Among the conspiracy theories that Samantha Markle allegedly floated about her famous half-sister, Meghan Markle, is the bizarre but long-simmering idea that the Duchess of Sussex faked her two pregnancies.

That’s according to a new BuzzFeed News report, which shared screenshots of since-deleted tweets from one of Samantha Markle’s accounts, in which she allegedly joined others in pushing the fake-pregnancy narrative. According to BuzzFeed, the tweets suggest that the self-described author, screenwriter, and counselor has been coordinating information with an influential anti-Meghan YouTube account and with other critics of Meghan and her husband, Prince Harry.

Samantha Markle Is Suing Her Sister Meghan For Defamation. But She’s Been Smearing Meghan For Years. https://t.co/EFFyfyb3lq

— Ellie Hall (@ellievhall) March 12, 2022

The report asserts that Samantha Markle has become “Meghan’s biggest troll,” after having long accused her paternal half-sister, 17 years her junior, of “social climbing” her way into the British monarchy and turning her back on her American family, including their father Thomas Markle.

The report also focuses on the ways that Samantha Markle, 57, allegedly has become of one of the more active online propagators of fake-pregnancy rumors, while she has avoided making these claims in mainstream media interviews. The Meghan “pregnancy truthers” in fact are pretty busy online and are among the more outspoken of conspiracists who traffic in a certain kind of celebrity gossip: Pushing fake-pregnancy theories about famous women.

The Meghan truthers assert that her children, Archie, almost 3, and Lilibet, nine months, were conceived by in vitro fertilization and born via surrogate. Some have gone so far to say that there may be no Archie or Lilibet at all, accusing the Sussexes of using lifelike baby dolls during rare public appearances with their children.

“I think it should be mandatory that proof of delivery from my sister’s womb be provided if any of the children are to have a title and Archie should not have a title because I believe a surrogate was involved,” Samantha Markle allegedly tweeted from her @TheMarkleSammy account in June, 2021, a screenshot shows. In this screenshot, the account’s user name is “Trump is America’s President.”

The false-pregnancy tweets may have prompted Twitter to suspend the @TheMarkleSammy account Monday. Twitter didn’t specify why the account was suspended, but the platform said it takes action against users who “engage in the targeted harassment of someone.” Meanwhile, The Daily Mail reported that the account was banned three years after Samantha Markle’s first account, @sammymarkle, was suspended.

The suspension comes two days after the BuzzFeed News report was published and nearly two weeks after Samantha Markle filed a defamation suit against Meghan, alleging that her half-sister spread “false and malicious lies” about her.

It’s not yet known what, if any, impact the BuzzFeed News report will have on Samantha Markle’s defamation lawsuit, but her lawyer, Douglas Kahle, told BuzzFeed News and Newsweek that his client’s email and other accounts may “have been hacked.” He also suggested that unspecified statements attributed to her were “made by third parties” to defame her.

Kahle furthermore told Newsweek Monday that some of the Twitter screenshots that appeared in Buzzfeed may have been  altered or “Photoshopped.” “Due to the urgency of this matter, we are still investigating,” he added.

Whether or not Samantha Markle has pushed fake-pregnancy theories about Meghan, the former TV actress is not the first female celebrity to be so targeted. Other high-profile women hit with such rumors in recent years include Beyoncé, Kim Kardashian, Sofie Hunter (the wife of Benedict Cumberbatch). and “Selling Sunset” star Christine Quinn, according to reports on celebrity conspiracy theoris by The Atlantic and Jezebel.

A celebrity can face accusations of wearing a “moonbump,” or fake belly, if she parades around in stiletto heels in her last trimester or if she appears to have quickly slimmed down after giving birth. According to the Atlantic, the primary evidence for these claims “is usually a blurry photo or two in which a baby bump appears ‘deflated’ or ‘shifted.’ A visible wrinkle in a shirt can be deemed evidence of a prosthetic.”

With Meghan, BuzzFeed News described how the conspiracists have engaged in detailed, Zapruder-film-level analysis of videos that show Meghan’s pregnant stomach moving as she walks or sits and rises from a chair. “One 86-second YouTube video titled, ‘What the Hell is that Popping Noise as Pregnant Meghan Markle Stands up?,’ which shows Meghan rising from squatting down to pet a dog during an official engagement in January 2019, has nearly 240,000 views,” BuzzFeed News.

The Meghan pregnancy truthers appear to be particularly concerned about Archie and Lilibet being in line to the British throne, and are fixated on an obscure British law that says that royal heirs must be born “of the body” to inherit titles, BuzzFeed News said. There appears to be a genuine question about whether a child born via a surrogate can inherit the throne; Archie and Lilibet are seventh and eighth in line to the throne, respectively, behind Prince Charles, Prince William, their cousins George, Charlotte and Louis, and their father.

More generally, the allure of fake pregnancy theories about Meghan and other famous women may “lie in the fact that public pregnancy is a relatively new American development, one that our culture is still struggling to negotiate,” Jezebel said. Because of this allure, all the fashion and life-style changes associated with pregnancy and new motherhood have become big business, Jezebel said. The global maternity wear market alone was valued at around $18 billion in 2018, according to one industry analysis.

“The contemporary highly-scrutinized pregnancy offers many opportunities to sell things — including shapewear, workout regimens, diets, and self-help books,” Jezebel said.

Becoming a mother also can be good for a celebrity’s career. Pregnancy and birth announcements often break records for social media views, and stars who share their journeys as new moms can generate tons of goodwill. They may also find highly lucrative new revenue streams by endorsing maternity products on their social media accounts.

A consequence of this fascination with celebrity pregnancies is that regular women also expect to “get their bodies back” as soon as possible after giving birth, Jezebel said. “They feel pressured to gain the bare minimum of weight during pregnancy, and to shed it almost instantly,” Jezebel added.

Some celebrities can help foster insecurities in regular women by sharing news about their easy return to work — while hiding the fact they have nannies — or by hyping certain workouts, diets and supplements as the key to their amazing post-pregnancy bodies. For example, Christine Quinn of “Selling Sunset” announced that she resumed working within days of giving birth and was having sex with her husband just a month later, Jazebel reported.

“It’s totally OK to admit to having a surrogate but don’t set unrealistic expectations for (postpartum) moms when you didn’t even carry the baby yourself,” one of Quinn’s accusers wrote to her on Instagram, according to Jezebel. “It’s deceitful and a shame.”

Resentment has always been a powerful driver of conspiracy theories, with concerns that powerful people in Hollywood, government or tech can manipulate narratives around themselves, according to the Atlantic. Theories about fake celebrity babies “come with a cocktail of resentment toward the hypocrisy of celebrity, the dishonesty of the media, and the unflappable confidence of the elite, who get away with whatever they want,” the Atlantic added.

And, of course, some online conspiracists live to exploit these resentments. Some may find a personal sense of purpose in being able to “grasp some kind of control” of the events around them, and share their discoveries with others, according to the Atlantic. For the more practical-minded, spinning a good narrative about a celebrity’s fake pregnancy can attract eyeballs to their preferred platforms — attention they can monetize and use to build influence.

The many critics of Samantha Markle, including her half-sister Meghan, have long accused her of trying to cash in on her association with the globally famous duchess. Her 2021 autobiography is called “The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister.”

For her part, Samantha Markle said in her lawsuit that Meghan has “disseminated false and malicious lies,” designed to destroy her reputation and subject her to “humiliation, shame and hatred on a worldwide scale.” For the time being, the women’s father, Thomas Markle, said he is “pulling” for Samantha and is willing  to testify on her behalf. And, like Meghan’s more enterprising critics, he has launched a YouTube account to press his and Samantha’s case.