Meghan Markle Birthday: Unmissable facts about the Duchess of Sussex which you must know

The world's most famous woman Meghan Markle belongs to a royal family now. However, the beautiful woman is just like one of us; she loves food and travelling and cherishes small things in life.

Meghan is a strong head woman and believes in feminism. The opinionated woman never shies away from speaking her heart out.

Before marriage, Meghan featured in the US legal drama Suits for seven years. Her role is still loved and viewed by many even now.

Fearless, feisty, independent Meghan has inspired women all the world. As she turns 39 today, International Business Times, India, digs deep into the archives and gets for its readers and fans some of the rarest of the rare pictures and stories that will blow you mind.

Let's take a look at some of the facts that we bet you didn't know about Meghan Markle.

 Schooling

Markle grew up attending an all-girls school with a Catholic affiliation. At an interview, she narrated how her school life was like.

I went to an all-girls Catholic school for like six years during the time when kids actually had handwriting class. Just picture me with my curly hair and a gap in my teeth and my little school uniform with Keds on.

Her first name is not Meghan!

It's now a pretty well-known fact that Markle's real first name isn't Meghan.  She was born as Rachel Meghan Markle.

Meghan has always been a feminist right from her early school days.

Markle was an early advocate for women's rights. At the tender age of 11, Markle was outraged by a commercial that outwardly suggested only women do dishes, so the budding feminist wrote a letter to Procter and Gamble asking them to amend the advertising language. The company agreed. 

College and early career

She wanted to be a politician and even worked at the Buenos Aires embassy.

A self-proclaimed "theatre nerd," Markle told Marie Claire that she was always interested in both performance and politics, and was compelled to double-major in college.

I knew I wanted to do acting, but I hated the idea of being this cliché—a girl from LA who decides to be an actress. I wanted more than that, and I had always loved politics, so I ended up changing my major completely and double-majoring in theatre and international relations.

She has incredibly neat handwriting and even dabbles in calligraphy.

Speaking about her neat penmanship, Markle once told Esquire, 

I've always had a propensity for getting the cursive down pretty well. I'm glad that in the land of no one seeming to appreciate a handwritten note anymore that I can try to keep that alive.

And her handwriting turned into a little side hustle when the amateur calligraphist was asked to hand-design wedding invitations for celebrities. Incredible, isn't she?

Markle revealed.

What it evolved into was my pseudo-waitressing job when I was auditioning. I didn't wait for tables. I did calligraphy for the invitations for, like, Robin Thicke and Paula Patton's wedding.

 She loves food.

At one of the interviews, Markle told Marie Claire that Rachel, her Suits alter-ego, was created to be a foodie thanks to Markle's food-obsession.

Meghan can whip up a meal using only kitchen essentials.

Along with her love of food, the royal-to-be claims to be a pro in the kitchen. According to reports in  Esquire, Meghan was quoted as:

I can whip up a great snack on a whim with almost nothing, I pride myself in figuring out how to elevate a dish with a little preserved lemon, or then a sprinkle of Maldon salt.

The Duchess had shown off her amateur chef chops at Kensington Palace, where she's baked little treats for Prince George and Princess Charlotte.

She used to run a passion-project lifestyle blog called 'The Tig'.

Though it's now removed from the inter-webs, Markle used to run a lifestyle blog called The Tig, which she filled with a mix of food, travel, fashion, and beauty content.

In 2017, Markle told Allure that the blog title was born out of her discovery of the difference between red and white wine.

The story behind the name of her blog which is no longer there

It's named after a wine called Tignanello. I had a sip of it six years ago, and it was my first aha moment. You spend years going, 'Oh, I'll just have red or white. I don't really know what the difference is.' But then one day you take a sip of something and you're like, I get it. So the Tig became this personal idea of getting it—fashion, travel, beauty, all of it.

Serena Williams is Meghan's close friend.

According to the Daily Mail, Markle wrote about becoming friends with the tennis star in her blog post.

Here's what Meghan once penned about her dear friend,

She quickly became a confidante I would text when I was travelling, the friend I would rally around for her tennis matches and the down-to-earth chick I was able to grab lunch with just a couple weeks ago in Toronto. We are both the same age, have a penchant for hot sauces, and adore fashion, but what connects us more than those things is perhaps our belief in exceeding expectations–our endless ambition.

Music

Another find from the post-mortem archives of The Tig revealed that Markle's music tastes include indie. 

Travel buff!

Even before the bride-to-be began travelling the world with Prince Harry, she was an excitement-seeking globe-trotter in her own right.

According to reports in Marie Claire (2013), Meghan shared her passion for travelling.

What's the essential item in Markle's bag?

As per reports in Allure, Meghan revealed that she always carries tea tree oil while travelling.

The one thing that I cannot live without when I'm travelling is a small container of tea tree oil,"  "It's not the most glamorous thing, but if you get a cut, a mosquito bite, a small breakout, no matter what it is, it's my little cure-all. It's inexpensive, it's small enough to carry on, and I bring it with me all the time.

Workout regime 

A California-girl, Markle grew up exercising outside. According to the reports in Marie Claire Meghan said:

By virtue of growing up really outdoorsy in California, I love running. And I do a lot of yoga, as well, so I think you just find that balance.

Ellen DeGeneres convinced her to adopt her two dogs.

In an interview with Best Health, she revealed that she ran into famous US talk-show host Ellen Degeneres and her wife Portia De Rossi at a dog shelter when she was thinking about picking up a pet pooch.

A deep dive into her family tree shows that Meghan and Harry are distant cousins.

Strangely enough, back in October of last year, the Daily Mail reported a genealogy that claims that Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are very distantly related. Though the full family tree shows that the couple's link dates fifteen generations back in time, we'll probably choose to forget this little fact.

Did you know she was asked to choose between Prince William and Prince Harry before meeting her future husband?

One of the best Meghan Markle facts ever! In a 2015 interview with Hello magazine in the US (just months before she actually met Harry), she was asked who she would personally pick between the two princes – in a hilarious twist of fate!

After being asked the question though, Meghan shrugged her shoulders saying, 'I don't know', before the interviewer prompted her to say, Harry.

She responded calmly, "Harry? Sure." Little did she know what was to come…!

Meghan's birthday celebration in 2020

Meghan's birthday celebrations will be a low key affair.

As per reports in Express, as Meghan and Harry are living in Los Angeles, in a mansion owned by Tyler Perry where her mother Doria Ragland lives. It is likely to be believed that Meghan's mother may join in to ring in her daughter's birthday.

Meanwhile this morning, the official Royal Family Instagram account posted a photograph of the Queen, 94, and Meghan Markle on their first joint royal engagement alongside the warm message: 'Wishing The Duchess of Sussex a happy birthday!

 Team international business Times, India, wishes Meghan Markle a very happy and joyous birthday!