Meghan Markle and Doria Ragland.Photo: Steve Parsons - Pool / Getty
Meghan Markleand her momDoria Raglandhave a strong daughter-mother bond.
When Meghan andPrince Harrywere still living in the U.K., Ragland often traveled from her home state of California to visit her daughter and son-in-law during milestone moments like their 2018royal weddingandthe birth of their son Archiein 2019. Now that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have moved stateside, Ragland is closer than ever to her daughter and two grandchildren.
“Meghan draws a lot of strength from her mother.Doria is classy, chic and confident, but not unapproachable,” Meghan’s longtime friend and makeup artist Daniel Martin told PEOPLE in 2018. “I definitely feel Meghan gets a lot of that from her mother.”
For more on the Royals, listen below to our daily podcast PEOPLE Every Day.
Ragland spoke about her daughter’s relationship with Harry for the first time in the 2022 Netflix documentaryHarry & Meghan, admitting “the last five years have been challenging.” Still, she couldn’t be happier that Meghan found “the one” and seems to be quite the proud grandmother, too.
On May 16, 2023,Doria joined Meghan and Harryin New York City for the Ms. Foundation 2023Women of Vision Awards: Celebrating Generations of Progress & Power. Meghan was named one of the year’s Woman of Vision Award honorees, and posed with her mother and husband on the red carpet.
Here is everything to know aboutMeghan Markle’s mom, Doria Ragland.
She lives in California
Meghan Markle and Doria Ragland.Sylvain Gaboury/Patrick McMullan via Getty
Ragland was born in Ohio on Sept. 2, 1956. She eventually moved to California, where she met her ex-husband Thomas Markle in the late ’70s, according to a 2015 essay Meghan wrote forElle. After Ragland and Markle wed, they welcomed Meghan in 1981 and moved to the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles.
Though Ragland and Markle split when Meghan was young, Ragland has remained in California and lives not far from Meghan andPrince Harry’s Montecito home.
She is a yoga instructor
It is no secret that Meghan is a fan of yoga — and she seems to have inherited her love for the exercise from her mother. Ragland is a yoga instructor and former social worker and has been seen attending yoga classes both solo and with Meghan.
Ahead of the royal wedding in 2018, Ragland even joinedOprah Winfreyfor yoga at the media mogul’s home. “She’s great at yoga, so I said, ‘Bring your yoga mat and your sneaks in case we just want to do yoga on the lawn,’ " Winfrey toldEntertainment Tonight.
And yoga isn’t the only way Ragland stays active — she has alsoshown an interest in running. She participated in the 21st Annual Alive and Running 5k for Suicide Prevention run in Los Angeles in 2019.
She calls Meghan “Flower”
BEN STANSALL/AFP/Getty
When Meghan was young,Ragland gave her the nickname “Flower.“The Duchess of Sussex revealed the sweet moniker on her now-defunct lifestyle blog The Tig, listing her many nicknames as “Meg, MM, M&M, and Flower (which my mom has called me since I was little).”
She faced challenges during Meghan’s early relationship with Prince Harry
Doria Ragland.Netflix
In the 2022 Netflix documentaryHarry & Meghan, Ragland opened up about the early days of her daughter’s relationship with the royal. “We were on the phone, and she says, ‘Mommy, I’m going out withPrince Harry,’ and I start whispering, ‘Oh my God,’ " she recalled.
“And so it was from the beginning, it was very sort of, ‘Oh my God, nobody can know,’ " she added.
According to Ragland,Prince Harrywas “handsome,” “really nice” and had “great manners” when she first met him. “And they looked really happy together,” she said of Meghan and Harry. “Once it was announced that they were together, it seemed kind of like a novelty.”
She escorted Meghan to her 2018 wedding to Prince Harry
Doria Ragland and Meghan Markle.OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images
After meeting Queen Elizabeth andPrince Philipfor the first time at Windsor Castle the day before Meghan’s royal wedding to Prince Harry in 2018, Raglandspent the evening with her daughter at Cliveden House Hotel.
She is a doting grandmother
Ragland became a grandmother for a second time with the arrival of Meghan and Harry’s daughter, Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor, in June 2021.
She has joined Meghan and Prince Harry at many events
The proud mom was on hand to support Meghan at herfirst royal hosting eventin September 2018, which celebrated the publication ofTogether: Our Community Cookbookwith a palace luncheon.
In 2022,Ragland also joined Meghan and Prince Harry at the 53rd annual NAACP Image Awardswhere the Duke and Duchess received the President’s Award.
“My mom’s here with us tonight, and we all feel very proud,” Meghan said at the end of her acceptance speech.
She made a surprise cameo on Meghan’s podcastArchetypes
Brian Lawless - WPA Pool/Getty
Even though Ragland wasn’t a guest on Meghan’sArchetypespodcast, the yoga instructor didFaceTime her daughter while Meghan was recording an episode.
“Oh sugar, my mom’s FaceTiming me,” Meghan told her guest before answering the call. “Hey, how’s my girl?” asked Ragland over the phone before telling her daughter she had on a “smiley face.”
Once the brief call ended, Meghan narrated, “But my mom did this thing … you may have heard this clicking sound that she was doing.”
“My mom literally just pulled out a reference of what I came up with as a cool handshake to do with her when I was about 8, which was snap, scissors, cut, chicken wing. I’m 41 years old and she’s like, okay — that’s great.”
She continued, “And it just put me right back into the past. Thinking about my childhood, our little quirks together … and then, with this episode on my brain, it got me thinking about all the ways my mom supported me, how she took care of me and the house and herself … and how she just juggled so much.”
source: people.com
