Harry told friends: I’ve got to marry someone famous Concerns over pressure of spotlight
WITH her Hollywood smile and confident air, actress Meghan Markle may seem a world away from Prince Harry’s previous girlfriends.
But there was one person who was not the least bit surprised that he would find love with a glamorous celebrity – the royal himself.
Shortly before meeting Ms Markle, the prince had told friends he would marry someone used to the spotlight.
He told a confidante that ‘only somebody who was already in the public eye would be able to understand and handle everything that goes with being with [a prince]’, it was reported.
Harry, 33, met divorcée Ms Markle, 36, last summer, shortly after making the comments, yet the source added: ‘I don’t think he went out and deliberately looked for a famous actress.’
The prince’s candid remarks came after two of his ex-girlfriends, Chelsy Davy, 32, and Cressida Bonas, 28, admitted they struggled with the scrutiny of being with the royal.
Ms Davy said the attention during their seven-year on-off romance was ‘so full-on... Crazy and scary and uncomfortable’.
A source close to the prince told The Sunday Times: ‘It makes sense that he has ended up with a celebrity… he feels comfortable being with someone who has already come to terms with the price of fame in the way that his other girlfriends never could.’
New pictures from the Markle family album illustrate the future royal’s life long before she met Harry. One shows Ms Markle, aged 18, as she graduated from her all-girl Catholic high school where she was known as ‘Markle Sparkle’ because of her popularity.
Other images show a glimpse of Ms Markle’s reclusive father Thomas. A picture from his 1979 wedding to Ms Markle’s mother Doria Ragland, 61, show the bride in a floral crown and simple dress while the groom looks on lovingly in an grey suit.
As his family confirmed that he would make a rare appearance at next year’s royal wedding, friends told of how he proudly carries pictures of the celebrity daughter he affectionately calls ‘Bean’. In an interview with a Sunday newspaper, a friend Loretta Strawser, 76, from Newport, Pennsylvania, described Mr Markle as a ‘great guy’ and said: ‘He’s always been very proud of Meghan.’
‘He feels comfortable’