Meghan Markle and her mother, Doria Radlan. (Instagram)
Meghan Markle’s mother, Doria Ragland, is a yoga instructor and social worker who is close to her daughter. Ragland is divorced from Meghan’s father, Thomas Markle, who worked as a lighting director for U.S. soap operas.
Meghan Markle’s mother Doria Ragland headed to LAX on Christmas Eve; She looked youthful in furry… t.co/4o8BqU1AkP @UnitedNewsofUSA
Doria was photographed leaving her Los Angeles-area home for the airport on May 15, 2018.
t.co/UTrITXo7Yo Meghan Markle’s mom Doria Ragland heads to LAX t.co/P0Vp5FQcou #news
She drew raves at the Royal Wedding.
Doria Ragland is now in my heart, so moving. #motherofthebride #royalwedding ❤️
Doria Ragland. She is love and she is loved! A proud, beautiful, brave, and loving Superwoman! #RoyalWedding #MeghanMarkle #PrinceHarry #DukeAndDuchessOfSussex
#royalwedding #HarryandMeghan #DoriaRagland Burberry couture. Gorgeous- No matter what I will be me…. ❤
With news that Meghan Markle will marry Prince Harry breaking on November 27, attention has turned to Markle’s family. Meghan’s parents divorced when she was six, according to UK Daily Mail. She has written emotionally about her mother and about what it is like being a biracial person (her mother is black, and her father is white). Many sites give her mother’s name as Doria Radlan, but, on her Facebook page, Meghan’s mother calls herself Doria Ragland.
According to BBC, Prince Harry, who is the fifth in line to the British throne, and Markle, announced their engagement, revealing the marriage will occur in spring 2018. “They will live at Nottingham Cottage in Kensington Palace, London. The couple, who have been dating since the summer of 2016, secretly got engaged earlier this month,” BBC reported, as the couple posed for photos and Prince Harry and his father declared themselves both “thrilled” by the news.
Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle during an official photocall to announce their engagement at The Sunken Gardens at Kensington Palace on November 27, 2017 in London, England.
Earlier, Doria joined Meghan and Prince Harry in a private box to watch the Invictus Games, demonstrating the growing seriousness in her daughter’s relationship with the British prince. An engagement is now expected soon. In addition, to her parents, Meghan has half siblings who have generated negative headlines. Meghan and her mother have been photographed together on the red carpet.
Meghan Markle attends the closing ceremony of the Invictus Games 2017 at Air Canada Centre on September 30, 2017 in Toronto, Canada. (Photo by Getty Images)
According to Daily Mail, “Harry also asked Meghan’s parents Thomas Markle and Doria Ragland, who divorced when their daughter was six, for her hand in marriage before popping the question a few weeks ago,” and Meghan’s parents said in a statement, “Our daughter has always been a kind and loving person. To see her union with Harry, who shares the same qualities, is a source of great joy for us as parents.”
Here are more photos from the Invictus moment:
Meghan Markle attends Invictus Games closing ceremony with mother Doria Radlan
How Prince Harry Charmed Meghan Markle’s Mom Doria Ragland t.co/DzDbG2yGKq
In 2016, Meghan wrote a tribute to her mom on Instagram, complete with a photo of her mother in a graduation cap and gown. She has spoken about their close relationship. “Always proud of this beautiful woman,” she wrote on Mother’s Day. “This was when she graduated from USC with a masters in social work. Honoring my mom, Doria, and all the amazing mamas in our lives.”
It’s a family affair! Meghan Markle’s mother, Doria Ragland, has flown in from LA for @InvictusToronto – and to spend time with Prince Harry
Doria’s Facebook page says she works in social work at Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services in California. She says she went to Fairfax High School and lives in Los Angeles.
Doria Ragland.
She is friends on Facebook with “Meghan Markle Engelson,” which was Meghan’s married name (Meghan Markle is divorced from Trevor Engelson). On another mother’s day, Meghan referred to her mother on Instagram as her “hot mama.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/ZOozkFGBB8/?taken-by=meghanmarkle&hl=en
According to Hello Magazine, “Meghan is a yoga devotee and began practising at the age of seven with her instructor mother Doria Radlan.” In December 2016, Meghan and her mother were photographed walking together in Toronto with yoga mats.
Doria Ragland was just 16 and an outstanding pupil at Fairfax High School in Los Angeles when … t.co/YU2G5jRMaj via @MailOnline
Suits star Meghan has described her mother as a “‘free-spirited clinical therapist’ who took her daughter travelling to remote – often impoverished – places around the world” and once said, “Both my parents came from little, so they made a choice to give a lot,” UK Express reports.
https://www.instagram.com/p/W3A4IdmBK7/?taken-by=meghanmarkle&hl=en
According to the Sun, Tom Markle, Meghan’s dad, “is of Dutch-Irish origin, and was born in 1945. Thomas is a former television lighting director working on iconic US shows including Married with Children and General Hospital.” The Sun adds, “In 2011 he won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Lighting Direction for a Drama Series for his work on General Hospital, a long-running US soap. He was married to Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, in 1979 – but they divorced in 1988.”
Meghan wrote about her childhood in an essay in Elle Magazine. In it, she says that her parents met in the late Seventies when her father “was a lighting director for a soap opera and my mom was a temp at the studio. I like to think he was drawn to her sweet eyes and her Afro, plus their shared love of antiques. Whatever it was, they married and had me.”
They moved to a non-diverse area of LA, where Meghan laments that her mother would be mistaken for the nanny, according to Elle Magazine. Meghan “spent time on film sets as a child because her father Thomas was a lighting director on the series Married with Children and General Hospital,” reports UK Express.
She has described her father as the “most hardworking father you can imagine” and said, “My father was the lighting director on two television shows as I was growing up,” UK Express reports.
According to UK Daily Mail, both of Meghan’s parents have filed for bankruptcy; her mother in 2002 “over a $52,750 credit card bill.” Her father is a lighting director thought to be in Mexico, reports Daily Mail.
