It sounds like something right out of a Hollywood movie: a girl grows up to become an actress… then she meets a prince and is engaged to marry him. But is there more to this already improbable story of American actress Meghan Markle who is set to marry Prince Harry next month?

Markle may be giving up Hollywood to join the famed British royal family, but her struggles growing up biracial in the U.S. are far from uncommon.

You can find out more in a new Meghan Markle biography entitled “Meghan: A Hollywood Princess”, by author Andrew Morton, who also wrote the famed biography of Prince Harry’s late mother Diana Spencer, “Diana: Her True Story.” 

Harry’s bride-to-be Meghan Markle previously co-starred on the TV show “Suits” for seven seasons as well as the movies Remember Me and Horrible Bosses.

Unavoidably, the new book also details the thirty-six-year-old’s struggles with her racial identity and prejudices she encountered, growing up with an African-American mother and Caucasian father in Los Angeles, California.

“On one occasion, [a group of so-called ‘mean girls’] announced they were starting a ‘White Girls Only’ club and asked Meghan to join. ‘Are you kidding me?’ the author quoted Meghan’s succinct response to her fellow pupils.

“They went very quiet after that,” Morton wrote.

Markle has been vocal about her struggles with race and prejudice in the past. Her mother is descended from African slaves from the state of Georgia, and her father is from Dutch, English, and Irish settlers.

Once while in school, Markle was asked to fill out a questionnaire, but the only options for the race were black, white, Hispanic or Asian. Markle decided to leave the box blank. When she went home and told her dad about what happened, he told her that she should just create her own box next time.

In 2015, Markle also penned an inspirational essay on her lifestyle blog The Tig. In her post, she wondered what kind of racism her parents faced when they were still younger.

She recalled a searing moment from her youth—which was no further back than the 1980s, in Los Angeles: “My mom and I were leaving a concert at The Hollywood Bowl, and a woman called her the ‘N’ word because she was taking too long to pull out of the parking spot. I remember how hot my skin felt. How it scorched the air around me.”

There will always be detractors to the British monarchy that Meghan Markle is joining, questioning their relevance in an increasingly modern, democratic society. Although that is a valid point, the royal family is clearly adapting with the times. Thirty-three-year-old Prince Harry and his older brother Prince William have attended public schools, embraced relatively quiet lives in spite of their lineage, and both have and will wed women who are not from royal or aristocratic backgrounds.

The royal family will always appeal to people who are fans of age-old tradition and yes, pomp and circumstance.

The wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will take place on May 19, 2018 at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle in England.

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