In the mere five years since she married into the British royal family in 2018, Meghan Markle went from the small screen to one of the most recognised women in the world. The actor-turned-royal’s arrival on the scene proved to be explosive, in more than one sense of the word. Together with her husband, Prince Harry, Meghan has caused wave after wave both inside the royal family and outside of it.
But long before she became the subject of intense media scrutiny, Meghan’s beginnings were relatively humble. Born to Thomas Markle Sr, an Emmy-award winning TV lighting director and director of photography and makeup artist Doria Ragland in 1981, Meghan’s family was firmly middle class – worlds away from the highborn status of her future husband. Her mother is African-American while her father is white, and she identifies as “half-black and half-white”.
