress and model who has given a number of unflattering interviews about Meghan over the years, remains very much in her father's camp. She told the Daily Mail at the weekend that her brother's allegations about their father are 'disgusting', saying they have 'no merit in them whatsoever'. She described Thomas Jr as a 'liar' who is fabricating the claims to make cash. Furthermore, she has alleged that his original complaint to the FBI in July followed a family row over money: shortly after returning to the US in May, Thomas Sr changed passwords to a bank account his son had access to. My brother first came out with these lies days after the cash from my Dad was cut off.

She called him out hard," Samantha said, describing how her brother had milked their father for cash year after year until the funds dried up. Once that money stream broke, he spun wild fabrications to squeeze more from the press. "He is a delusional alcoholic," she added with disgust. The gadgets alleged to hold illegal material sat in storage since he arrived in the Philippines two years ago and never touched them again.

"If there is anything bad on those devices it was put there by someone else," Thomas Sr declared, insisting he had zero access during that long stretch. Who else could have used them? Anyone with a key or a spare code. The whole setup smells foul to her. "There is no merit in these disgusting allegations whatsoever and my brother is disgusting for making them up."

The investigation hinges on a photo showing Thomas Sr next to a young Asian woman on a bed. Samantha offered an alternative spin, suggesting the subject might simply be one of his girlfriends. She remembered Carolyn, a wonderful Japanese woman she loved dearly who was in her 30s but possessed skin so flawless she looked like a teenager. "Asian women have great skin and are small and petite," she explained, noting how they often appear decades younger than reality dictates. There was also Gail, another stunning Asian girlfriend who looked very young despite being older.

Thomas Sr says he is in bad health now but vows to do whatever it takes to clear his name. He admitted in a chat with the Mail on Sunday that when single he flew to Manila at least twice and slept with prostitutes. "I like Asian women but that is not a crime," he stated, perhaps without thinking about how that lands. The case drags on while communities face fresh scrutiny over these claims.