UK: Never raise a hand against my girl, Meghan’s dad told Harry | Royal | News

The retired TV lighting director said Meghan, 36, had long wanted children and predicted she and Harry would soon be trying for a family.

In an embarrassing series of disclosures for the Royal Family, he also said Harry, the sixth-in-line to the throne, was “open” to Brexit had told him to “give Trump a chance”.

Kensington Palace, which is unlikely to have sanctioned or had advance warning of the interview, refused to comment.

Mr Markle, 73, who pulled out of escorting his daughter down the aisle at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, on May 19 after reportedly having heart surgery, spoke to ITV’s Good Morning Britain.

He told GMB presenters Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid how Harry, 33, and Meghan had called him together.

“Harry asked for her hand on the phone and I said, ‘You are a gentleman. Promise me you will never raise your hand against my daughter and of course I will grant you my permission,” he recalled.

Mr Markle, who divorced Meghan’s mother Doria Ragland when she was six, told how he cried as he watched the wedding on TV in a Mexican guest house.

“I cried a little bit about it. She was so beautiful walking down the aisle,” he said. “The whole world was watching my daughter. I was very happy about that.

“The unfortunate thing for me now is I’m a footnote in one of the greatest moments in history rather than the dad walking her down the aisle. That upsets me somewhat.”

Mr Markle, who has yet to meet Harry and has seen little of his daughter in recent years, said Meghan had made a good choice of husband.

He told the programme he thought Harry was “great” and had “made a great pick” in his daughter who had been a “princess since the day she was born”.

And he said he expected the couple would try for children soon. “She’s wanted children for a long time and when she met Harry and spoke about how much she loves him, there’s got to be a child in the making, somewhere soon,” he said.

“As long as they’re happy and they have a great life and have some beautiful children and do good things in the world, I can’t ask for more.”

Mr Markle described how he got to know Harry in a series of phone conversations after his daughter revealed she had a new man, then that he was British, and then that he was the Prince, who they should call “H” for security reasons.

When they first spoke, he said, Harry called him Thomas and he called him Harry.

“It became a conversation back and forth mostly about politics,” he said.

“He was asking me how I was feeling that day, and I was telling him how unhappy I was with the President, or with the idea of Trump, and that’s how it began.”

He added: “We talked a few times about Donald Trump, Brexit, things like that.

He’s an interesting guy. “I was complaining that I didn’t like Donald Trump, he said give Donald Trump a chance.

I sort of disagreed with that. That was his politics, I have my politics.” “

I’ve always had a bad attitude about Donald Trump and that’s never going to change. My God, I have to apologise to the rest of the world for my president.

“All Harry did was actually said, because Trump was new, he said: ‘Give him a chance’. I think Harry’s probably changed his mind by now. I certainly hope he has.”

Asked if he thought Harry was a Trump supporter, he said: “I would hope not now, but at the time he might have been.”

Of Harry’s attitude to Brexit, he revealed: “He said he was open to it. He didn’t know one way or the other. He was just saying he had to be open to it and see how it went.”

Mr Markle gave his version of the events, starting with his decision to cooperate with a Los Angeles-based paparazzo photographer on a series of photographs showing him preparing for the wedding.

The couple, he said, had told him not to speak to the press but he had decided to stage the photographs to help improve his image.

“Well obviously that all went to hell and I feel bad about it,” he said.

“I was looking to change my image and obviously that was a mistake that went wrong.

“I spoke to them both and I apologised. I realised it was a serious mistake but it’s hard to take it back.

“Both Harry and Meghan were very forgiving about it.”

At the time Mr Markle announced he was so ashamed that he was pulling out of the wedding.

He then changed his mind before deciding not to go citing medical advice.

“All that stuff was working on me. I’ve got a bit of heart condition. This pushed me a little further,” he said yesterday.

“I had heart palpitations and I had to drive at two in the morning to a hospital.

“They sent me to another little hospital and they sent me to a bigger hospital and I had a heart attack.

“I was going to go the next day or the day after. And that stage I started getting heart palpitations and I said I have to cancel.

“It’s because I didn’t take care of the heart problem before.”

Mr Markle, who lives in Mexico a few miles south of the California border, told how a friend took him back to a hospital in the US, where doctors said they had to operate.

He has been quoted saying he had three stents put in and was told he would not be able to travel.

On the day of the wedding, he was holed up in the bed and breakfast, watching Prince Charles walk his daughter down the aisle as a last-minute replacement.

“I was honoured. I can’t think of a better replacement than someone like Prince Charles.

“He looked very handsome and my daughter looked beautiful with him,” he said. “I was jealous. I wish I’d been there. I wish it had been me but thank God he was there and I thank him for that.”

Piers Morgan later revealed on This Morning how the interview came about.

He said: “He was very keen to set the record straight. He used to watch me when I worked in America and he felt like I could be someone he got on with if he did the interview.

“He did get paid, not very much, a few thousand pounds. He could have got more from other people.

“His motive was to have a forum where he would have enough time to properly explain.

“Afterwards he was happy, he felt he had been given a chance to talk.”