Meghan Markle’s Dad is an Emmy-Award winner and it turns out not many people actually knew.
Thomas – or Tom – Markle has been quiet since his daughter got engaged to Prince Harry last month so he hasn’t really been in the spotlight.
According to Elite Daily, family confirmed Thomas will be attending his daughter’s wedding on 19th May next year, but he reportedly said: ‘I can’t speak out of respect for my family. I just can’t.’
Thomas, 73, divorced Meghan’s mum in 1988, is actually award-winning for his career as a lighting director.
He has multiple Emmy nominations for his work on television and won the award for Outstanding Achievement in Design Excellence for a Daytime Drama Series in 1982, and the Outstanding Achievement in Lighting Direction for a Drama Series award in 2011.
Both for his work on the show General Hospital.
Back in 2013, Meghan spoke to Esquire about being backstage on Thomas’ sets, saying:
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.
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-colour for your 11-year-old eyes.’
She also spoke about her relationship with her parents in a later interview with Vanity Fair.
She said:
My parents had been so supportive watching me audition, trying to make ends meet, taking all the odds-and-ends jobs to pay my bills. I was doing calligraphy, and I was a hostess at a restaurant — and all those things that actors do… My father knew how hard it is for an actor to get work, so he above all people was so proud that I was able to beat the odds.
But over the past week, Meghan’s sister hit back at a comment made by Prince Harry on a recent radio show, which he guest edited.
This year was the first time Meghan Markle spent Christmas with Harry and the Royal family, during his appearance yesterday on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme he spoke about the ‘fantastic’ time she had with the Queen.
However, towards the end of the interview with Today Programme host, Sarah Montague, Harry mentioned her with the Royals was like being with ‘the family she’s never had’.
It was this comment which seemed to rile up Meghan’s half-sister, Samantha Markle, who hit back at Harry’s presumption their family environment was lacking in comparison to her soon-to-be in-laws. Speaking on Twitter she stressed their ‘household was very normal’ and ‘no one was estranged’.
During Prince Harry’s interview he told Montague:
The family loved having her there. We had an amazing time staying with my brother and sister-in-law and running around with the kids.
She’s getting in there and it’s the family that I suppose she’s never had.
Her older half-sister disputed the last comment saying:
Actually she has a large family who were always there with her and for her. Our household was very normal and when dad and Doria divorced, we all made it so it was like she had two houses. No one was estranged, she was just too busy.
Families, eh!
