- Thomas Markle is congratulating the Queen on the 70th anniversary of her reign.
- The estranged father of Meghan Markle wished the monarch "good health and good will."
- His message comes as Markle and Prince Harry reportedly quit social media to avoid online "hate."
Thomas Markle issued a public congratulations to the Queen following the 70th anniversary of the start of her reign on Sunday, The Sun reported.
The estranged father of Meghan Markle, who has been an active critic of both his daughter and her husband, Prince Harry, told The Sun on Monday that he wished Queen Elizabeth II "good health and good will" after marking 70 years since the passing of her father King George VI. His death when she was just 21 years old set off the beginning of her reign as Queen.
"I would like to congratulate Her Majesty the Queen on her Jubilee and wish her good health and good will for many years to come," Thomas told the publication. While Sunday marked the actual day of her accession to the throne, celebrations in honor of her Platinum Jubilee are set to take place across the UK in June.
Thomas' public statement about the Queen's royal milestone comes after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex reportedly quit their social media platforms to focus on their new roles in the US, the Times of London reported on January 9.
Several British tabloids, including the Daily Mail and Metro, published pieces acknowledging the silence from the couple about the Queen's Platinum Jubilee. Representatives for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Prince William and Kate Middleton also did not publicly comment on the Queen's Jubilee but they retweeted posts from the Royal Family account marking the event, as well as the Queen's announcement of her hope Prince Charles' wife Camilla will become queen consort when he becomes king.
According to an unnamed source in the Times of London, both Prince Harry and Markle have "no plans" currently to use their platforms in a personal capacity after experiencing a series of online trolling and abuse.
Data released by a Twitter analysis service Bot Sentinel in October that analyzed 114,000 tweets about the couple revealed that they were targeted by coordinated harassment on the platform. Harry later spoke about the effects of online trolls during an appearance at WIRED'S "The Internet lie Machine" panel in November, and said British tabloid journalists and royal correspondents have amplified the abuse targeting him and his wife online.
In 2020, Markle told listeners of the "Teenager Therapy" podcast she was the "most trolled person in the entire world" in 2019, calling her experience of dealing with online abuse "almost unsurvivable."
"I wasn't even visible, I was on maternity leave or with the baby," she said. "That's so big, you can't even think of what that feels like, because I don't care if you're 15 or you're 25, if people are saying things about you that aren't true, what that does to your mental and emotional health is so damaging."