Meghan Markle’s Father Actually Won the Lottery 28 Years Ago

There has been A LOT of talk about lotteries recently! And for good reason–just last week someone walked into a Simpsonville, South Carolina store, bought a Mega Millions ticket, and won a whopping $1.537 billion! Although we may never learn the true identity behind the historic jackpot winner (South Carolina allows its lottery winners to stay anonymous), we do know that their lives have changed forever.

Remarkably, there is another, far less anonymous person whose life forever changed following a lucky lotto win…

Her name is Duchess Meghan. Ever heard of her?

While she wasn’t the one who purchased the ticket, Meghan’s father did–and he reportedly walked away with an astounding $750,000 from the win. Not too shabby!

In the New York Times best-selling biography, Meghan: A Hollywood Princess, writer Andrew Morton describes how the former actress’ life changed after her father, Thomas Markle’s, lotto win.

According to Morton, Mr. Markle frequently invested his hard-earned cash in California Lottery tickets–and one day in 1990, he received a pretty incredible and improbable return on his investment. He used much of the three-quarters of a million dollars to invest in a jewelry business, but, unfortunately, the venture failed. Luckily for his kids, though, he did manage to hold onto some of the win, which he used to invest in their educations and businesses.

The auspicious win occurred when the future duchess was just nine-years-old, but apparently, her existence had a lot to do with the lotto sweep. In an interview for the biography, Mr. Markle said that he used parts of Meghan’s birthdate to formulate his 5-digit winning selection.

Now, it should be noted that Thomas Markle has been made out as somewhat of a villain in Meghan’s road to Kensington Palace, but this tale shows him in a much more favorable light. Though all sources close to the Duchess are remaining mum about her relationship with her dad, we do know that the new royal has not received him in her new home of London and that she also hasn’t visited him in the U.S. either.

Clearly, these two are suffering from a strained relationship, which only seems to get worse each time he or another one of Meghan’s estranged family members speaks to the press. But, family drama aside, this dad sure seemed to have his priorities straight at one time.

As Morton’s book states, the senior Markle did give a portion of his lottery earnings to Meghan’s Catholic school tuition, a move that fostered her education and allowed her to move on to the prestigious Northwestern University and later, a successful acting career.

No matter what you think of the guy, we still find his lottery win–and what he did with it–to be a rather interesting detail in the Duchess’ life. To learn even more about Thomas Markle’s good fortune, be sure to watch the video below!

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this famous lottery winner. Do you think Thomas Markle used his prize responsibly? Have you ever been blessed with a lottery win? If so, what did you do with the cash?