London: Meghan Markle's half-sister has hit back at claims by Prince Harry that his American fiancé did not have close family and that her experience of spending Christmas with the Queen and other royals at Sandringham was something new.

By common consent, Harry dropped a "clanger" when he was a guest editor on BBC Radio 4's Today programme earlier this week and said: "No look, she's done an absolutely amazing job. She's getting in there and it's the family I suppose that she's never had."

This remark was immediately contradicted by Meghan's half-sister, Samantha Markle (also known as Samantha Grant), who tweeted: "Actually she has a large family who were always there with her and for her. Our household was very normal and when dad and Doria divorced, we all made it so it was like she had two houses. No one was estranged, she was just too busy."

Samantha, who denies a rift with her much more famous half-sister, has called Meghan "absolutely lovely".

She also tweeted: "Meg's family (our family) is complete with sister, brother, aunts, uncles, cousins, and the glue of our family, our amazing completely self-sacrificing father. She always had this family... Marrying merely extends it."

Meghan's mother is Doria Ragland, an African-American, who met her father Thomas Markle on the set of the US soap General Hospital, where he worked as a lighting director when she was a temp in the studio. They divorced when Meghan was six.

Although she lived with her mother in Los Angeles, Meghan also spent a great deal of time with her father who has a daughter and a son - Samantha Markle and Thomas Markle Junior - from his first marriage to Rosyln Markle.

Harry had dropped a "clanger", Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir said on Friday, commenting: "Harry's words hung in the air like an icy reprimand; an unintended slight to the actual Markle parents."

"Uh-oh. Sound the in-law warning klaxon. Run the Jolly Roger up the flagpole of family friction. Set the dials for stormy waters. The family she never had? What is she, an orphan?

"And rule No 1 for any new husband is never, ever to publicly state that your family is somehow better, happier and more loving than her family, even if you believe it to be true," she added.