“The bad press over my father doing staged photos is my fault,” Samantha Markle said. “The media was unfairly making him look bad, so I suggested he do positive photos for his benefit and the benefit of the royal family. We had no idea he would be taken advantage of. It was not for money.”

Image Ms. Markle’s half brother, Thomas Markle Jr., was arrested in Arizona in January. He recently called Ms. Markle a “jaded, shallow, conceited woman.” Credit... Michael Ochs Archives, via Getty Images

Reports that Mr. Markle would not attend the wedding came Monday night from the American celebrity news website TMZ. Kensington Palace, while neither confirming nor denying the report, soon released a statement that asked “for understanding and respect to be extended to Mr. Markle in this difficult situation.”

Even before the publication of The Mail on Sunday article, Kensington Palace had already tried to crack down on media coverage of Ms. Markle’s parents, sending a confidential letter to British editors imploring the tabloids to stop harassing them. Ms. Markle’s mother, Doria Ragland, has remained silent but has also been hounded by paparrazi, even on her way to and from work.

Ms. Ragland is already set to accompany her daughter to the wedding site — a break with tradition — but, if Mr. Markle does not come, she could wind up walking her down the aisle, too.

Having lured the family into their trap, the tabloids are now adding to the abuse. Writing Tuesday in Mail Online, Piers Morgan, the television presenter, accused Ms. Markle’s family of having “already behaved like the worst kind of vile, dysfunctional, money-grabbing misfits in the run-up to her marriage.”

It has to be said that others in Ms. Markle’s family — particularly ancillary members who have not been invited to the wedding — have not helped. Ms. Markle is estranged from her two half siblings, products of her father’s first marriage; they are the ones currently making the most mischief, egged on with promises of fame and with monetary compensation from the tabloids.