Before the royal titles, global headlines, and millions of admirers, she was simply a young girl heating up microwave meals and pondering where she truly belonged.
Born to a Black mother and a white father in Los Angeles, this girl didn’t grow up feeling like a Hollywood narrative in progress. In fact, she often sensed that she didn’t fit in anywhere — not within school groups, not in beauty ideals, and not even in the assumptions strangers made about her family.
“My dad is Caucasian and my mom is African American. I’m half Black and half white,” she once revealed.
But this is all part of her journey that has influenced everything — from her self-perception to the resilience she had to cultivate when the world eventually began to take notice.
Raised on TV dinners and challenging inquiries
As a young girl, Meghan Markle referred to herself as a “latchkey kid,” returning to an empty home while her parents worked long hours. Her mother, Doria Ragland, earned a living as a makeup artist, while her father, Thomas Markle Sr., was involved in television.
“I grew up with a lot of fast food and also a lot of TV tray dinners,” she mentioned.
“Watching ‘Jeopardy!’ and enjoying many microwaveable kids’ meals… that was the norm.”
However, there appears to be some contention regarding the true nature of Meghan’s childhood. Her father has disputed his daughter’s narrative, claiming that her recollections — particularly about her eating habits as a child — do not align with his own memories of those times.
He also mentioned that he would either pick Meghan up from school himself every day or arrange for a car to take her if he was too occupied.
What truly impacted Meghan during her early years were the unending stares and inquiries whenever she and her Black mother were seen together in public.
A mother with dark skin
Meghan revealed that many people presumed she was a white woman, which caused some to question how she could have a mother with dark skin, who once remembered being mistaken for the nanny while out in public.
“I just recall my mom sharing stories about taking me to the grocery store and a woman asking, ‘Whose child is that?’ She would respond, ‘It’s my child.’ ‘No, you must be the nanny. Where’s her mom?’” Meghan recounted.
Following her parents’ separation, Meghan was brought up by both of them until she reached the age of nine. After that, her father assumed the main caregiving responsibilities while her mother concentrated on advancing her career.
Netflix
Meghan lived with her father full-time until she went off to college at the age of eighteen.
Her mother relocated to a mostly Black neighborhood outside the Valley. The transition was quite shocking — but she found her community among a close-knit group of women who supported her upbringing.
‘We had a wonderful network of women who truly assisted me in raising Meg. She was always so easy to connect with, friendly, and made friends effortlessly. She was a very empathetic child, quite mature,” Doria mentioned in one of the episodes of Meghan’s Netflix series.
However, their relationship wasn’t always conventional.
“I remember asking [her] if I felt like her mom,” her mother reminisced, “and she told me I felt more like her older, controlling sister.”
”I was not the attractive one”
For Meghan, her teenage years were filled with insecurities that many can relate to — but hers were intensified by her feelings of being an outsider.
“I was a big nerd growing up,” she admitted. “People don’t realize that about me. Like, I was not the attractive one. My identity was tied to being the smart one.”
She utilized that intelligence from a young age. At just 11, she successfully took on a sexist TV commercial. Her writing abilities, even back then, were like a superpower.
Despite facing financial hardships, small moments felt like indulgences.
“I grew up on the $4.99 salad bar at Sizzler,” she remembered. “I understood how hard my parents worked to make this possible… and I felt fortunate.
As a Girl Scout, whenever my troop celebrated with a dinner, we always ended up at the same salad bar or The Old Spaghetti Factory – it was simply what those families could afford.
Things took a turn when her dad won $750,000 in the lottery. Her half-brother mentioned that it set Meghan on a focused path for her future.
“That money enabled [her] to attend the finest schools and receive top-notch training,” he shared. “[She] is relentless in pursuing her goals.”
From a young age, Meghan had big aspirations. At just 11, she wrote a letter to her principal, vowing to make their school famous once she achieved success.
She was serious about it. By the age of 13, she was juggling various jobs, from babysitting to selling donuts at a stand named Little Orbit. Her strong work ethic was unwavering.
Meanwhile, she discovered her passion for acting while spending time on the set of Married… with Children, where her father served as a lighting director.
“It was such a funny and twisted environment for a little girl in a Catholic school uniform to grow up in,” she chuckled.
However, teenage Meghan was still on a journey to understand her identity.
“I didn’t feel black enough.”
“My teenage years were even more challenging — struggling to find my place,” she reflected in a blog post years later. “As a biracial individual, I felt like I was caught in the middle.”
She also encountered obstacles early in her acting career, partly due to being perceived as “ethnically ambiguous.” As she expressed, “I wasn’t black enough for the roles meant for black actresses, and I wasn’t white enough for the white roles.”
By the time she reached her twenties, the pressure to appear and behave perfectly began to weigh heavily on her.
“It was a relentless struggle with myself… to be as cool/as trendy/as intelligent/as ‘whatever’ as everyone else.”
However, at 33, her perspective changed.
“Today, I turn 33. And I feel happy,” she shared. “Learning to be kind to yourself… to experience [happiness] — it requires time.”
From Suits to St. George’s chapel
That little girl who once felt unseen would eventually transform into Rachel Zane on Suits, and later — Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.
She met Prince Harry in 2016. Two years later, they tied the knot at Windsor Castle. By 2021, they welcomed two children: Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.
Yet, being a royal mother came with its own set of daunting challenges.
A postpartum nightmare
In April 2025, Meghan launched her podcast, Confessions of a Female Founder. In her inaugural episode, she disclosed something that few were aware of: a life-threatening health scare following childbirth.
“We both had very similar experiences — even though we were strangers at the time — with postpartum issues,” she shared with Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd. “We both experienced preeclampsia. Postpartum preeclampsia. It’s incredibly rare and frightening.”
“In those quiet moments, you’re still trying to be there for others — primarily for your children — but those experiences are monumental.
Jean-Paul Aussenard/WireImage for Kari Feinstein PR
Whitney concurred: “I mean, it’s a matter of life or death, honestly.”
Meghan made it through. However, shortly after, she faced another personal tragedy — a miscarriage, which she later revealed in a heartfelt essay.
From quick meals to royal duties, Meghan Markle’s journey is far from a fairy tale — it’s a genuine, unfiltered depiction of a woman who battled to carve out her identity in a world that constantly tried to confine her.
Now, with a microphone in her hand and two children beside her, she’s sharing her narrative — on her own terms.
