BORN TO BE A MEGHAN STAR!
Duchess’s father shares poignant photo album as he talks of the daughter he misses so much
IT is clear she has always been her daddy’s little princess... despite the rift when she married a prince.
Now Thomas Markle has shared a trove of unseen photographs and home movie footage of his estranged daughter Meghan, saying: ‘I miss the way she was.’
The pictures, shown in a TV programme featuring Mr Markle, 75, document the Duchess of Sussex’s childhood. In one, from August 1981, he leans lovingly over his newborn daughter.
‘I just knew she was going to be special,’ he said. ‘I was just knocked out by that child. She was just beautiful and I just couldn’t put her down.’
Other images of a young Meghan include footage of her aged 15, delivering her lines with gusto as Little Red Riding Hood in the play Into The Woods, and a photograph of the teenager dressed Aladdin-style in baggy purple trousers.
Meghan is also seen fishing and joking with her father – beaming adoringly at him. Her mother Doria Ragland features in several of the photographs, including one in which Mr Markle has his arms round his wife and daughter as all three smile.
Mr Markle said he co-operated with the TV documentary, broadcast on Channel 5 on Wednesday, because he was fed up with being portrayed as ‘trashy’ and wanted Harry and Meghan to see it because ‘to them I don’t exist’.
Yet the programme was in many ways a love letter to his daughter, whom he describes as his ‘most important relationship’ and his ‘pride and joy’, adding: ‘I think Meghan would say I did a very good job as a father.’
Mr Markle detailed the breakdown of their relationship, which led to him cooperating with a paparazzi photographer to fake candid pictures of himself before her 2018 wedding to Harry.
He said his involvement in the deal would ‘haunt me for the rest of my life’, and described a phone call in which Prince Harry – whom he has never met – reprimanded him. Mr Markle was unable to fly to England for the wedding after suffering a heart attack, and says he and Meghan haven’t spoken since.
He confirmed that he had been paid an undisclosed amount to take part in the documentary, but insisted: ‘The royals owe me. Harry owes me, Meghan owes me. My daughter told me that when I reach my senior years she’ll take care of me. It’s time to look after Daddy.’ While he is unlikely ever to see his grandson Archie, friends bring him royal memorabilia, he said, adding: ‘I miss Meghan, I miss the way she was. I don’t recognise who she is now, that’s the problem.’
THE Thomas Markle interview (C5) was sad viewing. No he has not been a perfect father, but on balance it looks like he tried his best.
He is now a 75-year-old with a heart condition and seems to be alone in the world, living in reduced circumstances.
I don’t agree with him that anyone ‘owes’ him anything. Yet how awful that even though Harry and Meghan are now in North America, living in luxury in the same time zone and only a short flight away — they still appear to have no time for him.
It remains remarkable that Mr Markle still hasn’t met his daughter’s husband. Their only contact seems to have been an angry transatlantic phone call.
And now it looks unlikely that Mr Markle will ever meet his grandchild — or grandchildren.
He has made mistakes, but it is hard to understand exactly what he has done that is so terrible that it warrants this treatment.
His daughter lived with him throughout her teens, and he paid for her education. Just three short years ago, she was still proclaiming her daughterly love for him on her Instagram account.
Then along came Harry and everything changed overnight. Having a celebrity marry into a family can unbalance a lot of things; everyone has to recalibrate and adjust.
It seems to me poor Thomas Markle was never given that chance.