Revenge

Tom Bower traces Meghan Markle's life from her birth in Los Angeles through her marriage to Prince Harry and their acrimonious departure from the British Royal Family.

Rachel Meghan Markle was born on August 4, 1981, to Thomas Markle, an Emmy-nominated television lighting director, and Doria Ragland, a young trainee make-up artist. Her parents' interracial marriage, unusual for the era, ended when Meghan was two, after which they shared custody. Around age nine, Thomas became Meghan's primary caretaker, financing her education at Immaculate Heart, a private Catholic girls' school, and bringing her to the ABC studios where he worked. Surrounded by actors and cameras, Meghan developed a love of performing. Her childhood friend Ninaki Priddy observed that Meghan always wanted to be famous and to be the center of attention. In 1996, Meghan visited London and was photographed outside Buckingham Palace; a year later, she watched Princess Diana's funeral on television and read Andrew Morton's biography of Diana.

After studying theatre and international relations at Northwestern University, where her father paid the $45,000 annual fees, Meghan returned to Los Angeles and spent years struggling to break into Hollywood. She landed only minor roles, and casting directors found her attractive but lacking the screen presence required for leading parts. In 2004, she began dating Trevor Engelson, an ambitious film producer. They married in Jamaica in 2011, but by then Meghan had won the role of Rachel Zane in the legal drama Suits, filmed in Toronto. The move to Canada transformed her life. Earning a growing income and building a new social circle that included Jessica Mulroney, the wife of a former Canadian prime minister's son, Meghan outgrew the marriage. In spring 2013, she ended it by sending her rings back to Trevor via FedEx with no note. Priddy described the manner as calculating.

In Toronto, Meghan reinvented herself as a lifestyle influencer, launching a website called The Tig to promote luxury goods, wellness, and her personal brand. She cultivated relationships with celebrities and politicians, securing a speaking slot at a conference organized by UN Women, the United Nations body dedicated to gender equality, in New York in 2015. She visited Rwanda twice for humanitarian organizations and became a brand ambassador for Reitmans, Canada's largest women's clothing retailer. Bower portrays these years as driven by relentless ambition: Meghan craved global recognition but remained largely unknown outside Suits' modest audience. A second Reitmans shoot in 2016 produced clashes so severe that multiple crew members described her as exceptionally difficult, though her on-camera performance remained polished.

During Wimbledon in June 2016, Violet von Westenholz, a Ralph Lauren publicist and childhood friend of Harry's, arranged a blind date. Harry and Meghan met on July 1, 2016, at London's Soho House. Meghan told her agent Gina Nelthorpe-Cowne that she had researched Harry extensively online. Bower characterizes Harry, then 31, as a prince still haunted by his mother Diana's death, struggling with his mental health, and dissatisfied with royal life. Both later said they felt an instant connection.

Their relationship was exposed by the press on October 30, 2016. Within days, Harry issued an unprecedented public statement denouncing the media for sexism and racism, drawing a parallel between Meghan's treatment and Diana's fate. Bower argues that this marked a turning point: The couple began framing all criticism as racially motivated, a charge that divided public opinion and put the Palace on the defensive. Harry's friends and his brother Prince William advised caution, but Harry interpreted their concern as snobbery.

The engagement was announced in November 2017, and the Queen fast-tracked Meghan into the family, inviting her to Sandringham, the royal family's country estate, for Christmas. Palace staff assembled a team to guide Meghan through royal protocols, but tensions emerged almost immediately. Staff reported that Meghan sent demanding emails before dawn and treated subordinates harshly. Jason Knauf, Harry and Meghan's communications secretary, compiled a memorandum documenting allegations of bullying. Meanwhile, Meghan's relationship with Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, soured. At a bridesmaid dress fitting before the wedding, the two women clashed, and Kate was reduced to tears, though Meghan later told American talk show host Oprah Winfrey that the tears were hers.

The wedding at St George's Chapel, Windsor, on May 19, 2018, was a global television event hailed as a triumph of multiculturalism. The guest list reflected Meghan's priorities: Hollywood celebrities and Suits actors were invited while many of Harry's oldest friends and nearly all of the Markle family were excluded. Thomas Markle, humiliated by staged photographs exposed by the Mail on Sunday and then hospitalized for emergency angioplasty after chest pains, did not attend. Meghan's subsequent refusal to contact her father, despite the Queen's suggestion that she fly to America for a reconciliation, became a source of lasting controversy.

In the months that followed, the rift within the Palace deepened. Meghan pushed to separate from William and Kate's household and establish an independent royal office. During a 16-day tour of Australia and the South Pacific in October 2018, public reception was ecstatic, but behind the scenes the atmosphere was toxic: Meghan allegedly berated staff, cut short a market visit in Fiji, and wore diamond earrings gifted by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman despite staff warnings about controversy following the recent murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The couple returned convinced their contributions were unappreciated. During this period, Meghan later revealed, she experienced suicidal thoughts and told Harry she did not want to be alive anymore.

Meghan's strategy increasingly bypassed the Palace. She secretly guest-edited the September 2019 issue of British Vogue, and her Los Angeles team negotiated deals with Netflix, Spotify, and other corporations. In an ITV documentary filmed during the couple's South Africa tour in September 2019, Meghan told journalist Tom Bradby that no one had asked if she was all right, and Harry revealed that his relationship with William was fractured. The couple simultaneously launched legal action against the Mail on Sunday for publishing excerpts of Meghan's letter to her father.

In January 2020, Harry and Meghan, formally known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, announced via Instagram that they would step back as senior royals. The Queen, Harry's father Prince Charles, and William presented a united front at a summit at Sandringham. The resulting agreement stripped the couple of their His/Her Royal Highness (HRH) titles, military roles, and most patronages, and phased out financial support. Days after their final public engagement on March 9, 2020, they secretly flew to Los Angeles.

From their $14.65 million Montecito estate in Santa Barbara, the couple intensified their public conflict with the Royal Family. The climax came on March 7, 2021, in a CBS interview with Oprah Winfrey watched by 17 million Americans. Meghan alleged that an unnamed family member had raised concerns about how dark their son Archie's skin would be, that she was denied help when experiencing suicidal thoughts, and that Kate had made her cry. Fact-checkers identified at least 17 inaccuracies and contradictions. Buckingham Palace responded with a measured statement acknowledging that some recollections may vary.

Bower's account ends during the Queen's Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June 2022, where Harry and Meghan attend in a reduced capacity, seated far from the senior royals and excluded from the Buckingham Palace balcony. They leave Britain before the final pageant. Bower concludes that Meghan's career has been an astounding success on her own terms, transforming a struggling actress into a global celebrity, but at enormous cost: estrangement from both her own father and Harry's family, damage to the monarchy, and the uncertain sustainability of a brand built on criticizing the very institution from which it derives its power. He suggests her ultimate ambition may be a political career.