The Duchess of Sussex turns 41 today! It's 10 things you didn't know about the remarkable Meghan Markle!

As a former actress turned royal, she shares remarkable parallels with Grace Kelly – the 1950s Hollywood star who retired from acting to become the Princess of Monaco. However, since marrying Prince Harry in 2018, Meghan has sparked controversy for choosing to quit the British royal family and return to California with her husband and children in a move dubbed ‘Megxit’. As she turns 41, check out other facts you probably didn’t know about the remarkable Meghan Markle.

Before becoming the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle was an actress on ‘Suits’. Meghan claimed she had a lot in common with her character Rachel Zane as she was actually born Rachel Meghan Markle. She said: "Rachel and I are very similar: ambitious, driven, and always trying to take the bull by its horns.”

Before breaking into the acting industry, Meghan was a briefcase model on the US version of the game show ‘Deal or No Deal’ from 2006 to 2007. She said: "I would put that in the category of things I was doing while I was auditioning to try to make ends meet. "I went from working in the US Embassy in Argentina to ending up on 'Deal.' It's run the gamut. "Definitely working on 'Deal or No Deal' was a learning experience, and it helped me to understand what I would rather be doing."

Starting off as an extra, Meghan landed a small role in CW’s ‘90210’ reboot back in 2008 where she features in a risque scene in a car. As a struggling actress at the time, Markle admits she was hesitant playing the character of Wendy whilst shooting the raunchy scene.

Before Meghan was engaged to Prince Harry she ran the now defunct lifestyle blog titled The Tig, named after Tignanello wine, which featured articles about food, travel and inspirational women. She said: "I had a sip of it six years ago, and it was my first aha moment. "You spend years going, 'Oh, I'll just have red or white. I don't really know what the difference is.' But then one day you take a sip of something and you're like, I get it. "So The Tig became this personal idea of getting it — fashion, travel, beauty, all of it,"

Being a royal with a personal chef doesn’t stop Meghan from doing her own cooking as she is a massive foodie. She said: "I love food. Unapologetically so. Just like my character, Rachel Zane, I'm a foodie, so if I'm going to eat it, it has to be good.” The duchess revealed that her all-time favourite dish is roast chicken. She said: “I love to cook…I’m always on the quest to find amazing new recipes. “There is nothing as delicious or as impressive as a perfectly roasted chicken. "I bring that to dinner parties and make a lot of friends."

The ‘Suits’ star, who previously worked in the US Embassy in Argentina before choosing a career in the spotlight, has a double major in politics and the arts from Northwestern University in Illinois. She said: "I knew I wanted to do acting, but I hated the idea of being this cliché — a girl from LA who decides to be an actress. "I wanted more than that, and I had always loved politics, so I ended up changing my major completely, and double majoring in theatre and international relations,"

After being subjected to sexist abuse by two boys in her class thanks to a Procter and Gamble advert, Meghan wrote a letter to former US First Lady Hillary Clinton, TV journalist Linda Ellerbee, attorney Gloria Allred, and Procter and Gamble to get them to amend their language. She said: "Two boys from my class said, 'Yeah, that's where women belong, in the kitchen. "I remember feeling shocked and angry and also just feeling so hurt — it just wasn't right and something needed to be done. "So I went home and I told my dad what had happened, and he encouraged me to write letters, so I did. “They changed it from, ‘Women all over America are fighting greasy pots and pans’ to ‘People all over America.’ It was at that moment that I realised the magnitude of my actions. “At the age of 11, I had created my small level of impact by standing up for equality.”

As a struggling actress, Meghan landed a valuable side gig thanks to her impeccable handwriting skills she picked up whilst attending an all-girls Catholic school. As a calligrapher Meghan was tasked with writing handwritten invitations for celebrity weddings and correspondence for luxury fashion houses like Dolce and Gabbana. She said: “I did calligraphy for invitations, [such as] Robin Thicke and Paula Patton’s wedding. “I used to do it for Dolce and Gabbana’s celebrity correspondence over the holidays. I would sit there with a little white tube sock on my hand so no hand oils got on the card, trying to pay my bills while auditioning. "I'm glad that in the land of no one seeming to appreciate a handwritten note anymore that I can try to keep that alive."

Before going public, Meghan and Prince Harry went through extreme measures to keep their relationship a secret. The Duke of Sussex revealed how the couple would text each other whilst on shopping trips at the supermarket to remain undetected. He recalled: "The beauty of it is that the first time that Meghan and I met up for her to come and stay with me, we met up in a supermarket in London — pretending that we didn't know each other — so, texting from the other side of the aisle. "I was there texting her saying, 'Is this the right one?' She goes, 'No, you want parchment paper.' I'm like, 'OK, [whispers] where's the parchment paper?'"

More than a year after the birth of her and Harry's first child Archie in May 2019, Meghan revealed in November 2020 that she had actually been pregnant for a second time in July of that year but had sadly suffered a miscarriage. In a heartbreaking piece written for The New York Times, Meghan wrote: “Despite the staggering commonality of this pain, the conversation remains taboo, riddled with (unwarranted) shame, and perpetuating a cycle of solitary mourning,”