Meet the in-laws: A family

THE story of Prince Harry’s prospective in-laws could have been taken straight from a Hollywood script with all the tales of money troubles, feuds and heavy drinking.

Meghan Markle boasts a close relationship with her “freespirited” mother and her “thoughtful, inspiring” father.

And the American actress has written lovingly of her relationship with both.

But it is the star’s extended step-family who have got into the headlines, with one newspaper describing her relatives as a “motley collection of individuals who, between them, have a long record of boozing, bust-ups and bankruptcies”.

From a gun crime arrest to a Twitter rant accusing the Suits actress of hypocrisy, Meghan’s step-relations have already proved controversial.

The future royal is closest to her mother, Doria Ragland, whom she has described as a “free-spirited clinical therapist”.

Ms Ragland, who is AfricanAmerican, met Meghan’s father, Thomas Markle, on the set of the US soap General Hospital, where he worked as a lighting director. She was a temp in the studio.

They divorced when Meghan was six but Meghan remained in close touch with her father.

Ms Ragland, who filed for bankruptcy in 2002, has kept a low profile during her daughter’s months of courting. Dutch-Irish Thomas Markle now lives a quiet life in Mexico. He filed for bankruptcy in 2016 after reports he failed to pay his debts.

Meghan is his only his second marriage.

Meghan has confided: “It’s safe to say I have always been a daddy’s girl.”

Things take a more interesting turn with Meghan’s half-sister and half-brother, the children from her father’s first marriage to Roslyn Markle.

Half-sister Samantha Grant describes herself as a writer, a mental health counsellor and a “blabbermouth”.

Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2008, she is a wheelchair user, 17 years older than Meghan and sells jewellery to raise money to fund the feature films she writes.

Twice-divorced, she has three children and, like her father, has filed for bankruptcy. She is estranged from her mother Roslyn and brother Thomas Jr. child from

Outspoken

Ms Grant has been an outspoken critic of Ms Markle since news of her relationship with Harry broke, describing her in interviews as a “shallow social climber” and claiming she shunned her after making it in Hollywood.

“The Royal Family would be appalled by what she’s done to her own family,” she said.

“There is so much more to focus on in the world than shoes and handbags,” she has railed, accusing Meghan of “hypocrisy” for presenting herself as a humanitarian activist.

She insisted she was not writing a “slamming tell-all” book about Meghan, but confirmed the work was called The Diary Of Princess Pushy’s Sister.

Thomas Jr, 50, has been bankrupt once, divorced twice and faced trial on gun charges before the case was dropped.

The father-of-two, who works as a window fitter in Oregon, was arrested in January 2017 for allegedly holding a gun to his girlfriend’s head during a drunken argument.

Meghan’s ex-husband is the film producer Trevor Engelson, 41. They tied the knot in 2011 in Jamaica but separated just two years later and were divorced in August 2013, citing “irreconcilable differences”.