A teenage Meghan Markle talks about her difficult relationship with her reclusive father, in candid never-seen-before footage.
The clip was captured as the 18-year-old aspiring actress drove to an audition for a Shakira music video, with her childhood friend Ninaki Priddy, in the summer of 1999.
Donning a pair of black sunglasses, as she drives her Volvo hatchback, Prince Harry’s future fiancee tells the camera: ‘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
Meghan Markle as a young girl with her father, Thomas, who she claims she is ‘not on the best terms with’ in the video
An even older photo shows Thomas carrying Meghan around in a backpack when she was a baby
The clip was captured just before Miss Markle, who found fame in US legal drama Suits, was due to leave for North Western University in Chicago.
The fresh-faced teen is brimming with excitement as she tells her friend she stands to earn about $600 – around £445 at the time – for two days work on the shoot.
On returning to the car after the audition, she tells Ms Priddy: ‘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.
‘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.’
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.
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 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
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.
Her father, Thomas Markle, is now a ‘recluse’ living a secluded lifestyle in Mexico, atop a 120-foot cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
Mr Markle is an award-winning TV lighting director and worked on shows including Married with Children and General Hospital.
However, he has turned into something of a recluse since his life in the limelight, and is said to be living in modest circumstances, in sleepy Rosarito Beach, Mexico.
‘Dad never liked the limelight, but since the news came out about Meghan and Harry he’s become a total recluse,’ his estranged son Tom Jnr, 51, told The Mail on Sunday last week.
‘I haven’t seen him in years. He hates the attention Meghan’s romance has brought on to him. He loves her but hates the idea of being in the spotlight.’
The beaming bridesmaid… who grew up to be a Royal bride
Fresh-faced and innocent, five-year-old Meghan Markle takes centre stage for the first time as a bridesmaid at her aunt’s wedding.
In another candid snap, the radiant smile which captured the heart of a Prince is on full display as Meghan celebrates her 11th birthday in August 1992.
Today, for the first time, the story of Meghan’s extraordinary life can be told as her uncle Joseph Johnson, 68, opens up the family’s photo album.
Five-year-old Meghan as a bridesmaid at her aunt Saundra’s wedding in 1986
And in an astonishing and revealing insight into the making of the woman who will be Prince Harry’s bride, Joseph tells how Meghan was raised by ‘two strong, proud black women’ – her mother Doria and the matriarch of the clan, grandmother Jeanette, a woman born into poverty in Cleveland, Ohio.
‘The women were the backbone of the family and turned Meghan into the woman she is today,’ Joseph says. ‘I want the world to know the truth about Meghan’s real family, her roots and where she came from.’
Joseph tells how the family overcame bigotry and racism to create ‘a big, beautiful, blended family’ whose star was the little girl they nicknamed ‘Flower’.
An excited Meghan on her 11th birthday in August 1992