Meghan Markle's Love Life Before Harry: Father’s Recollections, Biographers’ portraits

A new portrait of Meghan Markle’s dating life before she met Prince Harry is circulating in royal biographies and media rounds, anchored by Thomas Markle’s recollections and reporting from Tina Brown’s The Palace Papers. The material sketches a young woman from Los Angeles who chased a star-making path and navigated a string of relationships as she pursued acting opportunities and the ambition that would later define her public career. Brown cites Meghan’s father as describing a girl who knew what she wanted and who was clear-eyed about the men she pursued, a narrative that travels through college romance and early professional life.

Meghan’s father, a successful television lighting director, funded her rise and even accompanied her as a plus-one at Emmy events when he was nominated. According to Brown, who conducted interviews for The Palace Papers, Meghan’s college years were a proving ground for what she would later become known for: determination and a knack for reading people. Brown quotes Thomas Markle recounting, in his words, that when Meghan was in college, “she pointed at one guy and said: That boy is going to be my boyfriend,” and that he later observed she was “very, very effective with men.” The recollection is part of a broader chronology that includes Meghan’s earliest reported boyfriend, Steve Lepore, a basketball star she met in her first year at Northwestern University.

During that first year, Lepore became Meghan’s boyfriend for about five months, a short romance that Berry and Brown describe as emblematic of a pattern in which Meghan would date, break up, and move on as opportunities and circumstances shifted. Lepore’s departure to a college in North Carolina reportedly disrupted the relationship, and Brown’s narrative frames the breakup as a sign of Meghan’s singular focus on pursuing opportunities that would advance her aspirations. Andrew Morton, another royal biographer, described the couple as “quite the pair,” underscoring the sense that Meghan’s early dating life unfolded in a social ecosystem that blended youthful romance with the industry networks she would later navigate in earnest.

Meghan’s early dating life continued with a sequence of high-profile or industry-connected relationships. After Lepore, she was linked to Shaun Zaken, an actor she reportedly dated for six months in 2003, followed by Brett Ryland, an actor who went on to work as a writer for Two Broke Girls and who is described in Brown’s reportage as a five-month relationship. Then came Trevor Engelson, a Canadian film producer Meghan reportedly met in a bar when she was about 23. Brown describes their dynamic as tender, noting that Engelson was more established in the industry, but Meghan displayed greater ambition and urged him to be more assertive in pursuing opportunities that could help her career. The pair married in August 2011, an event that became part of a wider Hollywood narrative about how personal life intersected with career trajectories. A wedding guest quoted by Brown recalled Meghan’s request for “no social media,” a request that stood in contrast to the publicity machine surrounding the couple’s public lives. The marriage lasted until 2013, with the divorce finalized the following year amid disagreements described in insider accounts as irreconcilable differences. Brown portrays Trevor as feeling “used” in the wake of the split, and she recounts Meghan sending a package by registered mail to her ex-husband containing her diamond engagement ring and gold wedding band.

Meghan’s post-Trevor dating life included a relationship with Canadian chef Cory Vitiello, whom she reportedly dated for about two years before their 2016 breakup. Cory spoke to the Daily Mail about the relationship after it ended, emphasizing that he did not want to be cast as a placeholder in Meghan’s life as she walked into the spotlight connected to Harry. He said he held Meghan in high regard and respected her privacy, noting that it would be self-serving to cast himself as part of the broader narrative of her life with Harry.

Beyond the timeline of relationships, the interviews and biographies paint a portrait of a woman who navigated a complex path to romance and fame. The divergences over how much Meghan knew about Harry before their “blind date” in 2016 reflect the broader debate about whether she and Harry did their homework on each other. In Oprah Winfrey’s 2021 interview, Meghan said she had not researched her future husband online, telling Winfrey she “didn’t do any research about what that would mean” and that she had “never looked up” her future husband. Harry echoed a similar sentiment in his 2023 memoir Spare, recounting that Meghan had “definitely hadn’t googled us” on their first meeting. Biographers Carolyn Durand and Omid Scobie, however, challenge the idea that their meeting was completely unprepared. In Finding Freedom, they describe a first date at Dean Street Townhouse in 2016 in which both Meghan and Harry reportedly did “homework” on one another, including some online background checks that would help them navigate the encounter with a sense of context. Tom Fitzgerald, a Vanity Fair contributor, has offered a more nuanced reading, suggesting Meghan’s public persona has long included a habit of researching options—whether for dinner or for private life decisions—before committing to a course of action.

Meghan’s circle during this period includes Ninaki S. (a childhood friend quoted by Brown as saying Meghan was fascinated with the Royal Family), who recalled Meghan’s bookshelf including Diana: Her True Story and The Princess Diaries, films that had shaped her idea of a life beyond a conventional job. Ninaki also noted Meghan’s early interest in the possibility of becoming a princess, a sentiment Meghan herself carried into a 2014 blog post on The Tig, where she described dreaming about being a princess as a child and reflecting on the pomp surrounding royal life and the ongoing public conversation about Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge.

As Meghan and Harry stepped back from royal duties, her public life shifted toward the projects that have defined her post-royal career: a Netflix deal, a continuing production slate, and a range of projects centered on storytelling and brand-building. Brown’s snapshot sits alongside other reporting that tracks how Meghan and Harry have leveraged their platform in the years since their departure from the formal royal structure. In the last five years, the couple have launched a docuseries, a book, two podcasts, and a lifestyle brand, with Netflix extending their collaboration at a moment when they appear poised to expand their media footprint. The arc described by Brown and corroborated by Durand, Scobie, Morton, and other observers suggests a woman who built her professional identity through a series of relationships and experiences, culminating in a public life that remains, for better or worse, inseparable from the royal narrative that once framed it.

Today, Meghan Markle lives in Montecito with Prince Harry, continuing to shape her public image through media projects and philanthropic work. The portrayal of her dating life, as recounted by her father and chronicled in royal biographies, underscores the broader theme of how personal life and professional ambition intersect in a life lived under constant public scrutiny. The trajectory—from Northwestern University’s campus to the world stage—reads as a case study in how a future public figure navigates relationships, career opportunities, and the relentless gaze of a media era that has followed her from the start.