Judge Rules on Request to Expose Meghan's Friends - Newser

The issue is part of Meghan Markle's lawsuit against Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Mail on Sunday, which published portions of Markle's private letter to her father in February 2019, per ABC News.

But Markle said the paper was "threatening to publish the names of five women—five private citizens—who made a choice on their own to speak anonymously with a US media outlet … to defend me from the bullying behavior of Britain's tabloid media." "These five women are not on trial, and nor am I," she said in a witness statement, adding the paper was trying "to create a circus and distract from the point of this case." Her lawyers further argued that exposing the friends' names was an "unacceptable price to pay" for pursuing legal action over the publication of portions of a private letter and that the women had "a basic right to privacy," per the Guardian