Meghan's heartbreaking conversation about dads as Thomas Markle row rumbles on

Daily Mirror

6 days ago

In the final episode of Meghan's podcast series, Confessions of a Female Founder, Meghan chatted with her guest Sara Blakely about the crucial role her father played in her upbringing and business - amid the Duchess's ongoing feud with father Thomas Markle
The final episode of Meghan's podcast Confessions of a Female Founder has been released and sees the Duchess take part in an emotional conversation with her guest Sara Blakely, the founder of SPANX, about the crucial role the businesswoman's father played in shaping her company and mindset - amid Meghan's, 43, ongoing estrangement with her own father Thomas Markle Senior, 80.
It was around the time of Meghan's wedding in 2018 that her relationship with her father, with whom she once shared a strong bond, broke down. Thomas was caught taking part in staged paparazzi shots, for which it is alleged he was paid, ahead of the big day.
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Despite initially being the one who was meant to give Meghan away, after suffering a heart attack, Thomas could not attend - something that Meghan has said she found out "through a tabloid". He later said that the stunt had left him looking "stupid and hammy".
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Three years later, during her bombshell sit-down with Oprah, Meghan confirmed that the pair were still totally estranged, saying that she grieves "a lot" and that "I've lost my father".
Things haven't improved between Meghan and her father, who now lives in the Philippines with Meghan's half-brother Thomas Junior.
However, despite the difficulties Meghan faces in her relationship with her own father, she expressed serious enthusiasm in her conversation with Sara Blakely about how important a role the SPANX's founder's father played in her journey.
Sara explained that "SPANX never had a board. For 16 years, the board was my dad, so my dad would come into town four times a year, hang out with me and the leadership team, and go over the business."
"Wow, wow," Meghan replied, then asking, "I remember reading, or maybe you told me, that when you were younger your dad would ask around the dinner table 'What did you fail at this week? What did you fail at today?' meaning, if you failed, you at least tried, you tried beautifully, and it doesn't matter if you failed. When he started to advise on the business four times a year, was he asking those same kind of questions?"
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Sara replied: "I was very lucky to have a parent who was incredibly strategic in his thinking. He's a lawyer, but he's very smart, and I trusted him, and that was huge for me. He was always trying to get us to redefine failure growing up, my brother and me. Listen, my brother is four years younger than me. My brother invented a product in a field he knows nothing about and sold his business. So something happened in our house.
"My mom is a stay-at-home mother and an artist, and my dad is a litigator; he was a very charismatic trial attorney, and they really fostered something in our house..."
Meghan answered: "Wow, that's huge, huge, and you had equal parts of that pragmatism and the creative as well from your mom as an artist, so you had both pieces".
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The emotional conversation nodded back to how Meghan spoke glowingly about her own "thoughtful, inspiring, hardworking Daddy" long before their estrangement. In a lifestyle blog—The Tig—that the Duchess used to run before her marriage to Prince Harry, Meghan more than once paid tribute to the important role Thomas Senior played in her upbringing.
In one post, she described how Thomas would bring his Hollywood expertise as a lighting director to her school drama productions, taking them to the next level, with Meghan later becoming a successful actress herself, making them "as grand as a Broadway show".
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She also wrote fondly about some of her childhood memories that the pair shared: "Our club sandwich and fruit smoothie tradition post my tap and ballet class—classes, which by the way, he religiously took me to on Saturday mornings after working 75+ hours a week as a lighting director."
Despite their long estrangement, for his part Thomas Senior - who has never met grandchildren Prince Archie, six, and Princess Lilibet, three - has said he would love to reunite and bring the "whole family together", though he slated the release of Meghan's recent show With Love, Meghan for Netflix, saying his daughter has "never been authentic".
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Doria Ragland, 68, - Meghan's mum - has said she was left "absolutely stunned" when her ex took part in the staged photographs, adding that "as a parent, that's not what you do. That's not parenting."
Whilst Meghan no longer has a relationship with her own father, who has suffered a series of health issues in the intervening years since they last spoke, including a stroke, she has said that seeing Prince Harry parent their two children "is the most beautiful thing to watch".
Confessions of a Female Founder is Meghan's second foray into the podcasting world, following Archetypes, which was released through the couple's deal with Spotify back in 2022.
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