Doria Ragland, Meghan Markle’s Mom: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

Doria Ragland, Meghan Markle’s mom, is a yoga instructor and social worker, who is playing a prominent role in the wedding of her daughter to Prince Harry.

Although Meghan’s father, Tom Markle, has been the focus of melodrama, her mother has been the picture of restraint, not speaking to the news media and staying out of the headlines, save for when photographers have invaded her privacy and taken photos of her getting groceries or arriving to her Los Angeles-area home.

Meghan is the daughter of divorced parents: Ragland and Thomas Markle. She has written emotionally about her mother and about what it is like being a biracial person as her mother is black and her father white. Many sites give her mother’s name as Doria Radlan, but, on her Facebook page, Meghan’s mother calls herself Doria Ragland.

Here’s what you need to know:

1. Meghan Markle’s Mom Had Tea With Queen Elizabeth II & Was Front & Center at the Royal Wedding

Meghan Markle and her mother, Doria Ragland arrive at Cliveden House Hotel on the National Trust’s Cliveden Estate to spend the night before her wedding to Prince Harry on May 18, 2018 in Berkshire, England.

On Friday, May 18, 2018, the day before the Royal Wedding, Meghan’s mom, Doria Ragland, was photographed after leaving tea with the Queen of England. Doria, 61 “joined Queen Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Philip, for afternoon tea,” NBC News reported. It was the first time that Meghan’s mom has met the English monarch.

At the wedding itself, Doria arrived with Meghan by car and seemed almost teary-eyed as she watched her daughter marry a prince.

According to The Today Show, Doria Ragland has also met the other key members of Prince Harry’s family. “She had tea with Prince Harry’s father, Prince Charles, and his wife, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, at their Clarence House residence in London. She also met Prince William, his wife, Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, and their two oldest children, Prince George and Princess Charlotte, during wedding rehearsals in Windsor,” Today reports.

Kensington Palace previously confirmed that Doria will play a prominent role in the wedding, although it’s now been confirmed that Prince Charles would take her father’s place in walking Meghan down the aisle to meet her prince.

According to Prince Harry’s communications secretary, “On the morning of the wedding, Ms. Ragland will travel with Ms. Markle by car to Windsor Castle. Mr. Markle will walk his daughter down the aisle of St George’s Chapel. Ms. Markle is delighted to have her parents by her side on this important and happy occasion.”

“Prince Harry and Ms. Markle are very much looking forward to welcoming Ms. Markle’s parents to Windsor for the wedding,” Prince Harry’s Communications secretary revealed on May 4, 2018. “Mr. Thomas Markle and Ms. Doria Ragland will be arriving in the UK in the week of the wedding, allowing time for Prince Harry’s family, including The Queen, The Duke of Edinburgh, The Prince of Wales, The Duchess of Cornwall, and The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, to spend time with them before the big day.”

That all changed with Meghan’s dad when he went through a drama involving staged photos and heart surgery – all the while, her mother maintained a stiff upper lip.

Thomas Markle, who lives in Mexico, was accused in a Daily Mail expose of setting up photos with a photographer that were sold worldwide. They showed him lifting weights, supposedly getting measured for a suit, and perusing photos of his daughter and Prince Harry at an Internet cafe.

Thomas Markle told TMZ “he meant no harm to Meghan or the Royal Family when he made a deal to allow a photo agency to take pics of him getting ready for the wedding. He says he had a reason and it was not principally about money.” He told the news site that photographers had taken unflattering photos of him, making him look badly in the past.

According to TMZ, Thomas Markle told the entertainment site that “he suffered a heart attack 6 days ago but checked himself out of the hospital so he could attend the wedding. He’s now decided not to go because he doesn’t want to embarrass the Royal Family or his daughter.” After that report, TMZ posted another story stating that Thomas Markle had told the entertainment site that “he’s experiencing serious chest pains … this after his heart attack 6 days ago. He says the pains have been triggered by emotional upset. He specifically mentioned his oldest daughter, Samantha Grant, who has been shading Meghan in the weeks leading up to the wedding.”

Thomas told TMZ, “I’ve been popping Valium for the pain, especially when I hear about my oldest daughter.” According to TMZ, he said he hadn’t heard from Meghan and that his ex-wife Doria Ragland would be a good choice to accompany her down the aisle. By May 15, however, Markle was saying he wants to go to the wedding after all if his health permits, and he told TMZ that his daughter had texted him a loving message and tried to call him. On May 15, Thomas said he was going after all before saying he wasn’t due to heart surgery. Shortly thereafter, Ragland was seen leaving her Los Angeles-area home for the airport.

2. Meghan’s Mom has a Master’s Degree in Social Work & Her Parents Are Divorced

Instagram/Meghan MarkleDoria Ragland and her daughter Meghan Markle

Meghan’s mom is a well-educated woman who has worked as a social worker in the Los Angeles-area, although she recently quit that job, possibly to start her own practice.

US Magazine reported that Doria was overwhelmed by the focus on her since her daughter became engaged to Prince Harry. “Doria made the very difficult decision to leave her job at the clinic because there had been a lot of calls from the media asking to speak with her because her daughter was marrying Prince Harry,” a source told US. “It just became overwhelming for Doria and she considered taking a leave of absence, but recognized that the interest was only going to continue after the wedding.”

In 2016, Meghan wrote a tribute to her mom on Instagram, complete with a photo of her mother in a graduation cap and gown.

“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.”

Doria’s Facebook page says she worked in social work at Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services in California. She says she went to Fairfax High School and lives in Los Angeles. She is friends on Facebook with “Meghan Markle Engelson,” which was Meghan’s married name (Meghan Markle is divorced from Trevor Engelson).

3. Meghan Called Her Mother Her ‘Hot Mama’ & Doria Met With Oprah Winfrey

Classmates.comDoria Ragland.

On another mother’s day, Meghan referred to her mother on Instagram as her “hot mama.”

Meghan’s mother and her father, Thomas Markle, divorced when she was six, according to UK Daily Mail. She is sometimes photographed with her mother on the red carpet.

According to UK Daily Mail, both 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.

Markle has a half sister, Samantha, through her father’s first marriage, who has criticized her in the press, accusing Meghan of mistreating their father, UK Daily Mail reports. She also has a half-brother through her father named Thomas Markle Jr., who has alternatively trashed and defended Meghan.

Doria Ragland reportedly met with Oprah Winfrey and bonded over discussions about race. That set tongues wagging that Doria might grant an interview with Oprah. Meghan’s mom has so far kept a wide berth from the press.

Meghan has written openly about what it is like being bi-racial, especially growing up. Her mother is black, and her father is white.

She penned a moving essay for Elle Magazine, which includes many anecdotes about her parents. The article discusses “creating her identity and finding her voice as a mixed race woman.”

In the article, Meghan explains how people repeatedly inquire “where she is from,” when she knows what they are really after: “My dad is Caucasian and my mom is African American. I’m half black and half white.” Meghan wrote 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. Then came the racial slur. “I was home in LA on a college break when my mom was called the ‘N’ word. We were leaving a concert and she wasn’t pulling out of a parking space quickly enough for another driver,” she wrote.

She eloquently wrote, “Being biracial paints a blurred line that is equal parts staggering and illuminating.” However, the essay is uplifting. She concludes, “While my mixed heritage may have created a grey area surrounding my self-identification, keeping me with a foot on both sides of the fence, I have come to embrace that. To say who I am, to share where I’m from, to voice my pride in being a strong, confident mixed-race woman.”

You can read the full Elle essay here.

4. Doria Joined Prince Harry & Meghan at the Invictus Games

FacebookDoria Ragland

The world’s first glimpse of Doria Ragland came when she joined Prince Harry and Meghan in a box at the Invictus Games.

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.

However, controversy ensued shortly after Christmas when Prince Harry said that the Royal Family was the family that Meghan had never had. That led to Meghan’s half-sister, Samantha Grant, who has repeatedly criticized Meghan, to do so again. Harry said of Meghan’s adaption to the Royal Family’s traditions, “She’s done an absolutely amazing job, she’s getting in there and it’s the family that I suppose she’s never had.” Grant wrote on Twitter: “She has a large family. She always did. Our dad is amazing and completely self sacrificing. We made it so that she had two houses. How fun it was!”

5. Doria Ragland Is a Yoga Instructor, a Passion She Shares With Her Daughter

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.

UK Express reported that 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.” Her mother met with the Queen wearing a nose ring.

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.”

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