The Duchess of Sussex shared a rare clip with her mother, Doria Ragland, as she marked her 69th birthday on Tuesday. Meghan posted a boomerang-style clip on her Instagram Stories, showing her kissing Doria, surrounded by pink heart emojis. The Duchess captioned the sweet image: “Happy Birthday to my beautiful mom!”
No doubt Meghan, together with Prince Harry, and their children, Prince Archie, six, and Princess Lilibet, four, will have ensured that Doria’s day was special. The mother and daughter duo enjoyed a celebratory night out at Beyonce’s concert for Doria’s 67th birthday in 2023, with the pair donning silver outfits to adhere to the theme of the show.
Doria is close to her daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren, residing in Los Angeles, a short drive from the Sussexes’ Montecito mansion, which has a separate two-bedroom guesthouse for friends and family when they stay.
It comes after an exciting couple of weeks for the Duchess as she launched the second series of her With Love, Meghan on Netflix. While social worker Doria appeared in the final episode of the first season, she did not make a cameo in the new series. However, throughout the episodes, Meghan has shared some touching anecdotes about her childhood, as well as her family life with Harry, Archie and Lilibet.
Meghan’s relationship with her parents
Meghan was born in Los Angeles on 4 August 1981 to Doria, a former makeup artist, and Thomas Markle, a television lighting director. The couple separated when Meghan was just two years old, but continued to co-parent. The future Suits star lived with her father before attending university, but she has since become estranged from Thomas sine around the time of her wedding to Prince Harry in 2018.
Doria has remained a constant support in Meghan’s life and would regularly make trips over to London when her daughter relocated to the UK ahead of her marriage. She accompanied Meghan in the car as she arrived for her wedding ceremony at St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle in 2018.
© Instagram / @meghanThe Duchess has often praised her mother publicly, revealing during her and Harry’s trip to Colombia in 2024: “I find inspiration in the strong women around me. Of course, my mother being one of them. So much of how I approach things is less about the fight and more about how do we show up in a space and wash things over with love and kindness and generosity.”
Bond with Prince Harry
Harry has openly spoken about his bond with mother-in-law, Doria, describing the yoga instructor as “amazing” in his and Meghan’s Netflix docuseries, released in 2022.
© NetflixIn his memoir, Spare, he recalled being nervous meeting Meghan’s mother for the first time, writing: “We were celebrating Doria, celebrating being together, and doing it all at our favorite place, Soho House at 76 Dean Street…,” and later added: “That dinner with Doria was wonderful, but I look back on it now as the end of the beginning. The next day, the pap photos appeared, and there was a new flood of stories, a new surge along the many channels of social media. Racism, misogyny, criminal stupidity – it all increased.”
© GettyDoria is also mentioned in the acknowledgments in Harry’s book, with the Duke writing: “Above all my deepest and adoringest thanks to Archie and Lili, for letting Papa go off to read and think and reflect, to my mother-in-law (aka Grandma), and to my incredible wife, for too many millions of gifts and sacrifices, great and small, to ever enumerate.”
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