Markle’s father will be at wedding
Meghan Markle’s reclusive 73-year-old father, Thomas Markle, has been invited to her May 19 wedding to Prince Harry — and reportedly will overcome his shyness to walk his Los Angeles-reared daughter down the aisle in front of a global TV audience.
But Markle’s older halfsister, Samantha Grant, who has spoken negatively about her in interviews, won’t be at the wedding at Windsor Castle’s St. George’s Chapel, the British newspaper The Sun reported.
The talkative Floridabased mental health counselor and writer is Thomas Markle’s daughter from a previous marriage. However, Grant is expected to be in Windsor on the day of the nuptials — offering commentary for a TV channel, the Sun reported.
The Sun, quoting a Markle family friend, said over the weekend that Thomas Markle is “overjoyed to be beside his little girl on the day she comes a princess.” The former TV lighting designer lives in Mexico. He’ll have to “battle his demons” to get to the U.K. for the wedding, the Sun reported. Those demons apparently involve “crippling shyness.” “He’s not exactly thrilled at facing the world’s glare,” the family friend told the Sun. “But nothing will stop him from having Meghan on his arm for the big day.”
It was previously reported that Markle’s mother, yoga instructor Doria Ragland, who divorced Thomas Markle when Meghan was 6, also has been invited to the wedding. It also was previously reported that Markle, who became known to TV audiences starring on the legal drama “Suits,” was unlikely to invite Grant and her halfbrother Thomas Markle Jr.
The Daily Mail and USA Today noted that the future princess hasn’t had much contact with them in recent years, and both criticized her publicly after her engagement to Harry was announced in late November. Grant had also boasted on Twitter that she was writing a tell-all book about her sister called “The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister.”
She portrayed Markle as a social-climbing opportunist who shunned her family after making it in Hollywood.