Long before kingdoms, media attention and huge audiences, she was a young girl heating up her dinner and trying to find her place.
The girl was born in Los Angeles to a Black mother and a white father and didn’t see herself as the center of a movie story. In many ways, it felt like she didn’t have a place in school cliques, couldn’t do anything about beauty standards and even strangers assumed wrong things about her family.
I come from a Caucasian father and an African American mother. She once explained that she is both Black and white.
Everything about her journey has led to how she grew as a person and what gave her the power to face the world when her story was shared.
Trained by television talks and difficult sessions
While growing up, Meghan Markle remembered coming home to an empty house after her parents were finished with work for the day. Doria Ragland was a makeup artist who earned her income and Thomas Markle Sr was employed in television.
Most of my childhood was spent eating fast food and TV tray dinners,” she explained.
For me, watching television and having ready-made kids meals was just our normal routine.
Yet, there is some difference of opinion regarding what Meghan’s young life was actually like. Dancer Fu proves her memories conflict with her father’s account, especially concerning the way she was fed as a young child.
He stated that he would always collect Meghan from school himself and if he couldn’t, he arranged a car instead.
Seeing her mother treated with stares and questions whenever they were in public had a big effect on Meghan during her childhood.
Moms with darker skin
Meghan explained that others thought she put on a fake identity which surprised her mom, who at times was called a nanny by strangers instead of recognized as her own child.
All I remember is my mother saying that someone asked her in the grocery store, ‘Is that your child?’ She says, ‘He belongs to me.’ I say, ‘But you are his nanny, not his mother.’ ‘Why isn’t her mother here?’” Meghan said.
Both of Meghan’s parents cared for her until she was nine after their divorce. Afterward, her father became the main person looking after her, while her mother concentrated on starting her career.
Meghan stayed with her dad all the time until she was eighteen and left for college.
Moving outside the Valley’s borders, her mother found a home in a predominantly Black neighborhood. She felt the change strongly, but she was surrounded by a close group of women who acted as her family.
There was a skilled group of women who stayed by my side throughout Meg’s upbringing. It was always simple to hang out with her and make friends. She was born with a very empathic and mature character,” Doria stated in the same Netflix episode.
At times, their connection didn’t follow typical relationships.
“I asked her if I seemed like her mom and she said I acted like her slightly older and controlling sister, not her mother.”
I did not have the same physical features as the other girls.
Many people can relate to Meghan’s adolescent insecurities, but since she didn’t feel she belonged, hers were stronger.
“I was really nerdy during my childhood, I have to admit,” she said. Most people are unaware of this about me. I did not measure up in the looks department. I defined myself as the person with the most knowledge.”
Everything she did early on in life benefited from her strong mind. At 11 years old, she took on a TV commercial that was sexist. Back then, her ability to write was beyond compare.
Even during hard times, those little moments seemed quite luxurious.
Sizzler’s $4.99 salad bar played a big role in my childhood. “I realized how much effort my parents had placed to help me… and I was grateful.”
Meghan Markle is seen in unearthed family photos illustrating idyllic, happy childhood – far from modest upbringing she claimed, Duchess's cousin Shawn Johnson reveals https://t.co/41b5VXt2L6 pic.twitter.com/HLFeDKNAiQ
— Daily Mail (@DailyMail) February 19, 2024
Whenever my troop of Girl Scouts went out to eat for a celebration, we ended up at places I’d later call salad bars or The Old Spaghetti Factory since those were the options our families could pay for.
Life was very different after her dad won $750,000 in the lottery. Meghan’s half-brother claimed it contributed to shaping her passion and discipline in what she did.
According to him, that money meant [she] could learn at top institutions and from expert staff. “[She] keeps going until she achieves what she seeks.”
Beginning success and cinema fantasies
Meghan had dreams that were bigger than herself when she was a child. At the age of 11, she wrote a letter to her principal saying she would make their school famous after she graduated.
She meant what she said. At 13, she started working as a babysitter and a donut seller at a shop named Little Orbit. She never gave up on her work.
While she spent time on the Married… with Children set, she began to love acting thanks to her father’s job as lighting director.
“Growing up in Catholic school with a uniform was such a humorous and strange time for me,” she laughed.
However, Meghan was still trying to understand who she was during those years.
”My white family didn’t feel that I was black enough.”
Years later, in a blog post, she explained that her teens provided even bigger challenges as she attempted to adjust to their new social environment. As a biracial person, I was often at a place between the two races.
In the early stages of her career, she encountered challenges since people saw her as being of mixed ethnicity. She referred to this by saying, “I got turned down for black roles because I wasn’t dark enough and I didn’t get certain white roles because I didn’t fit the bill.”
Trying to look and act like a starlet pressured her through her twenties.
I was always trying to act like everyone else when it came to being cool or smart.
At the age of 33, things took a different turn.
I am turning 33 years old on this day. She concluded: “And I am happy.” Being kind to yourself and experiencing happiness, is something you have to learn over time.
They moved from Suits to St. George’s chapel.
The little girl who was unnoticed in the play became Rachel Zane on Suits and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.
They had their first meeting in 2016. After that, they tied the knot again at Windsor Castle two years later. Two years after the couple wed, in 2021, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet were born.
Yet, life as a royal mother could be very frightening at times.
A nightmarish experience following childbirth
In the spring of 2025, Meghan created her podcast, Confessions of a Female Founder. In the premiere, she told the audience a shocking fact: she almost died due to health complications after the birth of her first child.
She explained to Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd that both celebrities endured similar difficulties with postpartum, even though they had not known each other then. Both of us were diagnosed with preeclampsia. Postpartum preeclampsia. Such events are so rare and filled with fear.
“During the quiet times, you still try to look after people, mainly for your kids, since those were very serious medical events.”
Whitney replied: “It’s just as serious as life and death.”
Meghan survived. But about a year after her divorce, she had another private sorrow — a miscarriage that she later talked about in an emotional piece.
Mirroring both fast food suppers and exclusive royal events, Meghan Markle’s story is raw and real, depicting a woman’s battle to get noticed in spite of being contained by others.
Now, holding a microphone and having her kids with her, she’s ready to share her story, the way she sees fit.
