Who is the real Meghan Markle?
DAYS before Meghan Markle takes her place as a British royal, friends and family from her earlier life are divided between toasting her success and feeling cast aside.
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EXCLUSIVE
DAYS before Meghan Markle takes her place as a British royal, friends and family from her earlier life in America and Canada are divided between toasting her success and feeling cast aside.
At her alma mater in Los Angeles, the excitement is building, with a high tea and weekend slumber party planned for hundreds of students to watch the nuptials which take place at 4am local time.
But 25 minutes away, at Skid Row’s busiest soup kitchen, some workers are fed up with all the talk about their most famous former volunteer.
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The days she spent as a teenager helping serve more than 3000 meals a week to the tent-city inhabitants of downtown Los Angeles have become a celebrated chapter in Markle’s aspirational story, shared in speeches and articles she wrote on her now defunct lifestyle blog, The Tig.
But the associate director of Hippie Kitchen, Caleb Havens, was dismissive of the connection in an exclusive interview with News Corp Australia, described her as “someone who volunteered here once a long time ago”.
Havens said he would prefer attention was on the work the centre does and improving conditions for the 5000 homeless people who they look after.
“If Meghan wants to help out there are a million ways she can do that,” he said.
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“If she has an extra toaster we will take it, if she wants to write a check, we’ll take it, but we haven’t heard from her since that one time in high school, so we are not holding our breath.”
Also not thrilled about Markle officially becoming a princess are her estranged half brother and sister, who have done a series of paid interviews accusing her of abandoning her family.
Samantha Grant, says her younger sister has refused to help their dad with his money problems.
Retiree Thomas Markle lives modestly in Rosario, Mexico and was photographed last week as he started making his way to Windsor Castle checking into a budget motel after driving his beat up car to San Diego.
“He was very clear with her about the fact that he needed some help and by his report, twice, she flatly refused,” Grant said.
“Nobody is milking her for money; you help your father in return for everything he has done for you. It’s that simple.”
Markle’s ex-husband Trevor Engelson is also putting the boot in, developing a TV series drawn heavily from real life, about a divorced American who marries into the British royal family.
And Markle is no longer in contact with her childhood best friend, Ninaki Priddy, who sold a series of photos and interviews to British tabloids shortly after things got serious with Prince Harry.
In Toronto, where Markle lived for six years filming Suits, there are those who accuse her of letting friendships slide when they were no longer ”appropriate”.
“My impression is that Meghan knows how to get what she wants, that she is very good at setting her mind on something and then being very thorough about getting it,” said one former acquaintance in Toronto who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“There’s nothing wrong with that, but there are questions for sure about people who are no longer in her life, that she has in some respects cast aside.”
Many others in Toronto, which is known “as the Hollywood of the north” because of generous tax incentives that lure film and TV production over the US border, are thrilled for Markle.
“There are people in the Toronto social scene who are still very close to her and of course they are very happy for her — and to be going to her wedding,” says celebrity photographer George Pimentel.
Pimentel, who worked with Markle on many photo shoots and describes her as “really nice and always easy to work with”, said those close friends were not interested in speaking publicly, in part because she has learned to prize discretion in her relationships after her half
brother and sister started speaking against her.
“Pretty much since the beginning (of the attention of her relationship with Harry), the people who know her well aren’t talking to anyone about her,” he said.
“Some have signed paperwork (nondisclosure agreements).”
Markle became well known in Toronto partly due to her relationship with celebrity chef Corey Vitiello, and even though there has been ample speculation they were still dating when her whirlwind romance began with Harry, a friend said Vitiello had no hard feelings.
“Corey is a bit of a player. There is talk that there was some crossover and that he was ditched for Harry, but he’s a good looking celebrity chef in a city where they are treated like rockstars,” the friend said.
“He’s got a successful restaurant empire, he’s got plenty of opportunities, so yes, he was down about it for a while but he wasn’t crying into his drink alone for too long or anything.”
But long before Markle was among the most recognisable faces in the world, she was a standout scholar and leader at the all-girl Immaculate Heart High School in Los Angeles.
Markle has long combined acting and activism, with their mutual charity work and love for Africa among the first things that drew her and Harry together, and students at her alma mater studied some of the programs she was involved in.
“Many of the students here already heard about Meghan Markle long before her involvement with Prince Harry, because we play the speech she gave to the United Nations in class,” said school spokesperson Callie Webb.
“We are very proud of Meghan, and quite frankly we were proud of her long before she met Prince Harry.”
Year 11 student Christina Noravian, 16, said many girls at the school looked up to Markle not for the fact of whom she is marrying so much as her charity work, which she appears set to continue with.
“It’s definitely something that’s an inspiration for us, how she had come from this school and made it so big,” Noravian said.
“A lot of things they emphasise here are about being a model of social justice, and she has done that very well.”
On a brief tour of the school last week, Ms Webb pointed out the stage where Markle made her acting debut — and where her dad Thomas Markle (an Emmy award-winning lighting director) built sets not only while she studied but for another seven years after she graduated in 1999.
“He seems like a very nice guy, a very hard worker who worked late at night building these sets, then had to deal with all these teenagers coming in, but he had a rapport with all of them,” Ms Webb said.
“We think she’s moving from our little theatre stage here to the world stage where she can carry on a lot of great work.”
Unlike the Hippie Kitchen, Ms Webb said her school had definitely benefited from the “Meghan effect” which has seen fashion items sell out within hours of Markle appearing in them in public.
“Meghan is certainly an impressive ambassador for Immaculate Heart,” Ms Webb said.
“I have to say our last high school open house was very well attended.”
WHAT WILL HAPPEN WHEN ON HARRY AND MEGHAN’S WEDDING DAY
8PM (AEST): Wedding guests start arriving, via bus!, well ahead of the ceremony and official party
8.30PM: The Royal family start to arrive via car, with some walking from nearby Windsor Castle
8.45PM: Harry and William then arrive, likely on foot, and are expected to chat to crowds inside the chapel grounds.
9PM: Meghan and mum Doria are expected to drive to the castle by car, travelling up the Long Walk. She will meet her flowergirls and father Thomas at the chapel steps.
10PM: The church service is expected to run for one hour, with close family and the Royals are expected to pose on the steps afterwards for photos and to wave off the newlyweds.
10.30PM: The happy couple will take a slow carriage round through the streets of Windsor before heading inside the castle for the lunch reception.
12.30AM: Lunch at an end, guests will begin leaving, while others move on to Frogmore House for the evening festivities
Originally published as Who is the real Meghan Markle?
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