This early error on Meghan’s part would come back to haunt her once she made the transition from modest Hollywood stardom to the superstardom with which being a member of the British Royal Family invested her, because it was living proof that she was prone to exaggeration. This would doubtless make no dent in the way she was viewed in North America, where Hollywood and its ways have greater acceptance than they do in Britain, but on this side of the Atlantic it did alert people to the fact that the new Duchess of Sussex had both a propensity for exaggeration and a flair for dramatics in a way that the British find suspect.
According to Ninaki Priddy, Meghan’s best friend from childhood, attention, approbation and applause have always been driving forces for her. ‘Meg always wanted to be a star,’ she said. Despite this, she was normal and likeable, even though she did exhibit some of the grit that would later on lead to her outstanding success. The two women knew each other from the age of two, when they started at the Hollywood Little Red House together. At the age of eleven, they transferred to Immaculate Heart. ‘It was always Nikki and Meg. We were so close-knit we came as a two. We were both honorary daughters in each other’s homes. We were like family,’ she said. Hers is the most trustworthy account of Meghan’s early years. It is balanced, truthful, shorn of all side, with no malice or self-aggrandisement to undermine it. She was there, and nothing she says fails to ring true.
According to Nikki, ‘Her mum, Doria, was very cool. She was this free spirit who’d dance around the house and have girlie evenings with us. She used to tell Meg to loosen up. She’d say, “You’ve got to have fun. Keep working at it.”’ Even at that early age, Meghan was displaying signs of the intensity which would take her so far but which would also interfere with her enjoyment of life unless she kept it in check.
Despite her fun-loving side, Doria had firm boundaries and trained Meghan to be well ordered domestically. ‘Tom allowed her more space. He allowed us to get away with things. He provided a less strict household.’ But Meghan was the star to both her parents. ‘In a way, she was nurtured on a stage. She knew no other life. Tom was a great coach in that respect. He’d take photos of her on stage right from a young age.’ The result was that ‘Meg always wanted to be famous. She just loved to be the centre of attention. We used to imagine her receiving an Oscar. She used to practise announcing herself.’
Even at that tender age, Meghan displayed character traits that were exceptional. ‘I admired the skilful way she handled her parents. She’d have to relay messages. It was literally stuff like, ‘Tell your mother’ or ‘Tell your father.’ Controlling her emotions is something she learnt back then. For as long as I knew Meghan, her parents weren’t together. It could be hard for her. Sometimes she felt she had to pick sides. She was always trying to make sure each of them was happy.’ The result was that she has always been ‘very poised, a natural mediator. She was tough, too. If you rubbed her up the wrong way, she’d make it known with the silent treatment.’ Whenever there was a problem, Nikki found, ‘I’d always be the first to apologise. I just wanted to be besties again. She was stubborn. She digs her heels in the ground.’
So close were the girls that Meghan often slept over at the Priddys’ house in North Hollywood. Meghan often swam in their pool. When the girls were fifteen, Dalton and Maria Priddy invited Meghan to join the family, which included Nikki’s younger sister Michelle, on a tour of Europe. Nikki was so smitten by Paris that she ended up spending the following summer at the Sorbonne, but Meghan was more turned on by London. They stayed at a hotel near Kensington Palace and of course went to Buckingham Palace, where the duo was photographed sitting on the railings opposite Queen Victoria’s statue with the palace in the background.
Nikki confirmed that ‘the Royal Family was something she found fascinating. She had one of Princess Diana’s books on her bookshelf.’ She watched Diana’s funeral, was moved to tears as were her friends, and, so obsessed did she become that she and another friend, Suzy Ardakani, got ahold of old videos of Diana’s 1981 wedding to Prince Charles and decided to emulate her humanitarian example by collecting clothes and toys to be distributed amongst less privileged children. The lesson she was learning was that the most stylish and glamorous women show how special they are not only in their personal presentation, but through humanitarianism. She had found her role model and ‘used to love The Princess Diaries - films about a commoner who becomes part of a Royal Family. She was very taken with that idea. She wants to be Princess Diana 2.0,” Nikki Priddy said.
Of course, Meghan had no idea what the future held for her, nor that she would one day have an office in Buckingham Palace, or that she would chafe against palace restrictions in much the same way the mother-in-law she would never meet had resisted hers. At the time, though, Meghan’s ambitions were more perfunctory. Her most immediate one was to go to Northwestern University. And to escape from her father, who now needed more reciprocity than she was willing to provide.
In 1990, Tom had won $750,000 in the California State Lottery. Although much of it was dissipated in an ill-advised investment in a jewelry business with a friend from Chicago, it nevertheless provided him with the means to work less and indulge his children even more than he had previously done. All members of the Markle family confirm that Tom was always exceedingly generous. Tom Jr was given the funds to start up a flower shop and Samantha was bought a second car to replace the first gift she had written off, while Meghan’s school fees, always expensive, were covered more easily out of the proceeds of the win.
During her years at Immaculate Heart, Meghan threw herself into dramatics more than into anything else. Her ambition, as Nikki has stated, was to be a star. This was an ambition her father shared and fostered. Known at the school as an Emmy award-winning lighting director who was nominated virtually every year, the dramatics department was only too pleased when Meghan delivered him up as the technical director of every production in which she was involved. One cannot help thinking that even at that early age Meghan was learning the benefits of one hand washing the other, of how much of an additional advantage it was when you had something else aside from mere talent to help you along in achieving your ambitions. And of how those ambitions could be further enhanced by the skill of knowledgeable people such as her father.
While Thomas Markle Sr’s technical abilities undoubtedly improved the quality of each production Meghan was in, he also used each opportunity to further enhance his daughter’s knowledge of what would, and would not, work on stage. He taught her all about finding the light, or the importance of light and shade, of where to stand on stage, even what angle to deploy for maximum effect. He would also take an endless stream of photographs of her, so that she could see for herself what he meant when he told her to do this and not do that. This technical knowledge was invaluable, for he was teaching her at the cradle what most actors only learnt when they were approaching the grave after a lifetime of trial and error.
The former child actress Gigi Perreau taught acting at her alma mater as well as helped with the staging of plays and musicals. She remembered that she never had a problem with Meghan, who was ‘spot on, learnt her lines’ and was ‘very dedicated, very focused.’ Because of Meghan’s dedication, she ‘knew she would be something special.’
Meghan, however, wanted to be a star both on stage and off. By the time she was a teenager, she had had enough attention from boys to know that they found her attractive and that she liked them as well. Thereafter, she would be the female lead in many a real-life romance, starting out simply enough with the boys from the masculine counterpart of her school: St. Francis High School in nearby La Cañada Flintridge. Founded by the Capuchin Friars of the Western American Province of Our Lady of Angels in 1946 on lands bought from the Flintridge Country Club, its students interacted with the Immaculate Heart girls on the basis of equality. Like most institutions whose ambition was to turn out a superior form of human being, both schools were eager to restrict the activities of their students so
that they focused on what was desirable and life-enhancing, rather than opening them up to undesirable influences. Chief amongst these restrictions was fraternisation with anyone who was not a peer. It was an accepted feature of both schools that their students could mix with each other, but that they should exercise caution with outsiders. There was something old-fashioned about their desire to protect the students against undesirable influences. While this played well in a society like America, where there is frank acknowledgement of the desirability of people of status sticking together as they assist one another on the path to greater success, in Europe such attitudes were already viewed as not only dangerously old-fashioned and damagingly restrictive, but as snobbish. It really was a case of a new society keeping up the lines of demarcation while an older society was intent on bringing them down, at least enough for there to be greater mobility between the classes. This difference in cultural attitudes would prove to have a defining effect upon Meghan and Harry’s relationships not only with each other, but also with everyone else.
In the meantime, the young Meghan availed herself of a series of willing beaux from St. Francis, and at the age of sixteen, narrowed them down to Luis Segura, her first serious boyfriend. A Latino who had a reputation as a natty dresser, they were together for two years. She was friends with the whole Segura family, and was encouraged by all of them to put herself forward as St. Francis’s Homecoming Queen. Although unknown in Britain, in the US Homecoming Queens were and remain big deals in high schools, and Meghan went all out to win, writing an essay on her work at the Hippie Kitchen and charming as many people as possible to vote for her. She won, and, bedecked in a pale blue strapless satin gown and tiara, Queen Meghan was accompanied by a phalanx of courtiers to the ball by Luis’s younger brother Danny, natty in a tuxedo with a wing-collared shirt and a ready-made black bowtie.
Meghan took her success in her stride. Some girls might have changed their demeanour, but she remained the same sweet, charming, accessible but refined girl who was fun to be with and nice to all. According to friends, it was almost as if she was using this success as practice for what was to come, as if it was no big deal, because it was really what she deserved and was entitled to. She intended to be a great star, and this was but the first taste, and therefore of no real significance.
In the 1997 programme notes for Stephen Sondheim’s musical Into the Woods, in which Meghan played Little Red Riding Hood, she also stated that she wanted to attend Northwestern University outside Chicago as it would be a first step on her journey to Broadway. In her final yearbook, she went a step further and described herself as ‘classy’, a word which would remain a firm favourite of hers, and whose meaning meant much to her in practical as well as philosophical terms. To underscore her ambition and self-belief, she illustrated her photograph with a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt: ‘Women are like teabags; they don’t realize how strong they are until they’re in hot water.’
None of Meghan’s peers thought her immodest or pretentious. Although she was already prone to quoting aphorisms - something she still does - as far as onlookers were concerned, she was a jewel in search of the right setting so that she could shine even more brightly than she was shining at the moment. Ambition was good. She and her father had done, and would continue to do, whatever it took to enhance her prospects, from having expensive orthodonture so that she would have a perfect smile, to having the bulbous tip of her nose refined via plastic surgery. This was a fairly common procedure amongst aspiring actresses in Hollywood. Even the fabled beauty Elizabeth Taylor had done it in her teenage. It was a simple procedure. Cartilage was removed so that the tip of the nose was sharper than nature had intended. In Meghan’s case, however, the procedure would become more noticeable with the passage of time as the cartilage between the tip and the bone drooped, giving her nose a ski jump effect which, ironically, Harry had naturally.
When Meghan graduated from Immaculate Heart in June 1999, her academic and personal attributes were apparent for all to note at the Hollywood Bowl, where the ceremony was held. As well as her graduation certificate, she was presented with the Notre Dame Club of Los Angeles Achievement Award, the Bank of America Fine Arts Award, a commendation in the National Achievement Scholarship Program, and an award for mentoring younger students.
Although Meghan had won three scholarships and could have entered several colleges either as a scholarship or a paying student, the thought had never entered her head that she should go anywhere but where she wanted. She had been brought up by her parents to have her desires fulfilled, and what she wanted was to attend Northwestern University.
This institution was and remains one of the most prestigious private research colleges in the United States. Fees were over $50,000 in today’s prices. It is ranked 9th amongst the American universities and has the 10th largest university endowment in the country, valued at more than $11 billion. Based at Evanston, Illinois, its main campus covers some 240 acres, while its secondary campus in Chicago covers 25 acres. There is a third campus in Doha, Qatar. The university’s former and present faculty and alumni include 19 Nobel Prize laureates, 38 Pulitzer Prize winners, 16 Rhodes Scholars, 6 MacArthur Genius Fellows, 65 American Academy of Arts and Sciences Members, 2 Supreme Court Justices, and its School of Communication is a leading producer of Academy Award, Emmy Award and Tony Award directors, playwrights, writers, actors, and actresses. Although Tom had lost a large part of his lottery winnings, he was still a highly successful lighting director, and he took out bank loans and put in the extra hours necessary to raise the money needed to send his treasured Flower to the university which would be but a stepping stone on her journey to ever increasing success.
Considering Meghan’s stated purpose in attending Northwestern was to become a Broadway star, the fact that she chose to major in English, rather than acting, suggests that she was either not quite as confident as she seemed to be, or then that she was so confident that she didn’t feel the need to specialise in her chosen field. Leaving the protection of home is challenging for any youngster, but Meghan had both greater advantages and disadvantages than most of her peers. Being a child of Hollywood, she was far more sophisticated than her fellow students on the Eastern Seaboard. She dressed better, had more style, knew how to present herself better than they did, and had more confidence than most of them. She made friends with both boys and girls as soon as she burst upon the Evanston campus. She had pared down her look to what she regarded as monochromatic chic; she now wore much more make-up than she had been allowed to in California, and even took to highlighting her hair. Always deliberate, measured and calculating in the positive sense of the word, she also watched and waited before deciding which sorority to join. Once she made up her mind, she went straight for her target, turning on the power of her personality in an irresistible onslaught, and not surprisingly got initiated into Kappa Kappa Gamma with its clutch of intelligent and hot girls. ‘The thing we all have in common,’ according to fellow member Melania Hidalgo, ‘is that we’re all all drive, intelligent and ambitious.’ They were also avid party girls, hitting the bottle more than their books, networking in the belief that who you met might well prove more useful in the future than what you knew. So successfully did Meghan fit in, that she would ultimately be elected to chair recruitment for the sorority.
As Meghan tells it, she had one disadvantage most of her sisters did not. Northwestern was primarily Caucasian. Most of the students came from white environments. They were not used to inter-racial interaction, and, by her own account, she found one of the reactions stifling. She recounted to Elle Magazine how she had to navigate ‘closed-mindedness to the tune of a dorm mate I met my first week at university who asked if my parents were still together. “You said your mom is black and your father is white, right?” she said. I smiled meekly, waiting for what could possibly come out of her pursed lips next. “And they’re divorced?” I nodded. “Oh, well that makes sense.” To this day, I don’t fully understand what she meant by th
at, but I understood the implication. And I drew back: I was scared to open this Pandora’s box of discrimination, so I sat stifled, swallowing my voice.’
Someone who knows Meghan well from childhood warns against taking these defining moments too literally. She has always had a propensity to embellish, to draw dramatic lessons out of the most anodyne events, and, especially since she became a public figure, to use poetical licence to highlight a point she wishes to make but which might not actually have happened the way she recounts it. Since investigation has never been able to turn up this racist dorm mate, notwithstanding the fact that there are records of which students shared quarters, it seems likely that this story is apocryphal rather than reminiscent. Her friend explains, ‘The way to tell is how neatly they [Meghan’s reminiscences] fit the story. Meg’s inventions are too tailor-made to be reliable. People just don’t act the way she says. Once you know her, you can tell which stories are Meghan and which really happened.’
Such incidents, whether actual or embroidered, were fortunately few and far between. By her own account, Meghan’s sensitivity regarding her race followed her from inclusive California to exclusive Illinois, despite no one noticing how affected she was by it. Since there are no contemporaneous accounts of her experiencing any actual racial difficulties, and her lifestyle suggests that she was fully accepted by all quarters, and indeed that she flourished in a way any girl with real problems would not have done, this suggests that she encountered no significant or actual prejudice. It also suggests that she had transcended such internal racial uncertainties as she would later claim to have possessed, so well that they did not prevent her from achieving all she wanted. Of course, we must take her word for the fact that they remained internal sources of discomfort, but the degree of acceptance also reflected positively upon her classmates at Northwestern, two of whom would remain her friends into the present time.
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