Home video footage has emerged of an 18-year-old Meghan Markle confiding in a friend that she is ‘not on the best terms’ with her father.
The footage was shot in the summer of 1999 and shows Meghan driving back around Los Angeles with her friend Ninaki Priddy, before and after an audition for a Shakira music video.
The humble Volvo hatchback she drives in the clip, obtained by the Sun, is a far cry from her present-day surroundings – having grown into successful TV star and become engaged to Prince Harry during the intervening two decades.
Her father, Thomas Markle, is now a ‘recluse’ living a secluded lifestyle in Mexico, atop a 120-foot cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
In the footage, Meghan says: ‘We are about four minutes from my dad’s house. From my dad’s house you can see the Hollywood sign, but we aren’t going to go there because my dad and I aren’t on the best of terms.’
The footage was shot in the summer of 1999 and shows Meghan driving back from an audition for a Shakira music video, with her friend Ninaki Priddy
Future royal: Prince Harry and Meghan announced engagement their engagement on Monday (left) and will marry in May at Windsor Castle; they made their first official appearance since revealing the news on Friday in Nottingham (right)
As a fresh-faced teenager, she is also brimming with excitement at the $600 – or around £445 back then – she stands to earn from the shoot.
In the clip, she says to the camera: We just all danced like wild women and I was shaking my hair around and all sorts of stuff, so hopefully I’ll book that.
‘It’s six hundred dollars for two days and if not then I’ll probably get extra work for it which would be just as good.
‘I won’t get any camera shots but it will be just as fun.’
As she fiddles with her strapless top, she adds: ‘I am burning up, I was really nervous I was going to fall out of my top I was just shaking around so much.’
As a 15-year-old she stopped for a photo in front of Buckingham Palace with the other woman in the video, Ninaki Priddy (pictured, together)
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry attend a Terrence Higgins Trust World AIDS Day charity fair at Nottingham Contemporary
She also comments that she recognised a girl from another music video she featured in, Tori Amos’ 1,000 Oceans.
Meghan was ultimately unsuccessful in landing the Shakira job, and her first appearance of any note came two years later when she had a one-episode part in General Hospital.
It was not until 2005 that she first started making multiple – albeit still minor- television appearances, before landing her big break in 2011 when she starred as Rachel Zane in Suits.