She's the TV star who won the heart of the world's most eligible bachelor — . 
In this exclusive series we look at's life before she became a likely princess-in-waiting. 
On Saturday, we revealed the truth about her broken home, her shock divorce and her steely ambition. 
Today, we examine her live-in affair with a celebrity chef — and her relentless rise up the social ladder...
Last Romance: Meghan poses for a picture with former flame Cory Vitiello during 2014
One morning, shortly after lessons began at the Immaculate Heart High School in Los Angeles, Meghan Markle's best-friend, Suzy Ardakani, was taken out of class by the teacher.
The teenager was informed that her father, Matt, had been shot by a crazed gunman and was fighting for his life.
A deranged Vietnam veteran, who had just murdered his own family, had burst into the downtown garage that Mr Ardakani owned, spraying bullets at random.

Suzy's father had been hit three times, in the spine and lung.
Such incidents were not entirely unusual in LA in the Eighties and Nineties. The city where Meghan Markle grew up was a very different from today. Rival gangs fought bloody turf wars; prostitutes, drug-pushers and hustlers lurked on street corners.
And, following the brutal beating by police of black taxi driver Rodney King in 1991, LA was a tinderbox seething with racial tension.
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Violence could erupt in a heartbeat, and there was no escaping its aftermath, even for those like Meghan, then 14, and her friends in their privileged surroundings.
Many of LA's state-run schools at the time were so unruly that armed security guards were needed to maintain order, so Meghan's father, Thomas Senior, had broken the bank to educate her privately.
After attending the Hollywood Little Red Schoolhouse (whose past pupils include Elizabeth Taylor, Mickey Rooney, and Judy Garland), Meghan had moved on to the Immaculate Heart, an exclusive Roman Catholic girls' establishment where — until that day in 1995 — she had been protected from the horrors of Los Angeles life.
According to those involved, the remarkable way she reacted to her friend's tragedy reveals much about her character.
Suzy's mother, Sonia Ardakani, told me: ‘My daughter was totally distraught, as you can imagine.

She had other friends, but Meghan was the first one to comfort her, and the only one who volunteered to go with her to the hospital. Meghan was like part of our family in those days.
Teenage pals: Meghan, aged 14, with two of her younger neighbourhood friends in LA
‘She would often stay over at our house when her parents were working long hours, and she loved my husband.
‘She and Suzy sat beside Matt's bed for many hours, praying he would pull through.

He was permanently paralysed, but today he is working and enjoying life. We feel sure those prayers helped him survive.'
The caring way that Meghan reacted to this horror might help to explain how this very unlikely royal girlfriend — a 36-year-old American divorcee — has won Harry's trust.
Perhaps it was this side of her character that convinced him she may have the credentials to fulfil her duties as a future princess.
Her looks and talent apart, it has been suggested that Harry chose Meghan over more obvious potential wives (such as his former girlfriends Chelsy Davy and Cressida Bonas) because of character traits she shares with his mother.
Mrs Ardakani strongly agrees, and, intriguingly, she reveals that young Meghan was actually a great admirer of the late Princess of Wales.
For during the Nineties, when Meghan was growing up, Diana was a global, celebrity figure and she says Meghan came to regard her as a role model. 
‘I always loved Diana and I have her biography, which I gave Meghan to read,' she told me.

‘I videoed Diana's wedding back in 1981, and I would watch it with Suzy and Meghan all those years later. They would also see items about her on TV.
Meghan is a beautiful person with a very big heart — just the sort of qualities a princess needs.  Sonia Ardakani‘The girls didn't just think she was glamorous.

They were impressed by her humanitarian work, and they started following her example. 
They would collect clothes and toys for less privileged children and help at the homeless soup-kitchen.
‘I'm sure Diana would have behaved just the same way as Meghan did when my husband was shot.
‘Meghan is a beautiful person with a very big heart — just the sort of qualities a princess needs.'
Many other people I have spoken to for this series concur.
Kind, sensitive, loyal, funny, clever, compassionate, socially aware .

. . these are some of the adjectives used to describe her. But, like Diana, this possible princess-in-waiting is not without her flaws.
Those who have worked with her say she can be a diva (like most other successful TV actresses, no doubt).

And since her success in Suits, she has become a ‘world-class networker', as one acquaintance puts it. She can also be virtuous, almost to the point of piety, forever beating the drum for some trendy new health fad, environmental concern, or worthy cause.
In a blog she once described herself — one hopes with tongue in cheek — as a ‘saintly' hippy.
So how did this freewheeling young woman meet an HRH and capture his heart?

This has been a topic of much speculation since their relationship became public in October 2016.
Star Quality: Meghan pulls a sultry pose for a picture posted on her lifestyle blog,  The Tig
Some say they were first introduced when Harry was in Toronto, in May, 2016, to promote the Invictus Games, the international Paralympic-style sporting event for Armed Forces personnel, which the Prince founded.
Others insist Meghan was not even in Canada at that time, and that they first met at a dinner at Soho House in London in June 2016, introduced by Markus Anderson, a consultant for the private members' club.

He just happens to be one of Meghan's ‘closest friends in the world'.
However, the truth appears to have emerged when I spoke to actor Max Topplin, a close friend of Meghan who plays alongside her in Suits.
Though Topplin was at pains to be discreet about her relationship with Harry, at one point in our conversation he remarked: ‘It's shocking that all this happened, and he was in Toronto — and that's where they met.
‘Just random.

And now she could be a princess!'
When Meghan was cast as Rachel Zane, the smart, sassy legal assistant in Suits, her life was totally transformed. Until then, as she wrote in an eloquent article for Elle magazine in 2015 about the challenges of being of mixed race, her heritage had blighted her career.
Casting directors saw her as ‘ethnically ambiguous', she said.
She ‘wasn't black enough for the black roles, and wasn't white enough for the white ones . . . an ethnic chameleon who couldn't book a job'.
It was only when she auditioned for Suits that being racially ‘undefinable' was regarded as a virtue.
The series, which premiered in 2011, was an instant success, and Meghan, hitherto never more than an attractive extra, suddenly found herself in the spotlight.

In Toronto, where glamorous stars are in short supply, she was invited to the most chic of parties and events.
She was quick to capitalise on her popularity, augmenting her reputed £250,000 salary by setting up a quirky food, fashion, travel and beauty blog called The Tig (a name abbreviated from that of her favourite Italian wine, Tignanello), starting her own fashion line, and accepting invitations to represent organisations such as World Vision Canada and Women for the UN.
She has visited Canadian troops in Afghanistan, Rwandan refugee camps and worked with children in India.
Away from the studios, she appeared content to live simply, renting a house in the middle-class Seaton Village district of Toronto, nipping out to shop in nearby Loblaws supermarket, attending yoga classes, and walking her two rescue dogs, a labrador/German shepherd called Bogart and Guy, a beagle.
However, she began to acquire some decidedly high-powered friends, notably Jessica Mulroney, the daughter-in-law of former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney (now one of her closest confidantes and her stylist), and Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, the wife of the current prime minister, Justin Trudeau.
Then there were sports celebrities such as Serena Williams and Rory McIlroy, with whom she teamed up for the ‘ice-bucket challenge' — a global internet charity fundraiser in 2014 — prompting ludicrous stories alleging she and McIlroy were an item.
Another new, trusted friend is Martina Sorbara, 38, the lead singer of Toronto pop group Dragonette and the daughter of yet another leading Canadian politician, Greg Sorbara.
For a girl from a tough neighbourhood of Los Angeles, and a hillbilly-like family riven by feuding and financial problems (both of Meghan's parents have filed for bankruptcy over the years, although there is no suggestion they are still in financial trouble), it must have seemed surreal to be moving in such elevated circles.
She now has a very different group of friends.
Meghan's taste in men also seems to have changed.

Early in 2014, not long after her divorce from Hollywood producer Trevor Engelson was finalised, she began stepping out with Cory Vitiello, a celebrity chef.
With his rugged looks, frequent TV appearances, and chain of rotisserie restaurants, Vitiello might sound like Canada's answer to Gordon Ramsay, but he is altogether more laid-back.
On stage: Meghan (ringed) skips while performing in a school play in her younger days
‘Never grandiose but quietly confident,' is how he is described by Candice Best, a Toronto PR, who has known him a long time.
The self-taught Vitiello, who started cooking in his parents' kitchen when he was 15, combines ‘swagger with substance', she adds.

Vitiello played down his celebrity with becoming modesty: ‘There's no downside to being a well-known chef. There are thousands of great cooks in the city, and there are chefs who are more deserving of the celebrity than myself,' he told Toronto Life.
He was clearly smitten — and hugely impressed when Meghan was made an ambassador for the international children's aid charity World Vision while they were going out together.
‘So proud of my lady @meghanmarkle being named Global Ambassador for @worldvision #worldwaterday,' he tweeted.
For her part, she revelled in the domestic harmony the relationship provided.
They moved into the smart townhouse where she lived under the name Meghan Engelson, close to a park where they walked Guy and Bogart.
Meghan's live-in relationship with Vitiello lasted for two years, and there was talk of a possible engagement.

Then, last spring, somewhat abruptly, they split up.
That has led some insiders to surmise they were still together when she met Prince Harry, and that her attraction to him caused the break-up.
Whatever the reason they parted, the upwardly mobile Meghan was soon slipping away from the Suits studios for trysts with Harry.

The cast was sworn to secrecy, but inevitably the news got out, and at first she struggled to cope with the pressure.
‘I talked to her a few months ago [when the romance was first reported] and she was like: "This is crazy. This is so overwhelming," ' says her Suits colleague Max Topplin.
Like others who know her, though, he has no doubt that Meghan will quickly adjust to life under the microscope.

‘This is like a whole new ball-park [but] she is an actress. This is what she signed up for,' he says.
Meghan has supported a charity that Topplin set up, to help disaster victims in Haiti, and he says he feels sure she will use her royal status for the public good.
Indeed, some believe she has already exercised her influence — by encouraging Harry to speak out, earlier this year, about his struggle with depression following his mother's death and his decision to seek therapy.
Her half-brother, Thomas Jr, is among those who thinks she might have had a hand in his decision — saying that Meghan has personal experience of her father's struggles and low moods since his retirement.
In his heyday, Thomas Markle Sr was an Emmy Award-winning cinematographer who worked on major TV shows such as General Hospital and Married With Children, and was chosen to oversee the lighting for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and the 1986 Oscar ceremony.
He worked ferociously long hours — Meghan credits him with instilling her work ethic — but mingled with the biggest stars and took huge pride and satisfaction from his job.
Today, aged 72, he lives a lonely existence, retaining a poky apartment in Los Angeles, but spending most of his time among fellow American retirees in the Mexican resort of Rosarito Beach, where he rents a modest house.
Since he and Meghan's mother, Doria, were divorced, he has never settled down with another woman, and, according to his son, he spends his days of leisure by taking photographs, drinking coffee and eating junk food in the shopping mall (his weight has ballooned to more than 20st) and pootling about in his battered old truck.
Added to this, he has suffered a series of personal setbacks.
He lost his mother, Doris, a few years ago, after a long struggle with Alzheimer's disease.
He and Meghan would visit her every weekend, in a nursing home, during her final months.
According to his son and his ex-wife, he also paid tens of thousands of dollars for his daughter — Meghan's half-sister — Samantha Grant, 52, who has multiple sclerosis, to receive stem-cell treatment (although she reportedly failed to follow the treatment programme).
According to Thomas Jr, his father claims he was ‘ripped-off' by a potential partner with whom he planned to set up a business selling trinkets.
All this might help to explain why a man who had earned a very good living in Hollywood filed for bankruptcy last year, stating that he was unable to repay relatively modest credit card debts of $30,000 (£23,000).
‘It's been hard for him,' says Thomas Jr.
It has to be said that his son has done little to alleviate his father's stress, by succumbing to alcoholism, and getting himself arrested, earlier this year, for pulling a gun on his girlfriend during a drunken row.
‘Dad's is not taking to retirement very well.

He has gone from one extreme to the other,' Thomas Jr tells me. ‘He has not only lost his work, he has lost his status, and his whole social circle. That takes a very big adjustment.'
Might he have confided in Meghan, to whom he remains extremely close?
‘My Dad is the strong silent type.

He has always pretty much kept himself to himself. There's no way in the world he would talk about it.'
However, he says, Meghan would surely be aware of her father's past difficulties, and the experience of seeing him suffer silently, without reaching out for help, might well have led to her to advise Harry to follow a different course.
Whatever the truth, Thomas Jr is certain of one thing: if and when the couple marry, his father will walk Meghan down the aisle.
‘Dad wouldn't miss it for anything.

He'll be the proudest man in the church,' he says.
Quite so. But who else might Meghan invite to the wedding? Find out tomorrow, when I reveal her extraordinary ancestry and some intriguing family members.
Additional reporting: John Kennedy in Toronto and Hugo Daniel
 




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