Before her high-profile wedding with Prince Harry, Meghan Markle was previously married to an American film producer, Trevor Engelson.

Inside Meghan Markle’s first marriage to Trevor Engelson and why they split up

Before her high-profile wedding with Prince Harry, Meghan Markle was previously married to an American film producer, Trevor Engelson.

Meghan’s first marriage was to Trevor Engelson on August 16, 2011 (Image: Getty)

Although happily married to Prince Harry and currently living in Montecito with their two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, Meghan Markle was previously married to an American film producer.

When the now-Duchess of Sussex was just 23 years old, Meghan dated Trevor Engelson for seven years before marrying at the Jamaica Inn at Ocho Rios, Jamaica on August 16, 2011 where the couple enjoyed a four-day celebration.

Trevor is a talent manager and film producer and founded his own production company called Underground, in 2001. Some of his most famous credits as a producer include the films Remember Me, License to Wed and All About Steve.

When Meghan was still a newlywed, she landed her job on the legal drama Suits, causing a long-distance battle at the start of their married life. The TV star was required to spend long periods of time in Toronto, where Suits is filmed, while Trevor lived in LA.

Royal biographer Andrew Morton writes in his new book Meghan, A Hollywood Princess, as stated in Hello! Magazine: “Whether she wanted to admit it to herself or not, Meghan, who once said she couldn’t imagine life without Trevor by her side, was now building a new world for herself.

“As Toronto was becoming more her home than LA, the dynamics in their relationship subtly altered. She was her own woman now, earning a steady income, making new friends on set and off, no longer dependent on her husband’s connections.”

After two years of long-distance marriage, Meghan and Trevor split in 2013 and were granted a no-fault divorce on the grounds of irreconcilable differences – but the split was said to have left friends and family shocked. According to the royal author, Meghan ended things by posting her wedding and engagement rings back to her ex.

In the book, Mr Morton writes: “A wealthy entrepreneur friend claimed that the marriage ended so abruptly that Meghan sent Trevor her diamond wedding and engagement rings back to him by registered mail. Another confirmed that the decision to end the marriage was made by Meghan and that it had come ‘totally out of the blue’.”

Since their divorce, the two have both been on very different journeys. Trevor has moved on with a new family, as after dating Bethenny Frankel from The Real Housewives of New York City for a time he became engaged to dietician and heiress Tracey Kurland, weeks after his ex-wife’s second wedding.

Trevor and Tracey tied the knot on May 11, 2019 in California and had their first daughter in August 2020, with a second baby girl following in 2021.

Meghan met and married Prince Harry, before making her way as an official working royal. This lifestyle didn’t last, with the pair making the decision to step down as senior working royals less than two years later. Following the decision to step down, the pair moved to the US.

In a full-circle of events, Meghan is now looking at rebooting her career in social media with the launch of a new lifestyle brand ‘American Riviera Orchard’.