Here's A Guide To Meghan Markle's Family And All The Drama That Comes With It

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s road to the altar has not been the smoothest, and one of the bumps in the road has been her family and their habit of talking to the press.

Let’s start with Meghan’s 73-year-old father, Thomas Markle.

Thomas Wayne Markle is a retired Emmy award-winning lighting director and camera operator who worked on General Hospital and Married… With Children.

He currently lives in Rosarito Beach, Mexico, and has not yet met Prince Harry, although they have reportedly talked on the phone.

Meghan and her father reportedly have a good relationship and were close when she was growing up.

Thomas and Meghan’s mother divorced when she was 6 years old, but the split was reportedly amicable.

“I never saw them fight,” Meghan said in an interview with Vanity Fair in October 2017. “We would still take vacations together. My dad would come on Sundays to drop me off, and we’d watch Jeopardy! eating dinner on TV trays, the three of us….We were still so close-knit.”

Thomas would also bring his daughter to television sets during her childhood.

“Every day after school for 10 years, I was on the set of Married… with Children, which is a really funny and perverse place for a little girl in a Catholic school uniform to grow up,” Meghan told Esquire magazine in a 2013 interview. “There were a lot of times my dad would say, ‘Meg, why don’t you go and help with the craft services room over there? This is just a little off-color for your 11-year-old eyes.'”

Meghan’s father said on Monday that he would not be attending the royal wedding, despite the fact that he was supposed to walk his daughter down the aisle.

Thomas cited a recent heart attack and embarrassment over news that he had sold paparazzi photos of himself preparing for the wedding.

However, he apparently changed his mind after talking with his daughter. On Tuesday, he told TMZ that if his doctors cleared him to travel, he would go to the UK for the royal wedding.

“I hate the idea of missing one of the greatest moments in history and walking my daughter down the aisle,” he said.

But that changed a day later when he told TMZ he was scheduled for heart surgery on Wednesday and would no longer be able to attend the wedding.

*BONUS FACT*: Thomas told TMZ on Tuesday that he believes his heart problems were caused by and have been made worse by the actions of his son and daughter from his first marriage — Meghan’s half-siblings.

So what have Meghan’s half-siblings been doing? Meet Samantha Grant, 53, Meghan’s half-sister from her father’s first marriage.

Grant, who lives in Florida, has been talking about her half-sister to the press and on Twitter ever since news broke of Meghan’s relationship with Prince Harry. In interviews with UK media outlets, she has also painted Meghan as a shallow social climber.

Grant has claimed that she and Meghan spent lots of time together growing up, and have remained “close,” even though they have not spoken in 10 years.

But Thomas told TMZ on Tuesday that Grant “has had no real relationship with Meghan as an adult and has no knowledge of Meghan’s relationship with Prince Harry.”

Grant has gone on multiple Twitter rants about the fact that she is not invited to the royal wedding.

Grant has also repeatedly defended her actions, telling TMZ on Wednesday that she doesn’t care if her half-sister wants her to stop talking to the media.

She has also taken credit for encouraging Thomas to stage the paparazzi photos.

And then there’s Meghan’s half-brother, Thomas Markle, Jr.

Thomas Jr. is a window fitter living in Oregon whose arrest on suspicion of menacing, pointing a firearm at another person, and unlawful use of a weapon made headlines last year because of his connection to Prince Harry’s new girlfriend.

Thomas Jr. — who is not invited to the wedding and admitted he has not spoken to Meghan since 2011 — has also been talking to the press about his half-sister. In an interview with In Touch magazine in April, he said Meghan refused to help him with the media scrutiny in the wake of her engagement announcement, calling his half-sister’s actions “a slap in the face” and “below the belt.”

“My lawyer had a phone meeting with her lawyer, and he emailed me some of [Meghan’s] direct words,” he told In Touch. “She said, ‘That’s distant family and I don’t know those people.’ That’s pretty harsh.”

In May, Meghan’s half-brother wrote an open letter that was published by In Touch magazine telling Prince Harry to call off the wedding.

“As more time passes to your royal wedding, it became very clear that this is the biggest mistake in royal wedding history,” he wrote. “Meghan Markle is obviously not the right woman for you.”

He also called his half-sister, “a jaded, shallow, conceited woman that will make a joke of you and the royal family heritage.”

Then in a truly shocking move that nobody could have anticipated, Thomas Jr. released another letter asking Meghan for invitations to the royal wedding.

And if that wasn’t enough, Thomas Jr.’s ex-wife and two sons (so, Meghan’s ex-sister-in-law and nephews) have also been talking to the media and are currently in London to serve as “special correspondents” for the television show Good Morning Britain.

Tracy Dooley, Thomas Jr.’ ex-wife, has said she has not seen Meghan in 20 years.

Tyler Dooley, 25, and TJ Dooley, 26, Meghan’s nephews, say they have not spoken to Meghan in three years, but have fond memories of her babysitting them while they were growing up.

Tyler Dooley works at a mariujana farm in Oregon and told the Daily Mail that he is developing a new hybrid of cannabis in honor of the royal wedding, to be named “Markle’s Sparkle.”

Let’s end on a drama-free note by talking about Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland.

Ragland, 61, is a social worker who recently left her job as a therapist at a Los Angeles nonprofit mental health clinic to start her own practice, per reports.

“Doria is no longer working at the mental health clinic in the Los Angeles area. It was Doria’s decision to leave,” a source told US Weekly. “She has talked about starting her own private practice, focusing on working with elderly patients.”

Markle and Ragland are very close, and it has been reported that she will be walking her daughter down the aisle in the place of Thomas.

In a 2017 article for Glamour magazine, Meghan listed her mother as one of the 10 women who changed her life.

“My mom’s a yoga instructor, but she does social work, as well, and she works specifically with the geriatric community,” she wrote. “For me to watch this level of life-long sensitivity to nurturing and caregiving, but at the same time my mom has always been a free spirit. She’s got dread locks and a nose ring. She just ran the LA Marathon. We can just have so much fun together, and yet, I’ll still find so much solace in her support. That duality coexists the same way it would in a best friend.”

And Prince Harry? In his and Meghan’s engagement interview, he described Ragland as “awesome.”

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