Before the royal titles, world headlines, and millions of fans, she was just a little girl warming up microwave dinners and wondering where exactly she fit in.

Born to a Black mother and a white father in Los Angeles, this girl didn’t grow up feeling like a Hollywood story in the making. In fact, she often felt like she didn’t belong anywhere — not in school cliques, not in beauty standards, not even in strangers’ assumptions about her own family.

“My dad is Caucasian and my mom is African American. I’m half Black and half white,” she once shared.

But it’s all part of her story that’s shaped everything — from the way she saw herself to the strength she had to find when the world finally did start watching.

Raised on TV dinners and tough questions
As a child, Meghan Markle described herself as a “latchkey kid,” coming home to an empty house while her parents worked long hours. Her mom, Doria Ragland, made a living as a makeup artist and her dad, Thomas Markle Sr, worked in television.

“I grew up with a lot of fast food and also a lot of TV tray dinners,” she said.

“Watching ‘Jeopardy!’ and having a lot of microwaveable kids’ meals… that was normal.”

However, there seems to be some disagreement about what Meghan’s childhood was really like. Her father has challenged his daughter’s account, saying her memories — especially about how she ate as a child — don’t match his own version of events.