Before she wed Prince Harry, Meghan Markle
was married to a movie producer and talent
agent named Trevor Engelson.
So what went wrong in the duchess' starter
marriage?
Here's the real reason Meghan Markle got divorced
from her first husband.
Not much is known about Meghan Markle and
Trevor Engelson's courtship, but they apparently
started dating in 2004, according to The Sun.
Engelson popped the question in 2010, after
six years together.
In 2011, the couple and more than a hundred
of their closest friends and family members
headed out for a four-day destination wedding
at the Jamaica Inn in Ocho Rios, Jamaica.
Since Markle and Engelson were together for
so long, perhaps the spark they once felt
began to dissipate after the wedding rush
faded.
By comparison, Prince Harry got engaged to
Meghan only a year and a half after meeting.
During their first interview with the BBC,
Meghan said,
"Just an amazing surprise, it was so sweet,
and natural, and very romantic.
He got on one knee."
Following their wedding, Engelson and Markle
never really got a chance to settle down and
start their new lives as husband and wife.
She jetted off to Toronto, Canada to start
filming Suits, and he stayed behind at their
home in Los Angeles to produce movies.
An insider allegedly told Woman's Day,
"They really battled with long distances.
Trevor was based in LA while Meghan was in
Toronto, a five-hour flight away.
It was a very difficult way to start married
life."
But according to one of Meghan's former friends,
Engelson had put the effort into making long
distance work.
Meghan's ex-pal told The Sun,
"Trevor was so supportive.
He traveled back and forth from LA and there
was a lot of Skyping and FaceTiming going
on."
Meghan's subsequent relationship with Prince
Harry was also long-distance before their
engagement, but they managed to make it work.
Speaking to the BBC in 2017, the Duchess of
Sussex said,
"When we realized we were going to commit
to each other, we knew we had to invest the
time and the energy and whatever it took to
make that happen."
Meghan Markle and Trevor Engelson's romance
may have started out like a fairy tale, but
one of the duchess' old pals claims that things
changed soon after the couple walked down
the aisle.
Markle's former maid of honor told The Sun,
"After the wedding, it was like a light switched
off.
There's Meghan before fame and Meghan after
fame.
[Meghan developed a sense of] entitlement."
To add insult to injury, Engelson was reportedly
making multiple trips to see his wife in Canada.
As Meghan's former friend told The Sun,
"It's not up to me to speak for Trevor, but
I know he was travelling to Toronto every
few weeks and would have walked the Earth
to make their marriage work.
I don't believe she gave him enough of an
opportunity.
I think there was an element of ‘out of
sight, out of mind’ for Meghan."
Seeing as Meghan is no longer friends with
The Sun's alleged source, it's worth questioning
the validity of her accusations.
After all, who sells photos of their best
friend to the press?
Meghan Markle's friendship with the person
who eventually sold her out came to an end,
and it was supposedly because this person
disapproved of the way Meghan handled the
breakup of her first marriage.
As the source told The Sun,
"What came to light after Trevor and I spoke
ended my friendship with Meghan.
I think everybody who knew them both was in
shock...All I can say now is that I think
Meghan was calculated, very calculated, in
the way she handled people and relationships."
British television journalist Piers Morgan
seemed to echo these claims, and Meghan during
an appearance on Fox.
He said,
"Meghan Markle is one of the most ruthless
social climbers I've ever met in my entire
life."
Simply put, it would seem that Engelson just
wasn't a part of Meghan's so-called master
plan.
But whether anyone should listen to Piers
Morgan is another matter.
Meghan Markle's dream was to become an actress,
so she must have been ecstatic to land the
role of Rachel Zane on Suits.
According to a former friend's interview with
The Sun,
"Meg had just finished the first series.
It was a big part for her, her first full-time
role.
She’d hustled for years to get there, so
that was huge."
It's unclear how much Meghan involved her
first husband in her life as an actress on
Suits, but we do know that she was open about
it with Prince Harry while they were dating.
The duchess even gave her new boyfriend a
tour of the set, and according to Hello! magazine,
"He was super low key, met some crew and was
so happy to watch his lady...He's incredibly
supportive of her work."
Meghan has since quit acting to focus on her
new life with Prince Harry.
It's wild what people will do for love.
Andrew Morton, the author and royal biographer
behind the book Meghan, A Hollywood Princess,
claimed the Duchess of Sussex was once head-over-heels
in love with Engelson, but got fed up with
her first husband's habit of being late.
Per Morton,
"He was notorious for arriving late, his clothes
rumpled, his hair dishevelled, and often as
not with a new stain on his jacket...'Sorry
bro,' was a constant refrain as he hurtled
from meeting to meeting, always just behind
the clock."
"Are you kidding me?"
Getting annoyed with a partner who has poor
time management skills is probably a common
pet peeve for many spouses, but does it really
warrant ending a marriage and filing for divorce?
According to Morton, Engelson's tendency to
be tardy was the polar opposite of Markle,
who was described as being a "self-confessed
perfectionist as fastidious as she was controlling."
Meghan allegedly tolerated her then-husband's
behavior to start with, but she was finally
able to find some relief when she packed up
and moved thousands of miles away from him
to film Suits.
A divorce soon followed.
Meghan Markle was reportedly the one who decided
to end her marriage to Trevor Engelson, according
to the Daily Mail.
Long before she and Engelson separated in
early 2013, she had allegedly been enjoying
living the life of a bachelorette in Canada
while her husband was at home in Los Angeles.
Per the Daily Mail,
"There she took a two-bedroom apartment in
the city center, transforming it into a sophisticated
single woman’s household filled with designer
furnishings, and decorated in tasteful neutrals."
But can we really blame Markle for getting
comfy in the Great White North considering
how long she was there for her job?
In July 2013, Meghan told Esquire,
"It takes about eight months out of the year
in total to do the 16 episodes.
So we get out here in March, and we'll probably
wrap early November this year.
I am an adopted Canuck now."
"We are there nine months out of the year,
so I miss my sunshine."
So while some people might accuse Markle of
acting like a single lady, it sounds a lot
like she was making the best of her situation.
Meghan Markle's former bestie sure did spill
a lot of information regarding her past, and
even accused the actress-turned-royal of discarding
people if she no longer had any use for them
in her life.
During her interview with The Sun, the source
said of Meghan,
"She is very strategic in the way she cultivates
circles of friends.
Once she decides you're not part of her life,
she can be very cold.
It's this shutdown mechanism she has.
There's nothing to negotiate.
She’s made her decision and that’s it."
However, it was apparently a mutual friend
that introduced Meghan to Prince Harry, and
we can't fault her for cultivating a circle
that helped her find the man of her dreams.
Plus, Trevor Engelson also allegedly moves
in celebrity circles, and his second wife,
Tracey Kurland, reportedly has a net worth
more than $200 million.
Is it really fair to call out Markle for mingling
with fellow celebrities if Engelson went on
to do the same?
If reports are to be believed, it's possible
Meghan Markle moved forward with her divorce
because she had an aching desire to live the
life of a princess.
The Sun claimed that Markle owned a book about
Prince Harry's mother, the late Princess Diana,
and she was also reportedly a huge fan of
the Anne Hathaway film The Princess Diaries.
The Duchess of Sussex made no secret of the
fact that she was a fan of royalty, and even
wrote about wanting to be a princess in her
now-defunct lifestyle blog, The Tig.
Meghan wrote, via Hello! magazine,
"Little girls dream of being princesses.
I, for one, was all about She-Ra, Princess
of Power.
For those of you unfamiliar with the '80s
cartoon reference, She-Ra is the twin sister
of He-Man, and a sword-wielding royal rebel
known for her strength.
We're definitely not talking about Cinderella
here."
Little did Markle know, after being set up
on a blind date, her supposed dream of becoming
a member of the royal family would finally
come to fruition.
Dreams really do come true.
As far as we know, Meghan Markle has never
addressed her divorce from Trevor Engelson
publicly, so all fans can do is read between
the lines.
A perfect example of this is a resurfaced
blog post from Markle's now-defunct website,
The Tig, in which she reportedly shared a
seemingly telling quote from Portuguese author
Jose Micard Teixeira.
According to Marie Claire, Meghan wrote,
"I no longer spend a single minute on those
who lie or want to manipulate.
I decided not to coexist anymore with pretense,
hypocrisy, dishonesty and cheap praise...And
on top of everything I have no patience for
anyone who does not deserve my patience."
Although this passage could be about anything,
and perhaps not directed at anyone in particular,
Meghan reportedly shared it around the time
of her divorce in 2013.
So it's definitely possible that the Duchess
of Sussex low-key slammed her ex in a post,
accusing him of not being worthy of her love
or her patience, which is pretty brutal.
"It's not enough to just survive something,
right?
Like, that's not the point of life."
One of the rumors surrounding Meghan Markle's
divorce concerns how she supposedly returned
her wedding ring back to Trevor Engelson.
Royal biographer Andrew Morton wrote in his
book, Meghan: A Hollywood Princess,
"A wealthy entrepreneur friend claimed the
marriage ended so abruptly that Meghan sent
Trevor her diamond wedding and engagement
rings back by registered mail."
If this is true, and not just hearsay or rumor,
then it proves that Meghan was so done with
the relationship that she couldn't even stand
to exchange the jewelry with Engelson in person.
While it's unclear if something shady happen
for the Suits star to supposedly end things
in such an impersonal way, it's also possible
that Meghan simply wanted to avoid any potential
drama that might occur if she saw her ex in
person.
Breakups are hard, and divorce isn't easy,
so perhaps Meghan felt that using the postal
service was her only option.
Although this sounds like a pretty questionable
idea, Meghan Markle's ex-husband, Trevor Engelson,
sold a comedy pilot to Fox in September 2017,
and it was apparently based on his split from
the duchess.
According to Deadline, the show's premise
was as follows,
"Divorce is hard.
Sharing custody is harder.
Sharing custody with the British Royal family
when your wife marries a prince, in the unforgiving
spotlight of London's tabloid media, is next
level."
Obviously, Markle and Engelson never had any
kids together, so there's definitely some
fiction at play in this pilot.
However, the fact that Meghan's ex sold a
show about a man whose wife left him for a
member of the British royal family must draw
its inspiration from real life.
However, anyone hoping to see some royal shade
on their TV screens might be disappointed,
as Engelson has reportedly put his show on
hold.
In May 2018, The Sun reported,
"Meghan's pals have held secret showdown talks
with her ex Trevor Engelson in a bid to persuade
him to ditch his TV plans for a sitcom based
on her relationship with the royal, according
to insiders."
For now, at least, Meghan's first marriage
won't be hitting our screens, which is probably
quite a relief for the duchess.
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