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Meghan Markle's mother, Doria Ragland, has spoken out for the first time since her daughter started dating Prince Harry in 2016 in the royal couple's new Netflix docuseries.
Ragland, 66, appears in a sit-down interview in the second episode of Harry & Meghan, released on Thursday, telling interviewers that she is "ready to have my voice heard."
When asked to introduce herself, Ragland told viewers: "My name is Doria and I am Meghan's mom, and the last five years has been challenging, yeah. I'm ready to have my voice heard, that's for sure. A little bit of my experience you know, as her mom."
As part of the episode, Ragland recounts the first time she heard about her daughter's relationship with Britain's Prince Harry following the couple's meeting in 2016.
"When she told me, we were on the phone and she says, 'Mommy, I'm going out with Prince Harry,'" she said.
"And I started whispering, 'Oh my god.' She says, 'You can't tell [anyone].'"
On her first meeting with her future son-in-law, Ragland said: "I remember when I first met him too. You know he was this [6 foot 1 inch] handsome man with red hair. Really great manners. He was just really nice and they looked really happy together. Yeah, like he was the one."
"Once it was announced that they were together, it seemed kind of like a novelty."
Later in the episode, Ragland and Meghan discuss the duchess' childhood in Los Angeles, explaining how a "network of women" helped in raising the future royal.
"She was always so easy to get along with," Ragland said. "Very congenial, making friends. You know, she was a very empathic child, very mature. I remember asking Meg, 'did I feel like her mom?' and she told me that I felt like her older controlling sister! I never forgot that."
A large part of the second episode centers around how Meghan's race became a focus when she and Harry became a public couple, and how before that, it was not an issue about which the future duchess was particularly aware.
"Obviously now people are very aware of my race because they made it such an issue when I moved to the U.K," Meghan said. "But before that, most people didn't treat me like a black woman so that talk didn't have to happen for me."
On this subject, Ragland noted her regret at having not made her daughter aware sooner of the prejudices she would potentially face for her race.
"As a parent, in hindsight I would absolutely like to go back and have that very real conversation about how the world sees you," she told interviewers.
After the relationship became public and Meghan began to face negative attention, Ragland recounted: "I said to her, I remember this very clearly, that 'this is about race.' And Meghan said, 'Mommy, I don't want to hear that.'
"I said, 'You may not want to hear it but this is what's coming down the pike.'"
The first three episodes of Harry & Meghan are available to stream globally only on Netflix now. The final episodes will be released on December 15.
Do you have a question about King Charles III, William and Kate, Meghan and Harry or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@newsweek.com. We'd love to hear from you.
About the writer
James Crawford-Smith is a Newsweek Royal Reporter, based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on the British royal family ... Read more