This Meghan Markle Rumor About Jack The Ripper Is Just Unnecessarily Strange

Man, Meghan Markle just can't catch a break this week. Not only is she gearing up to get married in front of millions of people on an international stage, but now there's a bizarre rumor floating around that Markle is related to Jack the Ripper, according to the Daily Mail. Ridiculous, right? As if having to deal with her actual relatives causing drama wasn't already stressful enough.

On May 14 — five days before Markle is set to wed Prince Harry — the Daily Mail reported that an American lawyer named named Jeff Mudgett is claiming that Markle is a distant relative of Victorian-era serial killer, Jack the Ripper. Oh, OK. Sure thing, buddy.

For anyone unfamiliar, Jack the Ripper notoriously committed a string of grisly, prostitute-targeted murders around the East End area of London in 1888, according to Biography. To this day, his identity remains unknown, but Mudgett claims that one of his ancestors, Dr. H.H. Holmes — another infamous serial killer who was active during the same time as the Ripper — was the one who committed the East End killings, therefore proving that Holmes and Jack the Ripper were one in the same.

Mudgett claims he — along with the FBI, the CIA, and Scotland Yard — determined that Holmes was Jack the Ripper after conducting a handwriting analysis study, as per the Daily Mail. Whether or not this is actually true remains to be seen, but apparently, this Mudgett guy thinks that Markle is related to Holmes, too.

"It turns out [Holmes] was Jack the Ripper. This means Meghan [Markle] is related to Jack the Ripper," Mudgett told Channel 4 (via the Mail), the station that's responsible for the Meet the Markles documentary. "I don't think the Queen knows," he continued. "I am not proud he is my ancestor. Meghan won't be either."

The Daily Mail reports that Mudgett conducted "ancestral studies" but the article doesn't offer up any evidence from the lawyer in particular... (Perhaps that will be talked about on the show?) Plus, even if Markle did end up being related to Holmes ... Objection! Relevance! Seriously, though? Who cares? It's not like that would mean that Markle's a serial killer, too. Everybody's got at least one relative they'd rather not be associated with.

To that end, poor Meghan Markle has really been going through it with her real-life, living-and-breathing family this week. On May 8, Markle's father, Thomas, suffered a heart-attack, TMZ reported. One week later on May 14 — the same day the story about Jack the Ripper came out — Markle's spotlight-loving half-sister, Samantha Grant, claimed that she was responsible for staging paparazzi photos of Thomas in Mexico, according to the Daily Mail.

Not only that, but after it came out that the photos were staged, TMZ reported that the bride-to-be's father — who was supposed to be walking her down the aisle on May 19 — had decided to skip the wedding altogether because of the paparazzi drama. Then, on May 15, TMZ reported in the morning that Markle's dad had changed his mind about attending his daughter's wedding, as long as his doctor says he's healthy enough to do so. But, by the late afternoon, TMZ published a story about Thomas not attending the wedding once again as he would be having heart surgery on Wednesday.

Kensington Palace released a statement about the ordeal to The Guardian on May 14 that read: "This is a deeply personal moment for Ms Markle in the days before her wedding. She and Prince Harry ask again for understanding and respect to be extended to Mr Markle in this difficult situation."

Wow, when it rains, it pours. This has been a pretty terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week for Markle, but hopefully she and Harry will be able to put all this behind them and get excited about their upcoming nuptials. After all, she's about to become a duchess! And once that happens, she can give a royal wave to all this drama and start living her happily ever after.