Markle was born to Doria Ragland, an African American former television studio intern who later became a social worker and yoga instructor, and her husband, Thomas Markle, a lighting director who was white; the couple met on the set of the soap opera General Hospital. Markle’s parents divorced when she was a young child, but both remained active in her life. In 1995 she had an uncredited role in the sitcom Married…with Children, for which her father served as director of lighting and of photography. After graduating from Immaculate Heart High School, an all-girls Roman Catholic school, in 1999, Markle studied theatre and international studies at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois (B.A., 2003).
Relationship with MotherMeghan Markle and her mom Doria Ragland have a strong daughter-mother bond. Ragland has been by her daughter's side through it all, from Meghan's early career as an actress to falling in love with Prince Harry. By all accounts, Meghan and her mom appear to have an incredibly close relationship. "We can just have so much fun together, and yet I'll still find so much solace in her support," Meghan said of her in Glamour. "That duality coexists the same way it would in a best friend." |
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Relationship with fatherMeghan says she and her father were very close when she was young, calling herself "a daddy's girl." Despite initial reports that Thomas Sr. would not be invited to the royal wedding and that he and Meghan were estranged, Meghan's old writings presented him as a loving, protective caretaker throughout her childhood.Meghan Markle's relationship with her father, Thomas Markle, Sr. has been strained since shortly before her royal wedding to Prince Harry, which her father missed after finding himself at the center of a scandal involving staged paparazzi photos. |
Ever since news spread of the relationship between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the world can't stop talking about the couple. Even six years after word broke, the relationship between the Duke and Duchess of Sussex continues to make numerous headlines.
July 2016: Meghan and Harry MeetThe meeting of Prince Harry and Meghan was completely unexpected and done by the hands of fate (or more accurately, friends).As Prince Harry recalls, he was scrolling through Instagram and came across a post of Meghan and was completely enamored. Before reaching out to him, Meghan went through his Instagram feed to get a sense of what Harry is actually about (not how he is portrayed by the media), was intrigued by what she saw, and agreed to exchange numbers. From there, they grabbed a drink in London and Meghan thought Harry was "refreshingly fun." |
August 2016: Prince Harry and Meghan spend a week in BotswanaAfter weeks of back-and-forth texting and Facetime calls, the couple desperately wanted to see each other again face to face. Harry was already heading to Botswana, and Meghan was free for the week, so she agreed to travel with him where they would spend a week isolated from the world in Africa. With no cell phone service, no plumbing, and having to share a tent, the couple had their initial awkward moments but found their footing as it "just felt so right," said Harry. | October 2016: News break that Prince Harry and Meghan are rumored to be datingAfter months of secretly dating, the press finally finds out that Harry and Meghan are dating and spread the news. Having been alerted a day before that the news was going to come out, the couple used their last day of freedom partying with friends at a Halloween party. |
November 2016: Prince Harry confirms dating rumorsPrince Harry confirmed the dating rumors after posting an unexpected statement regarding the unfair and unjust negative press Meghan has been subjected to. Part of the statement read, "But the past week has seen a line crossed. His girlfriend, Meghan Markle, has ben subject to a wave of abuse and harassment. Some of this has been very public—the smear on the front page of a national newspaper; the racial undertones of comment pieces; and the outright sexism and racism of social media trolls and web article comments." |
May 2017: Harry and Meghan attend their first public event togetherOn May 6, 2017, Prince Harry and Meghan attend their first public event as a couple at a charity polo match. As Prince Harry competed on the second day of the Audi Polo Challenge, Meghan supported him from the stands. |
November 2017: Prince Harry and Meghan get engagedOn November 27, 2017, Prince Harry and Meghan announced their engagement. Per the docuseries, the couple revealed that their engagement photoshoot and interview were completely rehearsed and were told what to say and do in front of the camera. While the series of public events from the day weren't necessarily organic, the excitement was still very much real. The engagement ring was custom designed by Prince Harry and consisted of a center diamond sourced from Botswana and two side stones from the late Princess Diana's jewelry collection. |
May 16, 2018: Prince Harry and Meghan have a private weddingIn her interview with Oprah Winfrey, Meghan unveiled that she and Prince Harry had a private wedding three days before the televised royal one. "Three days before our wedding, we got married — no one knows that — but we called the Archbishop and said, 'This thing, this spectacle is for the world, but we want our union between us.' So the vows that we have framed in our room are just the two of us in our backyard with the Archbishop of Canterbury," Meghan said. |
May 19, 2018: Prince Harry and Meghan have a royal weddingThere's nothing like a royal fairytale wedding. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex got married at St. George's Chapel in Windsor on May 19, 2018. The wedding was one of the largest televised events of the year as more than 1 billion people tuned in to watch. The wedding itself was no small matter as around 600 guests attended the event, including A-listers such as Serena Williams, Priyanka Chopra, George and Amal Clooney, David and Victoria Beckham, Oprah Winfrey, Idris Elba, and Elton John. |
May 2019: Harry and Meghan welcome their first child into the worldOn May 6, 2019, Archie Harrison Mountbatten Windsor was welcomed into the world. After his birth, Prince Harry spoke to the press to announce the exciting news. “I’m very excited to announce that Meghan and myself had a baby boy this morning, a very healthy baby boy,” Prince Harry told the press. “It’s been the most amazing experience I can ever possibly imagine ... This little thing is absolutely to die for.” |
October 2019: Markle sues Associated Newspapers Limited for publishing a private letter sent to her fatherThe British media's ruthless attack on Meghan continued as The Mail On Sunday published parts of a private letter for the world to see, originally sent by Meghan to her father, Thomas Markle. Meghan ultimately filed a lawsuit against the media company on the issue of privacy and copyright. |
January 2020: Harry and Meghan step back as senior royalsAfter a previous announcement about taking time off to focus on their family and then deciding to spend Christmas away from Sandringham and instead visit Meghan's mom, Doria Ragland, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex officially announced they would be stepping back from their duties as senior members of the Royal Family. Originally the plan was to only reduce their roles. As Meghan said, "We were stepping back, not stepping down, but just to have a reduced role." |
July 2020: Meghan suffers from a miscarriageIn a personal opinion piece written for The New York Times in November 2020, Meghan shared that she suffered from a miscarriage in July 2020. "Losing a child means carrying an almost unbearable grief, experienced by many but talked about by few," she wrote. "In the pain of our loss, my husband and I discovered that in a room of 100 women, 10 to 20 of them will have suffered from miscarriage. Yet despite the staggering commonality of this pain, the conversation remains taboo, riddled with (unwarranted) shame, and perpetuating a cycle of solitary mourning." |
June 2021: Prince Harry and Meghan welcome their second child into the worldOn June 4, 2021, Lilibet "Lili" Diana Mountbatten-Windsor entered the world. In a statement, the couple expresses their joy for the birth of their daughter and their gratitude for all the well-wishes: "On June 4, we were blessed with the arrival of our daughter, Lili. She is more than we could have ever imagined, and we remain grateful for the love and prayers we've felt from across the globe. Thank you for your continued kindness and support during this very special time for our family." |
December 2022: Harry & Mehgan released on NetflixThe couple dropped their highly anticipated docuseries Harry & Meghan in which the pair recounts the series of events that have happened throughout their relationship. Viewers are given a glimpse into Harry and Meghan's world, but this time it's on their terms. From the opening scene, Harry and Meghan express that so many people have talked and written about them (people that they've never met) and so this docuseries is their chance to give their point of view on their own story. |
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Meghan officially became royal when she married Prince Harry — and in the process made history as she is American, biracial, and divorced, three things that may have made the union unfathomable in previous generations of the British royal family. With her new power, Meghan embarked on the philanthropic work she was so eager to undertake and gave unprecedented speeches (well, for royals) about feminism and education. Oh yeah, she also got pregnant with her first royal baby, and one time she closed her own car door.
The Duchess of Sussex visited a school in Rwanda soon after becoming a World Vision ambassador in 2016.
Clean water, a counsellor and help for girls who start their periods, means that young girls in Rwanda can feel safe to attend school.
Meghan helped bring clean water to a community, thanks to the donations of ordinary people worldwide.
She was inspired by how this empowered women and girls within the community.
To watch more about here trip to Rwanda click here!
In 2017, Meghan travelled again as a World Vision Global Ambassador – this time to India. Continuing to advocate strongly for gender equality, Meghan focused on bringing greater awareness to girls education.
She met with local activists and educators to talk about improving access to girls’ latrines, a significant problem for 63 million teenage girls in India.
To watch more about here trip to India click here!
Through Meghan Markle's humanitarian work with World Vision, she met and touched the lives of many children around the world. We captured their celebration and congratulations as Meghan entered into the royal family in 2018, with love and best wishes sent to the new duke and duchess.
While visiting the Mbandazi primary school, Meghan taught students to paint with watercolours using water from a newly installed pipeline in their community.
“It was an amazing experience, taking water from one of the water sources in the community and using it with the children to paint pictures of what they dream to be when they grow up,” said Meghan. “I saw that water is not just a life source for a community, but it can really be a source for creative imagination, and how lucky I am to have been a part of that.”
Being a member of the British royal family is a full-time job with lots of rules. Everything from what royals wear to what they eat to how they say hello is dictated by rigid protocol. While Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were engaged, she was already paving her own way within their established traditions. She made royal life her own as the Duchess of Sussex. Now, she and Harry are stepping back from their roles as senior royals in order to launch a "new charitable entity" and become financially independent.
Embracing royals is usually off-limits for both security reasons and out of respect for their positions. But Markle goes right in for hugs.
At an event for International Women's Day, People reported that when 10-year-old Sophia Richards told Prince Harry she wants to be an actress, he brought her over to meet Markle, who hugged her.
"Meghan told me that I can achieve whatever I want to achieve. And Meghan said she would like to see me on TV when I become an actress," Richards told People. "It was a dream come true. I will never forget this day."
A statement from the palace said that Markle and Harry planned to "celebrate privately as a new family" before they introduced Archie to the world. Princess Diana and Kate Middleton were both photographed hours after giving birth on the hospital steps with each of their pregnancies.
Royal protocol applies from head to toe. The Queen often keeps her hair covered with a hat in public as per tradition, and Kate Middleton usually opts for perfectly-coiffed updos held in place by hairnets when she's not letting her hair down in a smooth blowout. But Markle went for a more casual look when she and Prince Harry visited a radio station.
Royals aren't allowed to sign autographs for security reasons to prevent their signatures from being forged. That didn't stop Markle from signing 10-year-old Caitlin Clarke's autograph book with a heart and smiley face.
Clarke told HELLO magazine that Markle misspelled her name and wrote "Hi Kaitlin," but that she didn't mind.
"I don't really care," she said. "My heart is still racing. I've never got a royal autograph before. This is going to make everyone jealous."
How closely Markle observes royal protocol may not matter as much in the future as she and Harry step back from their positions as "senior royals," but the decision to distance themselves from the royal family certainly does. It appears the Queen may not have been aware of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's decision based on a statement from the royal communications office.
"Discussions with The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are at an early stage," the Queen's statement read. "We understand their desire to take a different approach, but these are complicated issues that will take time to work through."