Inside Meghan ‘indulgent’ relationship with her father causing her to be ‘controlling at school and home’

She is now well versed in making demands and getting what she wants in life, from her $14.7million mansion in California to her staggering wardrobe full of designer labels.

But it wasn’t always this way for the Duchess of Sussex, who was born into a family with a yoga instructor mother and television lighting director father in Los Angeles in 1981.

Her meteoric rise to become a successful Hollywood actress and then joining the Royal Family by marrying Prince Harry is seen as something out of a fairytale.

And she is now planning on reinventing herself yet again as a lifestyle guru, as she prepares to present an upcoming cookery show on Netflix which will be released on January 15, while continuing to develop her own brand American Riviera Orchard.

But Meghan’s path to the top wasn’t easy, with those who knew her as a child saying she grew sharp elbows as a youngster.

Sonia Ardakani, the mother of Susie, her best friend at school, told the Mail in 2017: ‘The thing I really admired about her is that she would fight tooth and nail for the things she wanted in life… and Meghan always got what she wanted.’

Her demands were increasingly met by her father Thomas Markle, now 80, who worked gruelling hours on shows such as General Hospital and Married… with Children. 

Unlike his other two children, Samantha and Thomas Jr, Thomas Sr saw Meghan throughout her childhood and sent her to elite private schools. 

Meghan’s father Thomas, pictured with his daughter on her graduation day, has admitted he ‘spoiled her’ growing up

Meghan showed her star potential as a teenager when she was crowned Homecoming Queen at her high school

When she started high school aged 12, Thomas got into a daily routine of dropping Meghan off at school and either collected her himself or sent a limousine to bring her to his studio or to her friend’s house while he finished work, according to an author.

In his 2022 book, Revenge, Tom Bower wrote that Meghan was ‘utterly indulged’ by her father, with Thomas admitting he ‘spoiled her’.

Thomas said his efforts caused Meghan to change. ‘She became controlling at school, the master of ceremonies, and controlling at home too,’ he said.

Biographer Tom Bower wrote his 2022 book Revenge about Meghan

Meghan’s ability to shine and climb the social ranks quickly developed as she won the election for school president -the equivalent of a head girl – hands down.

She was so popular, and pretty, that she was also crowned Homecoming Queen -a much-coveted prize among female high school students.

But a 2017 Mail investigation into Meghan’s childhood revealed her father, family members noted, afforded her considerably more attention than his first two children had received.

‘When Meggie was born, Dad was a completely changed man,’ recalled her half-brother Thomas Jr, who was then 14 and had recently left New Mexico for California to live with his father and stepmother and his new baby sister.

‘Before then, Dad’s work took priority over everything, but she became his whole world.

Thomas told Tom Bower that the way he raised Meghan caused her to change. ‘She became controlling at school, the master of ceremonies, and controlling at home too,’ he said

Meghan’s ability to shine and climb the social ranks quickly developed as she won the election for school president – the equivalent of a head girl – hands down

Thomas has said he knew Meghan would be a star after seeing her perform in school plays when she was a teenager

On her now defunct blog The Tig, Meghan wrote about her father: ‘The blood, sweat and tears this man (who came from so little in a small town in Pennsylvania) invested in my future so I could grow up to have so much’

‘I remember when she came home from the hospital, he had decorated the bathroom with little angels and fairies.

‘He would keep holding her up to the mirror so she could see herself in his arms.

‘The look on his face was priceless.

‘Dad would take so many pictures of Meggie that she must have been the most photographed baby in the San Fernando Valley! He must have about 50,000 pictures of her stashed away somewhere.

‘Meggie was a little princess long before she met Harry – she was her Daddy’s princess.’

As Meghan’s childhood progressed, her father continued to indulge her. When he threw parties at home – the family lived on the beach at Santa Monica before moving to affluent Woodland Hills – he would parade her before his showbiz friends.

Going to work on General Hospital – for which Thomas won an Emmy Award – and Married… With Children, he would take her with him on set where the stars would make a fuss of her.

Then, when her schools – first the private Hollywood Little Red Schoolhouse and then an exclusive all-girls Catholic school – put on plays, Thomas would volunteer to do the lighting. 

This led to sniping by some parents that it was no wonder that Meghan invariably won a lot of the leading roles.

Thomas took Meghan to the Emmy Awards ceremony when he was nominated for best lighting director

Thomas and Meghan’s mother Doria Ragland, pictured with their daughter, divorced when Meghan was six. But they raised her together, with the future Duchess often seen on the sets he worked on

Meghan performed in shows at the elite all-girls Catholic school Immaculate Heart when she was a pupil there

Following their estrangement, Thomas has became an outspoken critic of Meghan and Harry, accusing them of damaging the Royal Family by stepping back from their duties

Fame seemed to be Meghan’s goal from a young age, as a scene in her and Prince Harry’s 2022 Netflix ‘docuseries’ showed. While visiting her elementary school, she read aloud a revealing letter she had written to her former principal when she graduated at the age of 11.

‘When I am rich and famous and I write my life story, I will talk about you and the school so you will be known worldwide’, she read.

Meghan thought that being an actress was the way she could become a star and her father aimed to give her all the help he could.

Bower claimed in his book that he trained her on how to be an actress, writing: ‘Obeying her father, Meghan always perfected her lines and unquestioningly obeyed the director’s instructions. 

‘His more important advice, after occasionally watching rehearsals, was to explain how best to hold her head, fixate her eyes, show her best profile and most important, look sincere.

‘Acting, he emphasised depended on the appearance of authenticity.’

Thomas also paid for Meghan’s orthodontics, which removed the gap between her front teeth, which had been present throughout her childhood.

According to Bower, Thomas spent his weekends with Meghan fishing on the Kern River and Big Bear Lake, then cooking the fish for dinner. 

On long weekends, they went on road trips, including one to Elvis’s Graceland home in Memphis, Tennessee. Thomas’s Toyota 4Runner was fitted with a mattress in the back for Meghan along with a TV and VCR recorder.

Family members say that her half-sister Samantha, who is 16 years older and had harboured the same acting ambitions, felt she wasn’t getting as much assistance as Meghan. This fuelled a deepening jealousy.

Samantha is the first of two children from Thomas Markle’s first marriage

Samantha Markle has frequently appeared on television shows to talk about her half-sister

Once Meghan got her big break on the TV series Suits, in which she starred with Patrick J. Adams, above, she saw her family less

Along with her brother Thomas Jr, Samantha had been raised by her mother in the backwoods of New Mexico.

For her, there was no private education and no tip-toeing downstairs to charm guests at glamorous parties.

Around the time that Meghan was born, however, Samantha had moved back in with her father, hoping he would give her the entrée into Hollywood that she longed for.

In her late teens, Samantha moved out of the family home and became estranged from Meghan. She later frequently appeared in the media to criticise her half-sister.

She has accused Meghan of being ‘self-obsessed’ and claimed she failed to support her family after becoming a star and making her name on TV. 

Meghan became successful at school and then at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and never looked back. 

So much about her was perfect, contemporaries told the Mail’s David Jones in 2017 -even her handwriting. Indeed, one of her earliest jobs was as a calligrapher.

It seems Meghan was earmarked for big things at a young age. As friends recalled to Bower, she was ‘always destined to be remarkable’. 

Two years before she met Harry, Meghan wrote about her father’s dedication to giving her a good life. On her now defunct blog The Tig, she said: ‘The blood, sweat and tears this man (who came from so little in a small town in Pennsylvania) invested in my future so I could grow up to have so much.’

She then added: ‘To my dad – my thoughtful, inspiring, hard-working Daddy – Happy Father’s Day.’

Meghan is now estranged from most of the members of her father Thomas’s side of the family, including her dad (pictured in blue) and her Uncle Fred (in a checked shirt) 

Since moving to California in 2020, Meghan has been seen out and about enjoying herself with Harry and her ever-changing list of celebrity friends 

Meghan and Prince Harry’s $14.7million home in Montecito, California 

Meghan and Harry’s Christmas card this year offered a glimpse of their two children, Archie and Lilibet, for the first time in years

In a Valentine’s card from her childhood, uncovered in 2018, Meghan wrote: ‘Daddy, Everything you do for me has turned me into who I am and I am so grateful. 

‘All I want to do is make you proud… and I promise, no matter what, I’ll do it. Thank you for everything daddy. I love you with all my heart now and forever.’

But despite clearly at one stage admitting the importance of her father’s influence on her life, Meghan has been estranged from him for years. 

Thomas has never met Harry. He was due to come to their wedding in May 2018 but  cancelled at the last minute after The Mail on Sunday revealed he had arranged pictures with paparazzi for cash. 

Meghan’s two children, Archie, five, and Lilibet, three, have also never met him.

His whole side of the family, for the most part, now has nothing to do with the Duchess.

Instead, she spends her time going to glitzy red carpet events in Los Angeles with her celebrity friends.

This year, the Sussexes’ Christmas card offered a glimpse of their two children for the first time in years. 

But the youngsters’ faces are not visible, as the couple remain tight-lipped about how they are raising them.

It remains to be seen if Meghan will be spoiling them, like Thomas said he did to her.