Since her marriage to Prince Harry, Meghan Markle hasn’t stayed far from media headlines. Many online publications have continuously followed her integration into the royal family. And the closest person to Meghan Markle, her mother Doria Loyce Ragland, has become a bit of a superstar in her own right. She has been by Meghan’s side as she’s moved through the public eye, and quite a bit is now known about Meghan Markle’s mother. To get the inside scoop on this graceful woman who birthed the now Duchess of Sussex, check out these facts about Meghan Markle’s mother Doria Loyce Ragland.
She was present when Meghan Markle and Prince Harry were married.
Meghan Markle’s mother Doria was the only person of her immediate family in attendance at her wedding. This was to be expected as Meghan has said she is very close to her mother. “We can just have so much fun together, and yet I’ll still find so much solace in her support,” Markle told Glamour Magazine. “That duality coexists the same way it would in a best friend.”
Ragland used to be a social worker.
It’s not known for sure if she still works there, but at one point in time Doria worked for Didi Hirsch Mental Services in Culver City, California. Markle describes her mother as “a free-spirited clinical therapist. She works specifically with the geriatric community,” Megan says. After earning her bachelor’s degree, Ragland pursued her master’s of social work in 2011 from the University of Southern California.
She only has one child, Meghan.
Meghan Markle is Doria’s an only child. She had Meghan with Tom Markle, but the two divorced amicably when Meghan was six years old. She saw her father regularly after the divorce, but lived with her mother full time.
She is a free-spirit.
According to Markle, her mother is not only a social workerk, but a yoga teacher too. She’s even done yoga with Oprah. She was spotted in 2018 leaving Oprah’s house – six hours later, it was discovered that the two had a fun-filled day of lunch and yoga. On Markle’s former lifestyle blog called The Tig, she wrote an ode to her mother, describing her with the following: “Dreadlocks. Nose ring. Yoga instructor. Social worker. Free spirit. Lover of potato chips & lemon tarts.” Doria even gave her daughter Meghan the most adorable hippie-inspired nickname: Flower.
Doria helped plan Meghan and Harry’s royal wedding.
Sources say that Meghan Markle visited her mother in LA to plan her wedding to Prince Harry. She came with sketches of the wedding to share with Doria, so she could really show her exactly what she wanted, sources say. It was also confirmed that Doria later traveled to London a few days before the wedding to aid in pre-wedding prep and to meet Meghan’s royal new in-laws. She almost had the responsibility of walking Meghan down the aisle, since her father Tom Markle wasn’t in attendance. Doria’s wedding attire turned heads at the ceremony, sporting a mint green dress and coat by Oscar de la Renta.