I've been reading up on Meghan Markle; she's a really fascinating individual, not your average Hollywood actress at all. I can see why Prince Harry is interested in her; it's definitely not just because of her looks. I'll come to her chart in a bit, but first some background.
She was the child of a Caucasian father (Dutch and Irish parentage), Thomas Markle Sr., and an African-American mother, Doria Ragland. They met on the set of the TV soap opera, 'General Hospital', where he was the lighting director and she was a temp at the studio; she eventually got a master's degree in social work, and became a yoga instructor. He went on to be in charge of the lighting for the TV show 'Married with Children', and Meghan used to go there after school and hang out on the set.
Meghan's parents divorced when she was six, and I wasn't able to find out for sure what the custody arrangements were. Her father had two other, older children from his first marriage, a son, Thomas Markle Jr., and a daughter Samantha, now Samantha Grant, aged 51. Samantha says that she raised Meghan for twelve years, which you would take to mean that Meghan lived primarily with her father after the divorce. Samantha hates Meghan, according to her own mother, Roslyn, who says Samantha has been down on Meghan since the latter was about fifteen. Samantha is now in a wheelchair and has been since 2008, because of multiple sclerosis. She says that Meghan has cut her out of her life since she went into the wheelchair, not wanting to be 'embarrassed' by her, and that she has not helped her family out financially even though she can more than afford to (her father went bankrupt recently). Samantha says Meghan is "narcissistic and selfish," "a hypocrite," and now calls her "Princess Pushy." Others, including Samantha's own mother, say she's just jealous of Meghan, and that everything negative she's said about her is totally untrue.
I think it would be fair to say that Meghan's biracial heritage has been extremely important in forming the person she has become. She says she gets asked every day, "What are you?" meaning, what is her ethnic background. She says she always replies, "I'm an actress, a writer, the Editor-in-Chief of my lifestyle brand The Tig, a pretty good cook and a firm believer in handwritten notes." Then she says she gives them the answer they want: she's half black and half white. She remembers her mother crying in the car, her hands shaking as she drove, because someone yelled "Nigger!" at her. And she remembers that, back in Grade 7, she had to fill out a mandatory census with the rest of her English class, which requested info on, among other things, their racial identity. You had to select a box: white, black, Hispanic or Asian; but there was no box for her: half-white and half-black. Her teacher told her to check 'Caucasian,' "... because that's how you look, Meghan." Meghan was mortified; she kept thinking how hurt her mother would be if she found out, so she didn't check any of the boxes, just left that question blank. Later she told her father what had happened, and he, visibly angry, said, "If that ever happens again, you make your own box." She says she remembers that now when she thinks of her great-great-great-grandfather back in 1865, when slavery was abolished; the ex-slaves had to pick surnames for themselves, and he picked as his surname, 'Wisdom.' As she says, he made his own box. (I like this woman; someone like this should be Queen).
In 2003 she graduated from Northwestern University with a double degree in theatre and international relations. She had turned into a beautiful girl and went on to become an actress, which involved her fair share of going to auditions and being rejected; as she says, she was too black for some roles and not black enough for others. She supported herself during this time, in lieu of waitressing, by working as a calligrapher; she did handwritten wedding invitations and such, which apparently was quite a lucrative job and she was very in demand, because so few people can do it any more. (She says she learned how at her all-girls' Catholic school, where they still had handwriting class). She gradually got some small parts in a number of TV shows and movies, but it was only when the role of Rachel Zane came along, in the TV show 'Suits,' that the perfect role for her came her way. (Though when they had a black man play her father, some people wrote in along the lines of, 'Ew, she's black? I used to think she was hot.')
Acting, however, is not her only interest, far from it. It's probably at least partly because of her own family history that she has always been interested in issues of human rights and equality. Back in 1992, when she was only eleven, she got upset by an ad for dishwashing soap which said, 'Women all over America are fighting greasy pots and pans.' And some boys said, "Yeah, that's where women belong, in the kitchen." She embarked on a letter-writing campaign to the manufacturers of the product as well as to a slew of important people including Hillary Clinton, who was the First Lady at the time. And even though the manufacturers of the soap were the only ones not to reply to her, in the end they changed the wording of the ad from 'women' to 'people.' Since then she's become the ambassador for World Vision Canada and goes to Rwanda for them on their Clean Water campaign, and she's also a United Nations Women's Advocate, and has been a speaker on International Women's Day. She believes strongly in giving back, that fame necessitates social responsibility.
In addition to all this, she partnered with the store Reitmans and started her own line of 'accessible' clothing for young women, the kind of clothes she wears on her TV show, but a lot less expensive (as she says, she can't afford the $5000 skirts she wears on the show either). She models the clothes in the commercials for this clothing line herself, and it has been hugely successful.
As if all that weren't enough, she also has her own lifestyle blog, 'The Tig,' in which she writes about clothes, food, wine, yoga, relationships, and her dogs. She's on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook; you name it, she's on it. She writes a lot, but she can really write; this is an extremely literate, thoughtful individual.
She was married on September 10, 2011 in Jamaica to Trevor Engelson, a Los Angeles producer; they'd been dating for the six years prior. Then they split up in May 2013, and divorced in August 2013; Meghan took no spousal support. She then began living with celebrity chef Cory Vitiello in Toronto but by spring of 2016 things were not going well between them; they were still living under the same roof because, among other things, they had to work out custody of the dogs, but Cory has said that she was full of herself, that she thought she was more famous than she was, and that he was fed up with it. Be that as it may (it could just be sour grapes on Cory's part after Meghan took up with Harry) it was at this point, late May or early June of 2016, that Meghan met Harry through a mutual friend; Harry was besotted, bombarded her with texts asking her out, and she finally said yes.
So! Sorry for the long preamble, but I think it will be interesting to use astrology to answer some questions that stem from the above: Is Meghan selfish and a narcissist, as her older sister alleges? Is she conceited and arrogant, as her ex-partner Cory Vitiello believes? I think I'm out of room; I'll start a new post about her chart specifically.
