Shoulders slumped and shuffling, and clutching a plastic bag marked ‘personal possessions’, this is Meghan Markle’s father pictured two days after the Royal Wedding as he returned home from hospital.
DailyMail.com’s exclusive photos were taken in his adopted hometown of Rosarito, Mexico, where he has been recovering from a heart operation.
Thomas Markle Sr had initially hoped to make the ceremony, which took place on Saturday morning, but was forced to pull out after allegedly suffering a heart attack last week.
Shoulders slumped and shuffling, and clutching a plastic bag marked ‘personal possessions’, this is Meghan Markle’s father, Thomas Markle, pictured two days after the Royal Wedding as he returned home from hospital
DailyMail.com’s exclusive photos were taken in his adopted hometown of Rosarito, Mexico, where he has been recovering from a heart operation
Thomas Markle Sr had initially hoped to make the ceremony, which took place on Saturday morning, but was forced to pull out after allegedly suffering a heart attack last week
On Wednesday, he was admitted to hospital for an operation to insert three stents – and as a result, is likely to have to take blood-thinning medication for the rest of his life.
Since being released from medical supervision, Markle Sr has been staying with friends in a different gated compound a few miles from his home.
He returned to his San Antonio Del Mar property Monday – driven in by a different friend, single mom Lori Davis, 38, with whom he has previously been pictured enjoying a dinner date.
His return home came days after Meghan walked down the aisle in a spectacular Givenchy dress – accompanied for part of it by her new father-in-law Prince Charles.
Her yoga teacher mother Doria Ragland, 61, was the only member of the newly minted Duchess of Sussex’ family to attend the wedding and was seated alone.
Markle Sr is understood to have watched the ceremony, which took place at 4am Pacific Time, on TV – later pronouncing it ‘joyful and emotional’ in an interview with his favored media outlet, gossip website TMZ.
The former lighting director added: ‘My baby looks beautiful and she looks very happy. I wish I were there and I wish them all my love and all happiness.’
In a second interview with the same outlet, he revealed he had texted his daughter to tell her he loved her before the ceremony and said he regretted not being able to go.
He told TMZ: ‘The service was beautiful and it [is] history. I will always regret not being able to be there and not being able to hold my daughter’s hand.’
On Wednesday, he was admitted to hospital for an operation to insert three stents – and as a result, is likely to have to take blood-thinning medication for the rest of his life. Because of the surgery Markle Sr missed out on walking his daughter down the aisle on Saturday
His return home came days after Meghan walked down the aisle in a spectacular Givenchy dress – accompanied for part of it by her new father-in-law Prince Charles (pictured)
Markle Sr also slammed his son and eldest daughter Thomas Jr, 51, and Samantha Grant, 53, saying they ‘should just shut up about everything’.
Last week he blamed his health problems on their constant carping in the media and said he had been forced to take valium to deal with the heartache caused by their attacks on Meghan.
His ex-wife Roslyn, 72, has also hit out at their behavior, telling DailyMail.com she ‘chewed out Tom for making us look like a bunch of hillbillies’.
She also described estranged daughter Samantha as ‘an embarrassment’ to the family and said she needs to ‘get some dignity’.
Markle Sr is now expected to keep a low profile at his single-story home north of Rosarito while he recovers from his operation and the fallout from the fake pictures scandal that emerged just over a week ago.
The Mail on Sunday expose included CCTV footage of Markle Sr colluding with Los Angeles-based photographer Jeff Rayner, 44, to stage ‘candid’ pictures of him looking at Meghan’s photo on the internet.
Friends told DailyMail.com he had been left ’embarrassed’ by the incident.
As a result of the scandal and his subsequent health problems, he is still to meet new son-in-law Prince Harry, 33, although he is thought to have spoken with the royal by phone.
Markle Sr revealed earlier this week that he plans to travel to London later this year to meet the royal after failing to make the wedding.
His experiences in the UK will be in stark contrast to Rosarito, where he has lived since relocating from Los Angeles on his retirement in 2011.
The border town, which has a population of approximately 70,000 people, sits eight miles south of San Diego and is notoriously crime-plagued.
Instead of focusing on the Royal Wedding, headlines in the local papers last week noted that Baja California has already experienced 1000 murders in 2018 alone.
Another reported the discovery of a man’s mutilated body inside a tamale van left in nearby Tijuana’s Zona Norte district which sits beside the US border crossing at San Ysidro.
His home, in a large expat complex called San Antonio del Mar, sits on a clifftop overlooking a trash-strewn beach butting onto the Pacific.
An open sewage pipe spills directly into the water, creating a filthy brown slick that extends out past the rocks into the ocean.
The compound has cobbled streets and a motley collection of houses, with architectural styles ranging from ultra-modern boxes to rambling Tuscan style properties in a rainbow of bright colors.
Four miles away is the Papellon Shopping Mall where Markle Sr does his bi-weekly grocery run at the huge Walmart supermarket and a branch of Home Depot where he was recently photographed purchasing a toilet.
He is also understood to occasionally frequent expat bar Plan B and a café called Coffe House, both of which are less than a mile from his home.
Plan B owner Chris Larsen said he had considered throwing a royal-themed celebration but told DailyMail.com that his license wouldn’t allow him to open the bar at 4am.
In the early hours of Saturday morning, as the wedding got underway in Windsor, the streets of Rosarito were totally deserted but for a stray dog seen loping down main drag Benito Juarez.
Even late-night drinking establishments such as Acua Baja Bar & Mar were empty, with the popular party spot shutting at its usual time of 3am instead of extending its hours.
Markle Sr later told TMZ that he had watched the ceremony from his hospital bed but his neighbors in Rosarito appeared not to have tuned in, with every home dark as the wedding began.
Other members of the Markle clan also viewed the ceremony on TV with Roslyn telling DailyMail.com she got up at 3am to see the celebration.
Roslyn, who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, said: ‘Meghan looked wonderful and I thought her dress was classically beautiful. Doria looked proud and lovely.’
She said former husband Markle Sr would have been ‘a bit tearful’ as he watched the ceremony and added:
‘I’m sorry that her father missed out on this joyous occasion. I know he was watching and was a bit tearful – but he was very proud.’
Her two eldest children, neither of whom were invited to the wedding, also watched proceedings from afar – and both cashed in.
Samantha was at home in Ocala, Florida, with an Australian TV crew and is understood to have been paid around $25,000 to appear.
Tom Jr, meanwhile, was in the UK as the paid guest of a tabloid newspaper.