Meghan Markle: Who Is She, Really?

The suspicions of royal watchers worldwide are now fully realized: His Royal Highness Prince Henry of Wales — known colloquially, of course, as Prince Harry — popped the question to American actress Meghan Markle earlier this month in London.

[lz_ndn video=33299959]

The pair will wed in the spring of 2018 — an official announcement hit Kensington Palace’s Instagram account less than 24 hours ago.

For those who are only beginning to wrap their arms around the big news from Great Britain, here are some must-know facts about American Meghan Markle, who first met Prince Harry in July 2016 through a mutual friend:

1.) She’s an actress. Fans of USA Network’s legal drama “Suits” and the Fox sci-fi thriller series “Fringe” are no stranger to the talents of the 36-year-old actress — and for Markle, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Her father was also in the business, and she spent a fair amount of time as a child on the set of Fox’s “Married with Children,” The Sun reported. That’s a series on which her father worked as an Emmy-winning lighting director.

Markle has portrayed paralegal-turned-lawyer Rachel Zane in “Suits” since 2011. Here’s an interesting side note: Her birth name is also Rachel. Unfortunately for fans of the show, however, Markle will be leaving the series at the end of the seventh season, prior to her upcoming marriage, The Independent reported.

2.) She’s a calligrapher. Markle’s artistic talents are not limited to screens, whether big or small. She has an ability and ease with calligraphy, as Good Housekeeping has reported. While she was auditioning for shows, in fact, she used to earn money as a side job by creating hand-lettered wedding invitations — a skill that might come in handy in the year ahead.

Markle’s father, award-winning lighting director Thomas Markle, is Caucasian. Her mother, yoga teacher Doria Radlan, is African-American.

In addition to acting and calligraphy, Markle also has a flair for writing and editing. Specifically, she developed all of the content for her lifestyle brand and website The Tig, which focused on fashion, beauty, travel and food. She stepped away from The Tig last April, just three years after she launched it.

The prediction by Vanity Fair that the move heralded a step toward entering royal life appears to have been spot on.

3.) She was married once before. In 2011 Markle married Trevor Engelson, a film producer and talent manager in Los Angeles. The pair separated just two years after their island wedding in Jamaica; the breakup apparently ended quietly. Their no-fault divorce cited irreconcilable differences, as Town and Country reported. Interestingly, Engelson recently pitched a divorce comedy in development at Fox. The show is based on a couple’s shared-custody arrangement — in which the wife is a British royal.

4.) She’s biracial. Her father, award-winning lighting director Thomas Markle, is Caucasian. Her mother, yoga teacher Doria Radlan, is African-American. In an interview she did with Elle magazine in 2015, Meghan Markle said that “being biracial paints a blurred line that is equal parts staggering and illuminating.”

She went on to praise her parents in the interview for helping her form a solid identity as a biracial woman.

Related: The Prince and the Paparazzi 

She also related a story in which her father created a Christmas present for her with a set of dolls that reflected her family’s ethnic mix. “While my mixed heritage may have created a gray area surrounding my self-identification, keeping me with a foot on both sides of the fence, I have come to embrace that.”

5.) She’s been a proud feminist. The notion of empowering women is important to Markle, according to an interview she gave to Reader’s Digest Best Health magazine. She has served as the United Nations Women’s Advocate for political participation and leadership in the past.

“I am proud to be a woman and a feminist,” she noted in 2015 during a women’s conference speech (see the video below). In the speech, Markle related a pivotal incident that occurred when she was 11. When some boys in her class saw an ad for dish soap that said American women everywhere were fighting greasy pots and pans, two boys in the group agreed — and said that women “belong in the kitchen.”

[lz_third_party align=center width=630 includes=https://youtu.be/Zkb-zg4JCLk]

Markle was shocked, angry and hurt by those remarks, she said. She responded by writing letters to “the most powerful people she knew,” including then-first lady Hillary Clinton, the then-host of a children’s news program, Linda Ellerbee, attorney Gloria Allred, and the dish soap manufacturer itself. The three women wrote back to her with encouraging letters. A news team was dispatched to her home to cover the story. A month later, Procter & Gamble changed the commercial for Ivory dish soap to say “people all over America” — instead of “women all over America” — were fighting greasy pots and pans.

“It was at that moment that I realized the magnitude of my actions,” she said. “At the age of 11, I had created my small level of impact by standing up for equality.”

She rounded out her speech by saying, “It is neither just nor practical for our voices to go unheard at the highest levels of decision-making. The way that we change that, in my opinion, is to mobilize girls and women to see their value as leaders and to support them in these efforts.”

Michele Blood is a freelance writer with a passion for children’s literature. Based in Flemington, New Jersey, she leverages her background in psychology in her work for publishers, businesses and NPOs.

(photo credit, homepage image: DSC_3228, CC BY 2.0, by Genevieve; photo credit, article image: Prince Harry Visits Chatham House, CC BY 2.0, by Chatham House)