For once, I’m on Meghan’s side… Despairing adult daughters of Asia’s dirty old men tell AMANDA GOFF how sex tourism shattered their lives – and the toe-curling email that made one woman cut off her dad forever Thomas Markle admits sleeping with prostitutes in the Philippines but denies sex with anyone under 18 Heartbroken daughters reveal the devastating impact of their fathers’ Asian sex tourism The estranged father of the Duchess of Sussex, Thomas Markle, admitted to the Mail on Sunday he was a sex tourist who travelled to the Philippines and ‘slept with prostitutes’ – but denies the child sex crimes he is accused of.
The column below was first published in June 2025 and is republished here in light of recent allegations involving Meghan Markle’s father. After more than a decade in the adult industry as Samantha X, and then running my own escort agency, there isn’t much I haven’t seen, heard or done. But when I learned about Losers Back Home – the dirty old men who move to Pattaya, the sex capital of Thailand – and what they get up to there, I was shocked to my core. And believe me, if I’m disgusted, you know it’s rotten.
In case you didn’t already know, Losers Back Home (or LBHs) are Western men, often divorced or simply rejected by women in their own country, who pack up their socks and sandals and flee to Thailand looking for sex with women who are usually searching for a way out of poverty. In many cases, they ‘fall in love’ with a local young enough to be their daughter. But don’t you dare call it sex tourism or prostitution; they will surely baulk at that.
Oh, no, these men have met their ‘soulmate’. These women ‘love them back’. The estranged father of the Duchess of Sussex, Thomas Markle, admitted to the Mail on Sunday he was a sex tourist who travelled to the Philippines and ‘slept with prostitutes’ – but denies the child sex crimes he is accused of. This column was first published in June 2025 and is republished here in light of recent allegations involving Meghan Markle’s father After more than a decade in the adult industry as Samantha X, and then running my own escort agency, there isn’t much I haven’t seen, heard or done, writes the Daily Mail’s Amanda Goff They hang on their every word. They obey their instructions. They make them feel young again. Not like their ex-wives – the ‘nags’ who did nothing but ‘bitch and moan’.
No, this is real love, uncomplicated by the mundane domesticity of a long marriage with an age-appropriate woman. But let’s be real about these ‘relationships’. These young women may appear to be ‘in love’ – and they all deserve Oscars, if you ask me – but it’s a façade. And why wouldn’t you deliver the performance of a lifetime for a man who is covering your rent and the bills?
Now, before I continue, let me be clear: I have absolutely no issue with men paying for sex. Most things in life are transactional – just ask any divorce lawyer.
I once met a woman whose ageing father now lives in Pattaya with his 23-year-old ‘fiancée’, while his ex-wife is back home picking up the pieces of their shattered life together. (Pictured: a stock image of a red light district in Bangkok)
I built a career out of men paying for sex, but that’s where the similarities end between my former clients and these LBH’s in Thailand.
My clients weren’t delusional. They didn’t think I was in love with them, nor did they seek to control me with their money. They paid for my time, then left afterwards.
I had nothing in common with a 21-year-old Thai woman who has spent her whole life dancing around poverty and sees another woman’s grandfather as a ticket to survival.
In my opinion, there is a vast difference between men who pay for discretion and intimacy from a sex worker in a country like Australia to those men who abandon their families to live a pathetic fantasy that starts in the cocktail bars of Pattaya.
It’s an abuse of power, pure and simple.
I once met a woman whose ageing father now lives in Pattaya with his 23-year-old ‘fiancée’, while his ex-wife is back home picking up the pieces of their shattered life together.
Timeline of Meghan’s relationship with her father Thomas Markle
- 1988: Meghan’s parents Doria Ragland and Thomas Markle divorce. Meghan primarily lives with her mother while maintaining a close relationship with her father
- Early 2011: Thomas Sr moves from California to Rosarito, Mexico
- July 2016: Meghan meets Prince Harry and they begin a relationship
- Early 2018: Thomas Sr is expected to attend the royal wedding and walk Meghan down the aisle
- May 13, 2018: Thomas Sr faces controversy after cooperating with a photographer on staged paparazzi pictures
- May 14, 2018: Thomas Sr pulls out of the wedding
- May 19, 2018: Wedding goes ahead without Thomas Sr. King Charles III (then Prince of Wales) accompanies Meghan for part of her walk down the aisle
- Summer 2018 (month unknown): Letter with claims about Thomas Sr is sent to the Metropolitan Police and Royalty and Specialist Protection – then shared with Meghan
- March 2021: Meghan tells Oprah Winfrey she felt betrayed by her father
- December 2022: Meghan tells her Netflix documentary ‘Harry & Meghan’ that she has had no meaningful contact with her father for several years
- January 2025: Thomas Sr moves from Mexico to the Philippines. He has claimed the computers allegedly containing child sex abuse images were boxed up at this point to be sent to the Philippines, and have not been in his possession since
- December 2025: Meghan makes contact with Thomas Sr in hospital in the Philippines via a letter after he has his left leg amputated
- July 2026: Thomas Sr’s son Thomas Markle Jr claims he found child sex image on a phone inside his father’s storage box in the Philippines. He then opened a computer to allegedly see ‘hundreds’ of disturbing thumbnail images
- Today: Meghan says she is ‘deeply distressed’ by accusations against her father, and reveals she learned of them from the letter in 2018
This woman no longer speaks to her dad. Their last communication was an email from him saying his new partner ‘makes him feel young again’.
Reading it made her feel physically ill.
Another friend of mine has an uncle who went to Bangkok for a work trip and never came home. His wife sometimes wonders what she did wrong.
He’d ‘met’ a young Thai woman, probably while loitering around a red light district with his colleagues ‘for a laugh’.
‘He won’t say she’s a sex worker but he seems to be handing over money to her and her family every week,’ the friend told me.
Disturbingly, the trend of fetishising younger Asian women isn’t limited to tourists; it happens here in Australia too.
A woman I know told me recently: ‘I know men chat up purely because of my Asian heritage.
‘Recently I was waiting for a train and this old man came up to me. He asked me where I was from, told me he travels to Asia all the time and asked me out.
‘He was about 30 years older than me. It’s revolting. It happens to a lot of my Asian friends and we are sick of it.’
And here’s the most shocking thing: these men think they’re Superman by rescuing Asian women from poverty and giving them a ‘better life’.
But let’s not pretend these are love stories. And let’s not indulge the idea that these LBH’s are knights in shining armour.
Thailand is a beautiful country. Thai women are not a last-chance saloon for pasty white men rejected by Western dating culture.
There’s a reason why every woman cringes when they see an older man strutting around Thailand like he’s the cock of the walk.
We know what you are. And we see your adult daughters back home quietly asking themselves if they ever truly knew the man they once called ‘dad’.
