Meghan Markle: see how she changed over the years

Trying to leave the media frenzy around the Royal Family rifts behind her, Meghan Markle seems to be enjoying her life of Polo games with her husband, Prince Harry, and raising her two children, Archie and Lilibeth, in California. We take a look at her life from start to the present in photos.

Almost 30 years ago, a young Meghan Markle appeared like this in a Nickelodeon TV show. The image from 1993 comes from an Inside Edition documentary on YouTube. The actress and duchess has changed an awful lot over time. Keep reading to see more photos that depict her ever-changing style, relationships, and jobs.

Rachel Meghan Markle is the daughter of retired lighting director Thomas Markle and former makeup artist Doria Ragland.

Her father had two other children who were already adults by the time Meghan was born. When her half-siblings were nearly ready to fly the nest, Tom and Doria divorced. Meghan was two.

Meghan attended an all-girls Catholic school. “I remember busying myself and being the president of every club,” she has said of her schooling. “Not because I actually wanted to, but because I didn’t want to eat alone at lunchtime. This overachiever mask I wore was really just the way I battled feeling displaced.”

Meghan Markle has always been somewhat of a feminist. There's a story about how the teenage Meghan was working on an assignment about commercials when she heard a dishwashing soap ad aimed solely at women. "I don't think it's right for kids to grow up thinking these things, that just Mom does everything," she said at the time.

According to VanityFair, Tom Markle initially had a good salary and won a lottery ticket, which meant Meghan could go to college. She studied at the Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois and gained a degree in theatre and international studies in 2003.

As a student, she drove from audition to audition, trying to make it as a big time actress. She finally landed herself a single episode role in 'General Hospital' and also took on a number of other little contract acting jobs. She also worked as a model for some adverts.

(Photo: still from 'General Hospital,' ABC)

Although Meghan Markle has seemed to stand the test of time and never appears to age a day; it is only when you look back at earlier photos of the actress that you can see the small difference time has had. We love this fresh-faced photo take in 2006.

Yes, she was a briefcase model in NBC's show, Deal or No Deal. She didn't like the job much, as she told Esquire in 2013. "I would end up standing up there forever in these terribly uncomfortable and inexpensive five-inch heels just waiting for someone to pick my number so I could go and sit down.”

(Photo: still from NBC, 'Deal or No Deal')

Meghan Markle has always been a natural beauty. At celebrity gatherings in the 2000s, she often appeared without much make-up and her hair rather frazzled. But we like it - a far cry from the polished Duchess Meghan.

While she kept auditioning for roles, Meghan continued to choose a more everyday look. Here she traded in her reliable black for a tone of pink that compliments her skin color well.

Despite struggling in the industry for many years, Meghan never stopped dreaming of success. She blamed the difficulty of getting a role on her skin colour: "I wasn't black enough for the black roles and I wasn't white enough for the white ones." In 2011, Meghan finally got her big break. She played Rachel in USA Network's Suits.

Meghan dated Trevor Engelson for six years before he decided to pop the question in 2010. Trevor, who owned his own production company called Underground, and his fiancé tied the knot in an extravagant beach-side wedding in Jamaica.

Their marriage only lasted two years and they 'quietly separated' in 2013.

By now Meghan had really captured the attention of the world media as the show, Suits, was really taking off. She lived 9 months a year in Toronto filming.

Many remember Irish Pro golfer, Rory McIlroy, and Meghan Markle recreating their own ice bucket challenge. Although it was never officially confirmed, they had a small fling in 2014 and were inseparable for months.

Photo: blogthetig / Instagram

The Telegraph claimed that Meghan was once an item with celebrity Canadian chef Cory Vitiello for a few years. They split, not only because they were focusing on their respective careers, but also because Meghan met Harry...

In January 2016, just months before she was linked to Prince Harry, Meghan attended ELLE's 6th Annual Women in Television Dinner in California. The matching deep red dress with lipstick was a hit.

"We were introduced actually by a mutual friend," Harry revealed during the couple's first sit-down interview with the BBC following their engagement announcement. The couple managed to date shielded from the public eye for nearly 16 months.

Her half-sister, Samantha, in an interview with The Sun, said Meghan was a social climber: she said Meghan was shallow and superficial, had always wanted to become a princess, and had “a soft spot for gingers.”

Harry and Meghan got engaged - to the delight of the world. Meghan opted for a white coat by Canadian brand Line the Label. Incredibly, the coat quickly sold out after the couple’s appearance, despite being previously restocked.

Meghan Markle appeared shortly after the engagement in cropped black trousers and a matching blazer by Alexander McQueen at the Endeavor Fund Awards in London in February 2018. It is said the Queen preferred female royals to avoid trouser suits and stick to skirts. Meghan was already making her own rules.

Prince Harry said that Meghan was enjoying spending time with the royal family because the royal family was “the family she never had.” This did not go down too well with her family at home, and especially her half-sister, Samantha who had finally decided to speak out: “Consistently, my family was being isolated and ignored, like we’re nonexistent.”

Among all the family drama in the build up to the wedding, Meghan’s father, Thomas Markle, went to speak to Piers Morgan on Good Morning Britain to complain about his daughter’s “ghosting” of him. In the interview, he reached out to the queen herself to intervene in the family squabble.

Finally, Meghan wrote to her father, Thomas Markle, regarding their strained relationship. She penned:
“Daddy, It is with a heavy heart that I write this, not understanding why you have chosen to take this path, turning a blind eye to the pain you’re causing.” She was talking of her father’s fabricated press photos and absence at her wedding, which she said she learned about through a tabloid.

“Your actions have broken my heart into a million pieces — not simply because you have manufactured such unnecessary and unwarranted pain, but by making the choice to not tell the truth as you are puppeteered in this. Something I will never understand.”

But royal life moved on and Meghan and Harry got married in one of the best-watched programs in live television history. Meghan’s wedding dress by Waight Keller was show-stopping. She provided a great style reference for all brides.

Meghan adapted to the royal family's style with a dress in a pastel color and a hat, such a traditional accessory in British high society.

Meghan often stepped out cupping her baby bump in pride. She looked fantastic here at the last stage of her pregnancy in a metallic dress with overcoat.

As tensions were also rising in the palace, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex officially split from their joint charity with Prince William and Duchess Kate in June 2019.

Meghan and Harry welcomed their son, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, in May 2019. She was every bit a beaming mother, despite (as we would learn later) the fear she felt for her and her son's wellbeing.

In November 2019, Buckingham Palace announced that Harry and Meghan would not spend Christmas with the royals. Instead, the Sussexes and their new son spent “private family time” in Canada in December 2019.

The couple revealed their plans to “step back” from their roles as senior members of the royal family in January 2020. This news split the opinions of many and, only when they delivered their bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey months later would we learn more.

Meghan attended the Mountbatten Festival of Music in 2020, at London’s Royal Albert Hall. She looked stunning matching Harry's royal red in a Kalika stretch-crêpe gown by Safiyaa. She was going out with a bang.

The couple attended their final public event as royals at Westminster Abbey in March 2020, before they fled across the water. It was a tense event, with the couple barely speaking to William and Kate. Markle was in a head-to-toe emerald green ensemble, which many called her “revenge dress”.

Meghan revealed to the New York Times in November 2020 that she had suffered a miscarriage that July. “I knew, as I clutched my firstborn child, that I was losing my second.”

Harry and Meghan announced in February 2021 that she was pregnant again. “We can confirm that Archie is going to be a big brother,” a spokesperson said.

There was an official statement from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announcing the birth of their new daughter, Lilibet Diana Windsor-Mountbatten on June 4th, 2021.

In April 2022, Meghan and Harry attended the Invictus Games in The Hague in the Netherlands. The couple would have taken advantage of the trip to Europe to visit Queen Elizabeth II.

The couple returned to the UK for the Queen's Platinum Jubilee celebrations on June 2 but did not appear alongside family members on the balcony of Buckingham Palace. It showed that there were still tensions and differences of opinion about Meghan and Harry's roles in the royal family.

Meghan Markle was present at the funeral of Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth and was a picture of decorum in a black gown. Although there were no signs of close family reunions, the couple managed to get in and out of the UK with little drama.

'Harry & Meghan,' the Netflix TV series was released at the end of 2022. Harry's book, 'Spare,' followed shortly after. The couple had decided it was time to bare the truth and defend their decisions in a worldwide tour that would later split public opinion on the couple.

Whether one might think the actress is pushing boundaries and addressing unconscious bias or driving a wedge between the royal family; one thing if for sure: Meghan Markle's story is one of transitions. She has changed her relationships, her family, her style, and her life goals many times over the years. Her story isn't a whirlwind. It's a hurricane.

Looking back on Markle's life, she has made many firsts: she was one of the oldest pregnant royals in a century; the first bi-racial person in a family whose history was known to powder their faces to make themselves whiter; and she is the only female self-made millionaire in the royal family.