‘Ghetto princess’ not true - sister
"Meghan was very classy, she was sort of prim and proper even when she was a child." Samantha Grant, Meghan Markle's half-sister
BRITAIN: She has so far survived the most bruising scrutiny with admirable restraint, but the family and friends of Meghan Markle are not proving quite so discreet as they share their stories about the woman who most of the world believes is about to become Prince Harry’s bride.
In the latest outbreak of royal wedding fever, an ITV documentary entitled Prince Harry and Meghan: Truly, Madly, Deeply reveals that the actress’s AfricanAmerican heritage was not at all ‘‘gangland’’, as some tabloid reports have suggested; nor was she a ‘‘ghetto princess’’ or the product of a ‘‘rags-to-riches Cinderella story’’.
Instead, Meghan’s half-sister Samantha Grant reveals: ‘‘We were raised in a very beautiful upper-middle class home in the San Fernando Valley of southern California, nowhere near ‘gangland’. . . Meghan was very classy, she was sort of prim and proper even when she was a child.’’
Their father, Thomas Markle, was a former Hollywood lighting director who divorced his first wife - Samantha’s mother - and married Doria Ragland, an AfricanAmerican social worker and yoga instructor who gave birth to Meghan in 1981. Meghan’s parents divorced when she was six.
Samantha, 52, who is 16 years older than her half-sister, said Meghan was brought up in a ‘‘unique multicultural and interracial family’’.
She added: ‘‘With regards to feeling biracial tension or rift, I never really noticed that. My father and Doria were very good at giving her stability.’’
Little new light is shed on Markle’s first marriage to Trevor Engelson, a film producer - they were together for seven years, marrying in 2011 and divorcing two years later. Abby Wathen, Markle’s friend and co-star in the film Random Encounters, describes how the actresses ‘‘bonded’’ over their divorces.
‘‘Meghan, she’s not one of these people that dwells,’’ says Wathen. ‘‘I was destroyed and Meghan was really ‘It was great to feel empowered’. I feel she took her power back. It wasn’t the marriage she needed to be in and she moved on.’’
Harry, 33, and Meghan, 36, have been dating since July last year and recently have made no secret of their romance. In September Markle told an American magazine interviewer: ‘‘We’re two people who are really happy and in love.’’ The actress is reported to have met the Queen last month.
Markle is understood to be considering giving up her acting career in preparation for royal life and is reported to have told the makers of Suits, which is filmed in Toronto, that she will not return for the next series. She has also closed down what she has described as her ‘‘passion project’’ - The Tig, a website and blog where for three years she shared tips on food, fashion, travel and beauty.
The scrutiny is certain to continue. It is to Markle’s credit that after more than a year of taletelling by her friends she still sounds like a normal human being.