Meghan Markle’s estranged father, Tom, is planning a ‘fresh start’ abroad in 2025 in the hope he can live out his final years ‘in peace’.
In a particularly poignant announcement this week – as his daughter launched her glossy new Netflix lifestyle show: With Love, Meghan – Mr Markle told The Mail on Sunday he has decided to up sticks and leave the cliffside house in Mexico he has called home for ten years.
Mr Markle, 80, has suffered two heart attacks and a stroke in recent years, and says his decision to seek a new life abroad is because he is seeking ‘peace’ and ‘kinder people’.
I was with Mr Markle this week as he packed up a lifetime of memories. We drank PG Tips and ate endless mince pies as he sorted his possessions into packing boxes and burned those things he did not wish to keep.
Here were Meghan’s school reports describing her as a child who ‘demonstrates constant effort and is active in classroom discussions’ – dog-eared documents he first received when she was nine years old and which he has treasured all these years.
And there were endless photographs of Meghan – feeding the ducks with her dad, playing crazy golf, laughing during fishing trips to a neighbouring lake.
The images could have come from any happy family album, something which struck me as particularly sad watching Mr Markle carefully pack up the only memories he now has of his youngest child – the ‘baby’ he affectionately called ‘Megsy’, who he would cradle in his arm and rock to sleep to the sound of the rumbling fridge.
Each photograph was carefully placed in a plastic bag for protection and then put into boxes for the long journey to wherever life may next take him.
Meghan Markle ‘s estranged father, Tom, is planning a ‘fresh start’ abroad in 2025 in the hope he can live out his final years ‘in peace’
Meghan launched her glossy new Netflix lifestyle show: With Love, Meghan earlier this week
When I tell him he is ‘brave’ to start anew at 80 years old he shrugs, smiles and says: ‘I don’t know if brave is the word.
‘I am ready for a change. I have felt stuck in a rut for some time and I am ready to meet new people and experience kindness.’
On one table there were videos of Meghan’s first wedding to Hollywood producer Trevor Engelson, who she married on a beach in Jamaica in 2011 only to divorce in 2014 – two years before she met Prince Harry on a blind date.
‘I really liked Trevor,’ Mr Markle said softly. ‘I don’t think he ever understood why she dumped him, either.’
To be with him at this time, particularly over Christmas, felt especially emotional.
While there is no suggestion he is ‘fleeing’ because of Meghan and Harry, he says he hopes to find a quieter place to live and is considering options in SouthEast Asia.
‘I travelled in that part of the world when I was a younger man. The people are so kind and welcoming, and they are respectful to older people,’ he said. It is a place of culture and beauty.’
Incredibly, he has yet to meet his son-in-law Prince Harry or his grandchildren Archie, five, or three-year-old Lilibet, who was named after the late Queen.
He has come to accept that he most likely now never will – although, for him, the door remains constantly open.
The Emmy-award winning Hollywood lighting director has not renewed the lease on his Mexican rented home. Instead, he is planning to travel and explore his options with his son Tom Jr, 58, Meghan’s half brother.
‘I don’t know where I’ll end up but it is time to move on and find a place where I can live among kind people and enjoy the time I have left,’ he said.
While Mr Markle declined to discuss politics, he said a return to his native US – he was born in Pennsylvania but spent most of his life working at ABC Studios in Hollywood on shows such as General Hospital and Married With Children – was unlikely.
‘I am getting away from the politics of the States that disappoints me,’ he said.
Caroline Graham with Thomas, 80, in Mexico as he packed up his beachside home for good
Thomas has suffered two heart attacks and a stroke in recent years, and says his decision to seek a new life abroad is because he is seeking ‘peace’ and ‘kinder people’
‘At 80 it is time to go somewhere where the people are lovely and I can enjoy a quieter, friendlier existence.
‘In South-East Asia the medical care is good, you can live reasonably cheaply, the people are kind and respect older people and the food is healthy.
‘Mostly I just want peace. At 80, none of us know how long we have left.
‘I want whatever time I have to be peaceful with none of the awful drama of recent years.’
Despite living in the beachside community of Rosarito, Mexico – a 250-mile car ride from the Sussexes’ £11 million, 16-bathroom mansion in Montecito, California – he has never once been invited to visit the sprawling home of the daughter he raised from the age of 11.
As the trailer for Meghan’s Netflix show this week flaunted Montecito’s teeming beehives, fruit orchards and stunning sea views, her father remains firmly out in the cold.
Neither Meghan or Harry have ever traveled to Rosarito to visit Tom. Harry asked Tom’s permission to marry Meghan during a phone call. While Tom divorced Meghan’s mother Doria, a secretary, when Meghan was an infant, the pair remained close and Meghan enjoyed a happy upbringing with both parents.
Her father, a three-time Emmy winner, was making a good six-figure living in the 1990s, often working through the night to give his daughter ballet and dance lessons as well as private acting classes.
He sent her to private schools from kindergarten onwards and then to Immaculate Heart school in LA followed by prestigious Northwestern University in Illinois.
Harry and Meghan’s luxurious £11 million, 16-bathroom estate in California. Thomas has never once been invited to visit the sprawling home of the daughter he raised from the age of 11
The humble beachside bungalow in Mexico Thomas has now vacated and which he has called home for ten years
As he sorted through a lifetime of possessions this week as he prepared for his move, he appeared wistful about happier times.
Mr Markle looked at the images of him and his beautiful, always smiling daughter, often photographed with their arms around each other at proud school events such as graduations, concerts and school musicals which he helped to do the stage lighting for.
He laughed: ‘They were always very well-lit shows. Well, they had me lighting them! I used to work so darned hard on those school productions.’
There were old playbills alongside one of Meghan’s first acting headshots, a black and white image he shot himself and which helped her land her first speaking roles on Married With Children and the game show Deal Or No Deal. These appearances launched her as an actress on Suits, the show which brought her to the world’s attention.
He showed me birthday cards, Christmas cards, all in Meghan’s trademark calligraphy – a distinctive form of cursive handwriting on display this week in the opening credits for her new TV show. She also used the skill to help herself raise cash writing wedding invitations during lean times when acting work dried up.
He said: ‘There were good times. She was a good girl. ‘I don’t like some of the things my daughter has done but I will always love her. My door is always open to her. I love her and that will never change. I love all my children.
‘Meghan once told me she wanted me to stop talking to Tom Jr and Samantha, my children from my first marriage. But what parent could ever agree to that?’
Mr Markle is still ‘baffled’ by the fact he believes his daughter blames him for not attending her May 2018 wedding because he suffered two heart attacks on the eve of the ceremony.
He pulled open a drawer containing medical records showing that, when Meghan and Harry claimed a car was a waiting at his house to drive him to Los Angeles to board a flight for London, he was in hospital in Rosarito being treated for heart issues and was later transferred across the US border to have two heart stents inserted.
Instead of walking his daughter down the aisle at St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle he watched the wedding in a rented Airbnb after being discharged from hospital. He shows me a doctor’s note forbidding him from travelling.
Mr Markle remains ‘incredibly grateful’ to King Charles for walking his daughter partway down the aisle. ‘I’m a grandfather and he is King of England – but he too is a grandfather who would like to see his grandkids.’
He shakes his head. ‘I’m not running away. I am going in search of a more positive life. Every day I see something about Meghan. This week it has been the new TV show.
‘I wish her no ill-will. My dream is that one day I could bring my whole family together, like a ‘normal’ family.
‘The British people have been so kind to me. I’d like to thank them for their support and kindness.
‘I will always have a soft spot in my heart for the kind people of the UK.’ And with that, he closed the door on his home for the final time and we got into my Cadillac and drove to Los Angeles International Airport.
As I waved him and Tom Jr goodbye, I felt sad but also hopeful that, finally, Thomas Markle will find the peace he deserves.
As he told me: ‘It’s a new year and time for a fresh start.’
Bon voyage, Tom – and good luck.
