Meghan Markle has revealed that she was compared to Simpsons character Krusty the Clown as a child after attempting to replicate actress Andie MacDowell’s ‘perfect curly haircut’ in the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral.
The 40-year-old mother-of-two opened up about her ‘obsession’ with Andie, now 63, during a surprise appearance on Ellen DeGeneres’ talk show on Thursday, during which she also shared insight into her ‘happy’ family life with Prince Harry and their two children, renewed her calls for mandatory paid family leave in the US, and plugged her children’s book, The Bench.
It was during a conversation about the book that Meghan spoke about the taunting she faced from her peers in middle school in Los Angeles after she tried to style her ‘ethnic hair’ in the same way as Andie’s character from the 1994 British rom com.
Having opened up to close pal Ellen, 63, about her reasons for writing The Bench – which was based on a poem that she penned for Prince Harry on Father’s Day – the Duchess was then questioned about another self-illustrated book that she had written as a child, A Face Without Freckles is a Night Without Stars.
Talk show host Ellen pulled up a page from the book, which featured a self portrait that Meghan had drawn, and then questioned the Duchess about her hairstyle in the ‘self illustration’.
‘It was a real bummer!’ Meghan Markle revealed that she was compared to The Simpsons character Krusty the Clown in middle school after trying to replicate Andie MacDowell’s hair
The 40-year-old told Ellen DeGeneres during an interview that she was ‘obsessed’ with Andie, now 63, while sharing images of herself sporting the actress’s hairstyle (pictured)
When she was ‘ten or 11’, Meghan cut her hair to copy the style modeled by Andie in 1994 film Four Weddings and a Funeral, but said it only looked like the actress’s ‘do ‘on the first day’
‘Let’s talk about your hair,’ the TV personality continued, prompting Meghan to explain the inspiration for her ‘do: ‘This is what I looked like, when I was ten or 11, and the reason my hair looks like that was because I was obsessed with Andie MacDowell in Four Weddings and a Funeral.
‘All I wanted was a perfect little curly hair cut, so I went to the hairdresser and got it.’
However, while the Duchess noted that her new hairstyle looked ‘amazing’ for the first day after her haircut, she admitted that it didn’t stay that way for very long.
‘On that first day I was like, “This is amazing, I look like Andie MacDowell,”‘ she recalled, while sharing a childhood image of herself sporting the curly ‘do.
‘[But] it was as though everyone forgot to tell me that, “You have ethnic hair, you’re not going to look like Andie MacDowell in Four Weddings and a Funeral.”‘
While Meghan may not have been given any advice prior to her haircut however, she explained that her peers at school were quick to call out her new ‘do, with some even telling her that she more closely resembled Krusty the Clown, a curly-haired cartoon from The Simpsons.
‘I go to school and they said I look like Krusty the Clown from The Simpsons. It was a real bummer, but I had a whole vibe happening,’ she joked, revealing another photo of herself modeling the hairstyle, which prompted Ellen to reassure her: ‘You look like you are embracing it.’
‘It was as though everyone forgot to tell me that, “You have ethnic hair, you’re not going to look like Andie MacDowell in Four Weddings and a Funeral,”‘ Meghan said of how her hair changed
The Duchess said that her peers at school ‘told her she looked like Krusty the Clown’ after she cut her hair short
‘It was a real bummer, but I had a whole vibe happening,’ she joked
Meghan was raised in Los Angeles by her mother Doria Ragland (pictured) and her father Thomas Markle
Meghan was brought up by her parents, Thomas Markle and Doria Ragland, in Los Angeles, where she attended private primary and secondary schools on her father’s Emmy award-winning lighting director father’s $200,000-a-year salary.
She began her education at private elementary school, Hollywood’s Little Red Schoolhouse Nursery, which she attended from the age of two, before moving on to the $9,412-a-semester Immaculate Heart High School in Los Angeles.
Self illustration: Her comments came after Ellen asked Meghan about her hairstyle in a self-portrait that she featured in a book she wrote when she was a child (pictured)
She went on to study at Northwestern, a college in Illinois, that would have cost $24,000-$28,000-a-year for tuition when Meghan studied there from 1999-2003.
The childhood anecdote was just one small part of Meghan’s soap-soft interview with her long-time friend Ellen.
During her near-hour-long appearance on the talk show, the Duchess also opened up about her family life with Harry, 37, and their two children – five-month-old Lilibet and two-year-old Archie, while sharing a never-before-seen photo of her son feeding his chickens at their $14 million Montecito mansion.
Meghan also took the on-air opportunity to renew her calls for mandatory paid leave for parents in the US, telling Ellen that she will do ‘everything’ in her power to change policy for millions of Americans.
The Duchess recently caused controversy by cold-calling senators on their private phones and using her royal title to urge them to vote in favor of paid leave. Previously she wrote a letter to Congress asking them to consider making paid leave law.
Republican Representative Jason Smith of Missouri, who has previously condemned Meghan for interference in US politics, even suggesting she should be stripped of her title to stop her using it to gain political leverage.
During the interview, Meghan also shared a never-before-seen image of her two-year-old son Archie feeding the chickens at their $14 million Montecito mansion
The Duchess also opened up about her ‘happy’ family life with Prince Harry and their two children while speaking to Ellen
Meghan told Ellen: ‘I think that people truly forget, or don’t even know that in this country, it’s one of the only six countries in the entire world and the only wealthy nation in the entire world that does not mandate and have a federal paid leave program.
‘Everybody knows, especially if you have had a child and even if you haven’t, you know how hard it is and how critical it is in those first few weeks if not months to be together as a family.
‘And the fact that we don’t offer that here is something that now as a mom of two, I will do everything that I can to make sure that we can implement that for people.’
Her statements came amid reports that Democratic Senator Kristen Gillibrand is facing ‘furious’ backlash from her colleagues for giving Meghan their private cell phone numbers so she could lobby them on paid family leave.
Meghan also promoted her children’s book The Bench, which she said she wrote as a poem for Harry on Father’s Day, and revealed how son Archie dressed as a dinosaur for Halloween, while her five-month daughter Lili was a ‘little skunk like Flower from Bambi’.
Meghan spoke of how she spent the celebration with chat show host DeGeneres and her wife, actress Portia de Rossi – her neighbors in the celebrity enclave of Montecito in California.
But Meghan said two year-old Archie and his baby sister were ‘not into’ Halloween at all, with Archie only staying in his costume for less than five minutes.
The former actress’ high profile appearance comes eight months after the Sussexes’ controversial sit-down with Oprah Winfrey which left the royal family in crisis.