Meghan Markle revealed that her mum was mistaken as her nanny growing up, in the second episode of her and Prince Harry’s new Netflix series, aptly titled “Harry & Meghan.”
“I grew up in LA,” the Duchess of Sussex says, describing her childhood in the second episode of the Netflix docuseries, which dropped on Thursday.
“And I just remember my mom telling me stories about taking me to the grocery store and women going ‘Whose child is that? You must be the ... ’” Meghan said, of her interactions her mum, Doria Ragland, had at the time.
“She’s like, ‘It’s my child,’” but Meghan said that the women protested her claim.
“They were like ‘No ― you must be the nanny, where’s her mom?’ ’Cause I was really fair skinned and my mom, darker,” Meghan added.
Meghan’s comments about her upbringing elaborate on what she said in a 2012 video for the Erase the Hate campaign about being biracial, and witnessing someone hurl a racial slur at her mother.
“I’m biracial. Most people can’t tell what I’m mixed with and so much of my life has felt like being a fly on the wall,” Meghan said at the time. She spoke about hearing people tell “really offensive jokes” and said, “A couple of years ago I heard someone call my mom the ‘n-word.’”
“Quite honestly, your race is part of what defines you,” the Duchess of Sussex said. “I think what shifts things is that the world really treats you based on how you look.”
Meghan’s mother makes an appearance in the second episode of the series.
Ragland has never spoken to the press or media publicly before, though viewers might remember hearing her voice on Meghan’s podcast, “Archetypes.”
“My name is Doria, and I’m Meghan’s mom,” Ragland says at the beginning of episode two. “And, um, the last five years has been challenging.”
“I’m ready to have my voice heard, that’s for sure,” Ragland adds. “A little bit in my experience, you know, as her mom.”
Ragland spoke about the first time that her daughter told her she was dating Prince Harry, and said that the two began whispering about it on the phone together.
She also gave a glowing description of her first encounter with the prince, describing him as a “6′1, handsome man with red hair.”
“Really great manners. He was just really nice. And they looked really happy together,” she said.
The revelation arrived in the first three episodes of Netflix’s series, “Harry & Meghan,” directed by Liz Garbus, which were released Thursday. The last three episodes in the series will drop Dec. 15.
The series includes “commentary from friends and family, most of whom have never spoken publicly before about what they witnessed” in addition to exploring the couple’s relationship with the royal family and the factors that led to their step back in 2020.
“No one sees what’s happening behind closed doors,” Harry said in the teaser released in the trailer. “I had to do everything I could to protect my family.”
