Like a lot of young girls growing up in Los Angeles, Meghan Markle yearned for a career in Hollywood.
Luckily for the future Duchess her ‘famous’ father – Thomas Markle – worked in the industry as a lighting director and gave her a leg up other aspiring actresses could only dream of.
And yet, Meghan’s career in tinseltown was not the dazzling success her fellow LA natives enjoyed – such as Angelina Jolie or Leonardo DiCaprio.
In his bombshell royal fly-on-the-wall book, Revenge, Tom Bower wrote that her ‘intense jealousy, especially if someone else got the lead part’ left a negative legacy on her career.
He said: ‘One downside of Meghan’s success was her intense jealousy, especially if someone else got the lead part.
‘Meghan became particularly irritated after one girl at [her school] was employed by a Hollywood studio as an actress.’
It was a character trait that her father noticed while she was still in school. Telling Mr Bower that his daughter ‘wants to be the star of the stage’ and ‘the star in life’.
Meghan Markle with her father, Thomas Markle, at her college graduation
A young Meghan with her father
Prince Harry and Meghan wave from their carriage at their wedding in May 2018
The doting father obeyed all of Meghan’s wishes in her pursuit of becoming an actress.
This included paying a professional photographer to take a headshot of Meghan which Thomas then ‘dutifully’ circulated to producers though they received no reply.
At 17, Meghan got a taste of the red carpet when she joined her father at the Emmy awards where he was nominated for best lighting director.
‘Like so many in the town, Meghan loved glamour and celebrity. She wanted her dream to become reality,’ Mr Bower wrote.
But Thomas and Meghan eventually found themselves at loggerheads when he finally refused to bow to his daughter’s every whim.
Mr Bower said: ‘In spring 1999, the musical The Pyjama Game was the new school play. Meghan wanted the lead part but also wanted to go for a week to the school’s summer retreat.
‘Gigi Perreau, the drama teacher, insisted that Meghan had to choose one or the other. Meghan went to the retreat.
‘Outraged that the teacher denied her a part in the play, she urged her father not to do the lighting. He ignored her demand.’
Thomas has previously said he knew Meghan would be a star after seeing her perform in the school plays as a teenager
Harry and Meghan in St George’s Chapel, Windsor, on their wedding day. Thomas also suffered suffered two heart attacks just before the ceremony, preventing him from walking his daughter down the aisle
According to Thomas, his daughter was ‘furious’ and ‘screamed he should obey her wishes’.
Not long after, Meghan moved in with her mother Doria Ragland.
It has now been seven years since the father and daughter last spoke to one another, with their relationship becoming particularly strained when Thomas posed for paparazzi photos before Meghan’s wedding to Prince Harry in 2018.
Thomas also suffered suffered two heart attacks just before the ceremony, preventing him from walking his daughter down the aisle.
Since then, Meghan and Harry have not communicated with Thomas, and he has never had the opportunity to meet his son-in-law – or grandchildren Prince Archie, six, and Princess Lilibet, four.
‘I’ve had a good life and I am proud of what I’ve accomplished, but everything has been overshadowed by what has happened in the last six years,’ he told Mail Online last year.
‘I’ve never been one for birthdays, but I know the one person I most want to hear from, Meghan, won’t be in touch.’
Thomas has put further strain on their relationship by repeatedly giving interviews to the press since Meghan married into the Royal Family.
Thomas speaking to Good Morning Britain in 2023. He has put further strain on his relationship with Meghan by repeatedly giving interviews to the press
In July 2018, during an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Thomas claimed his daughter would be ‘nothing without me. I made her the Duchess she is today’.
He has also appeared on talk shows such as Good Morning Britain, where he has spoken at length about his relationship with Harry and Meghan.
The Duchess’s father had been living in Mexico before he upped and moved across the world to the Philippines earlier this year.
Thomas along with his son – Thomas Jr – are now living on the tropical island of Cebu.
Speaking about his move to South East Asia, Thomas told the Daily Mail: ‘I am ready for a change.
‘I have felt stuck in a rut for some time and I am ready to meet new people and experience kindness.’
He said: ‘At 80 it is time to go somewhere where the people are lovely and I can enjoy a quieter, friendlier existence.
‘In South East Asia the medical care is good, you can live reasonably cheaply, the people are kind and respect older people and the food is healthy.
‘Mostly I just want peace. At 80, none of us know how long we have left.
‘I want whatever time I have to be peaceful with none of the awful drama of recent years.’
Since the move, the Markles have not found Cebu to be the tranquil paradise they were expecting, with the men reportedly struggling to adapt to the extremely hot and humid weather on the island.
The Daily Express reported that concerns had been raised about how the climate could affect Thomas’s poor health, with claims that the father had been seen walking with a cane recently.
Their new life in a high-rise flat in the Philippines’s fifth largest city is world’s away from the luxury lifestyle his daughter and family enjoy in Montecito, California.
But with the rift between father and daughter still as wide as ever, it seems unlikely Thomas will be making the 7,000-mile journey to reunite with Meghan any time soon.
