Former Rare Staff
After accusing his fiancée of “pummeling me in the face with her fists” and getting her arrested for assault, Meghan Markle’s half-brother Thomas Markle Jr. is telling a very different story about what happened.
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Darlene Blount was arrested in the early hours of New Year’s Day following an alcohol-fueled incident in which she allegedly assaulted him and later landed herself in an Oregon jail. However, Markle Jr. has since admitted that his injuries were self-inflicted. While he himself was arrested last year for brandishing a gun at Blount during another drunken argument, he’s promised that they’ll both attend alcohol and relationship counseling.
“It hasn’t been easy,” he said of the pressure they feel from their newfound fame following estrange sister Meghan Markle’s engagement to Prince Harry. “Meghan’s relationship with Prince Harry has shone a spotlight on our family. It doesn’t help when you have issues, and your sister is engaged to Royalty. It adds a whole new level of scrutiny. We’ve been under a lot of stress because of all the attention. At some point you find yourself drinking too much to escape the pressure.”
The night of the incident, the pair argued at a bar before Blount stormed home and continued drinking. While Blount was actually the one to call the police, she was also the one to somehow get arrested.
“I said some swear words. It turned into an argument,” Markle Jr. admitted. “I might have said that Darlene beat me up. She was arrested for domestic violence. It was a big confusion. We’d both been drinking. I was sitting on the couch and got up really fast, hit myself and gave myself a fat lip.”
He paid Blount’s $1,000 bail to get her out of jail, and the district attorney’s office has indicated that she will not face charges.
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