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The interview is uncomfortable watching, and comes as Harry and Meghan surrender their "royal highness" titles and end their roles as "working senior royals," to seek "financial independence" in new lives split between Canada - where they are now - and Britain.
The documentary, "Thomas Markle: My Story," airs on Britain's Channel 5. It showcases Meghan's 75-year-old father venting about his daughter, alternatively saying quite harsh and quite needful things.
"I can't see her reaching out to me, especially now . . . or Harry for that matter, but I think both of them are turning into lost souls at this point," Markle said.
"I don't know what they're looking for. I don't think they know what they are looking for."
He trashes his daughter while proclaiming his love. Many might find it must-see but tawdry TV, on a channel that features, "Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly" and "Bad Girls Behind Bars."
In clips released before the show airs, as promotional bait, Thomas Markle, a retired TV lighting director living in Mexico, imagines his own death.
"The last time they might see me is being lowered into the ground," says Meghan's father, who has struggled with heart and other health issues.
Markle says he has been cast aside by the couple and the palace: "I don't think at this point they're thrilled to see me or want to talk to me."
He confesses he sold photos of himself to the paparazzi before his daughter's wedding - and is still making money off the images. "Absolutely. Those pictures will sell forever," he told the broadcaster.
For many, Thomas Markle plays the villain. Others think he has been treated shabbily.
He is, for sure, the dad who won't shut up - despite Meghan's pleas. In a letter leaked to the British tabloids last year, Meghan begged her father to stop talking to the press, saying "your actions have broken my heart into a million pieces."
The Duchess of Sussex is now suing the Mail on Sunday for publishing of the letter. The Mail has responded in court that Meghan assumed her letter would be widely distributed and that her personal life, as a senior royal, was newsworthy.
In the days before his daughter's wedding, which garnered an estimated 1.9 billion viewers, Thomas Markle played an offstage but dramatic role, saying he both wanted to come to the celebration, but was either too sick to travel to England or not really wanted.
In the end, only Meghan's mother Doria Ragland attended. Meghan walked herself partway down the aisle before being accompanied by Harry's father, Prince Charles.
In his remarks, Thomas Markle suggests his daughter has thrown a good thing away.
"Every young girl wants to become a princess, and she got that, and now... it looks like she's tossing that away for money," he told Channel 5.
Yet Meghan isn't a young girl. She's a 38-year-old, previously divorced, successful American actress, with a new husband and an 8-month-old son.
Her husband is worth an estimated $30 million, inherited from his mother, Princess Diana, and his grandmother, the queen mother. Meghan is believed to have made $6 million from her years on the television show "Suits."
What they could earn as financially independent global "influencers" is unknown. Although they will no longer be working royals, they will be expected to conduct themselves in a way that doesn't reflect badly on the royal family.
On the Channel 5 broadcast, Thomas Markle refers to the extensive $3 million home renovation done at taxpayer expense for the couple's home in England, Frogmore Cottage, a five-bedroom historic mansion near Windsor Castle.
"Apparently $3 million and a 26-bedroom home isn't enough for them. It's kind of embarrassing to me," said Markle, confusing the number of bedrooms at Kensington Palace, Harry and Meghan's former abode.
In remarks before a private audience on Sunday night, but promoted on the couple's new SussexRoyal social media sites, Prince Harry said the couple were "taking a leap of faith" in stepping away their duties as senior royals, but added, "There really was no other option."
Harry said away from the palace and their royal lives, the couple hoped for "a more peaceful life."
The 35-year-old prince called the news media "a powerful force" that needs to be countered and suggested the intrusions by the press were one reasons they choose to quit their royal roles and head off to Canada.
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