Meghan Markle's father, Thomas Markle Sr., has a difficult relationship with his famous daughter. He's largely stayed out of the public eye in recent months, but has returned to the headlines as Harry and Meghan step back from their senior roles in the royal family.
Read on for more information about Markle Sr.'s controversial interviews, and potential participation in Meghan's upcoming lawsuit against the Mail on Sunday, plus, a bit more background on the man whose daughter stole Prince Harry's heart.
Thomas Markle could be involved in Meghan's upcoming lawsuit against the Mail on Sunday.
Back in October, the Sussexes announced Meghan's plans to file a privacy lawsuit against a British tabloid, The Mail on Sunday over "over the misuse of private information, infringement of copyright and breach of the Data Protection Act 2018."
A legal spokesperson from Schillings who is representing The Duchess of Sussex said more specifically that she has filed a claim over "over the intrusive and unlawful publication of a private letter written by the Duchess of Sussex."
That letter is believed to be one that Meghan wrote to her father, which was then published in the paper.
According to the Associated Press, "Documents filed at the High Court show the newspaper plans to rely on evidence from [Thomas] Markle, stating that he 'had a weighty right to tell his version of what had happened between himself and his daughter, including the contents of the letter.'"
But at this point, it has not been confirmed whether or not he will testify.
Meghan has reportedly not seen her father since before the royal wedding.
Markle was conspicuously absent from the royal wedding in 2018, citing health issues as his reason for not being there. While Markle Sr. couldn’t make it to Windsor to walk his daughter down the aisle, he watched her big day from California, where he was recovering. He told TMZ that Saturday, "My baby looks beautiful and she looks very happy. I wish I were there and I wish them all my love and all happiness."
He previously told the outlet he felt "honored and grateful" that Prince Charles, would be taking his spot. He added that his daughter called him and was "super sweet on the phone, telling him she loved him and worrying about his health."
Prince Harry and Meghan tied the knot in front of guests like Oprah, Serena Williams, and George and Amal Clooney. Meghan's mother, Doria Ragland, accompanied her in the car on her way to the church and sat front and center at the ceremony. After saying "I do," the newlyweds shared an iconic kiss at St. George's Chapel and then departed on a 6.5-mile carriage ride.
It was only a few weeks before the nuptials that Kensington Palace had announced that Markle Sr. would be at the wedding to give Meghan away. When news of his heart surgery broke, Meghan announced via a statement on Twitter that her father would sadly "not be attending our wedding. I have always cared for my father and hope he can be given the space he needs to focus on his health."
"I would like to thank everyone who has offered generous messages of support. Please know how much Harry and I look forward to sharing our special day with you on Saturday."
At first, Markle Sr. had told TMZ that he would not be at his daughter's wedding because of the "fallout" over selling paparazzi photos of himself preparing for the wedding, which he called "stupid and hammy."
When asked to comment on the TMZ story at the time, a spokesman for Kensington Palace said:
"This is a deeply personal moment for Ms. Markle in the days before her wedding. She and Prince Harry ask again for understanding and respect to be extended to Mr. Markle in this difficult situation."
It's possible that additional details about why Markle missed the wedding will come out in the trial. Markle has reportedly not seen Meghan since before her nuptials, and has not met his grandson Archie.
He's spoken to the media many times since then.
In the year and a half since his daughter's wedding to Prince Harry, Thomas Markle Sr. has given many interviews to the media, none of which appear to have been sanctioned by the royal family. In late July of 2018, he even told the Daily Mail that "Perhaps it would be easier for Meghan if I died."
Most recently, he said that he was "disappointed" by the news that Harry and Meghan are stepping back from their senior roles in the royal family.
He has also speculated greatly about Meghan's life as a Duchess.
"My thing about my daughter right now is that I think she is terrified," Markle Sr. said in the interview. "I see it in her eyes, I see it in her face and I see it in her smile. I’ve seen her smile for years. I know her smile. I don’t like the one I’m seeing now. This one isn’t even a stage smile–this is a pained smile."
Markle Sr. added that his take on Meghan's adjustment to royal life could mean the Duchess is "just having a couple of bad days."
"It really worries me. I think she’s under too much pressure. There’s a high price to pay to be married to that family."
Watch the full interview with The Sun here:
But he was still happy when he heard Meghan was expecting her first child with Prince Harry.
Markle told the Daily Mail that when he heard the news that his daughter was pregnant on the radio, his first thought was of Meghan as a newborn.
"I thought, 'My baby is having a baby,'" he said. He also shared that he was filled with "love, joy and happiness for both my beautiful daughter and my son-in-law. A new baby is a blessing and I look forward to seeing a little Meghan or a little Harry."
Markle Sr.'s comments were kinder than in some of his previous interviews; just a few weeks prior, he likened the royal family to a "cult."
"They are either like Scientologists or the Stepford family," he told the Sun. "They close the door, pull the shades down and put their fingers in their ears so they don’t have to hear."
Markle met Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, in the late 1970s.
“I like to think he was drawn to her sweet eyes and her Afro, plus their shared love of antiques,” Meghan wrote in an 2016 Elle UK essay about being biracial titled 'I'm More Than An Other.' The couple wed, moved to a Los Angeles neighborhood that was “leafy and affordable,” and welcomed Meghan into the world on August 4, 1981.
The bride-to-be recalls her upbringing in the Valley as lacking in diversity. “There was my mom, caramel in complexion with her light-skinned baby in tow, being asked where my mother was since they assumed she was the nanny,” Meghan wrote.
Meghan’s parents separated when she was 6. She lived with Ragland, a yoga instructor and social worker, after the divorce.
He has two other children from a previous marriage.
Meghan has two half-siblings, Samantha and Thomas Jr., who are the children of Markle Sr.'s first marriage to Roslyn Loveless.
Samantha Markle, who is also known by the name Samantha Grant, is 17 years Meghan's senior and has spoken with the press frequently about her half-sister—and not always in a positive way.
Hollywood runs in the family.
Markle Sr. was a television lighting director, and Meghan credits her dad and the time she spent on set with him as a kid with sparking her interest in acting.
Markle Sr. worked in Hollywood for years. When Meghan was a kid, he was a television lighting director and photography director on sets like Married... with Children and General Hospital.
"Every day after school for 10 years, I was on the set of Married ... with Children, which is a really funny and perverse place for a little girl in a Catholic school uniform to grow up," she told Esquire in 2013. "There were a lot of times my dad would say, 'Meg, why don't you go and help with the craft services room over there? This is just a little off-color for your 11-year-old eyes.'"
Still, it felt glamorous to the impressionable tween. “And there I was, behind the scenes of a glossy soap opera and a TV sitcom, surrounded by famous actors and their glam teams, multi-million dollar budgets, and crew lunches that always included filet mignon and enough sweets to make you think you were at Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory,” Meghan wrote later on her lifestyle website The Tig.
Markle Sr. won a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Design Excellence For a Daytime Drama Series.
He’s proud of his daughter’s professional achievements.
Before the wedding, Ramon Moreno, identified as a family friend, said Markle Sr. regularly talks about his famous daughter. He told Daily Mail, “[Thomas] was proud of her when she was in Suits, even before she was with the Prince. I am sure Tom will be there at the wedding. He will want to be there. He will be so happy. He loves his daughter very, very much. He says they talk regularly.”
In Vanity Fair, Meghan once called both of her parents “so supportive.”
“My parents had been so supportive watching me audition, trying to make ends meet, taking all the odds-and-ends jobs to pay my bills," she told the magazine. "I was doing calligraphy, and I was a hostess at a restaurant — and all those things that actors do... My father knew how hard it is for an actor to get work, so he above all people was so proud that I was able to beat the odds.”
He helped his daughter feel comfortable with her identity.
When Meghan’s seventh grade English teacher told her to check the ethnicity box for Caucasian on a mandatory census, which confused her, she says her father told her: “If that happens again, you draw your own box.”
“I never saw my father angry, but in that moment I could see the blotchiness of his skin crawling from pink to red,” she wrote in ELLE UK. “It made the green of his eyes pop and his brow was weighted at the thought of his daughter being prey to ignorance. Growing up in a homogeneous community in Pennsylvania, the concept of marrying an African-American woman was not on the cards for my dad.”
He now reportedly lives in Mexico.
He’s relocated to the small beach city of Rosarito, where he originally told reporters he’d “love to” give his daughter away at the wedding. “I’m very pleased, I’m delighted,” he told the U.K.’s Daily Mirror.
