Prince Harry, Meghan Markle

Prince Harry, Meghan Markle engaged! Here’s how they met and fell in love

Actor, humanitarian campaigner, lifestyle blogger - and, next spring, a princess. Palace officials announced Monday that Prince Harry is engaged to Meghan Markle, confirming months of rumors that the couple was close to tying the knot.

In some ways, Markle - a mixed-race American raised in California, an outspoken full-time actress, and a divorcee - makes a surprising addition to Britain's monarchy.

But the institution has moved on with the times, and the romance between Markle and Harry - who has repeatedly stressed his wish as lead to a "normal" life as he did - has a decidedly unstuffy, modern feel to it.

Professing her love

Markle, best known for her role as an ambitious paralegal in the U.S. legal drama suits, wondered many when she shared her feelings for Harry in the September cover story for Vanity Fair Asked about the media frenzy around their courtship, the 36-year-old said: "At the end of the day I think it's really simple ... we're two people who are really happy and in love."

Describing Harry as her "boyfriend," Markle said that while she expected that she and Harry would have had "come forward" about their relationship at some point, the two are just a couple of enjoying time spent with each other.

"Personally, I love a great love story," she said.

Harry - once known for his "bad boy" antics, including being photographed playing strip billiards in Las Vegas - has largely won over the British public with his winning smile, his military career and his devotion to charities, aimed at helping disabled veterans and other causes.

The 33-year-old prince recently won praise for his work Speaking candidly about his loss to his loss, Princess Diana, when he was only 12, he encouraged others to talk about their own problems instead of keeping them bottled up inside.

Markle's Vanity Fair interview broke new ground It is unusual for a royal love interest to speak so publicly - and candidly - before becoming engaged Harry's past reported girlfriends all shied away from the media limelight, and his sister-in-law, formerly known as Kate Middleton, remained silent until she and Prince William made public appearances after their baking ham palace at a formal televised interview.

But then, unlike some other "commoners" romantically linked to Britain's royals, Markle is no stranger to media exposure and the world of show business.

Putting on Suits

The actor's most successful role is the feisty Rachel Zane in the TV legal show suits, now in its seventh season. Her career has included small parts on TV series including Fringe, CSI: Miami, Knight Rider, and Castle, as well as movies such as Horrible Bosses. Outside of acting, Markle established a lifestyle blog called TheTig.com (which closed down in April without explanation) and has lent her celebrity status to humanitarian causes

She has campaigned with the United Nations on gender equality, written in TIME magazine about girls' education and the stigma surrounding menstruation, and has traveled to Rwanda as a global ambassador for the charity World Vision Canada. She has described how her mother took her to the slums of Jamaica to witness poverty first-hand;

To some degree that mirrors the experience of Harry, who was also inspired by his mother's humanitarian work and embraced the types of charities Diana favored in the final years of his life before his 1997 death in a Paris car crash.

Finally some PDA

Harry and Markle held hands for their first official appearance in September in Toronto at the Invictus Games, a sporting event for wounded service personnel that Harry spearheaded.

Both were dressed casually in jeans, smiling and chatting as they arrived for a tennis match. Several days later, Harry was photographed by the marking on the cheek as he entered the actor and his mother in a luxury box to watch the event's closing ceremony.

Markle said that she met Harry through friends in London in July 2016 and that they had been dating for many months before the romance hit the headlines.

The media attention then became so intense that Harry took the unusual step of officially confirming the romance. In a strongly worded statement released by the palace, the prince pleaded for reporters to stop his intimacy. He condemned "outright sexism and racism" in some online comments, and said some articles with "racial undertones" crossed the line.

Challenging 'ethnically ambiguity'

Some tabloids had alluded to Markle's mixed-race heritage, pointing out she had an African-American mother and a white father.

Markle herself has spoken about being bisexual - both growing up, and in her Hollywood career.

In a March interview with Allure magazine, she said studying race at college was "The first time I could put a name to feeling too light in the black community and too mixed in the white community.

"For castings, I was labeled 'ethnically ambiguous'," she said.

Markle was born Aug. 4, 1981, to a clinical therapist She grew up in Los Angeles and now lives in Toronto.

She studied at a girls' Roman Catholic high school before attending Northwestern University in Illinois, where she studied theater and international relations.

Markle married film producer Trevor Engelson in 2011, but the pair divorced two years later.

It would not be the first time that a British royal married an American - or a divorcee. In 1936, Edward VIII famously abdicated after he was forced to choose between the monarchy and his relationship with two-divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson.

In her Vanity Fair interview, Markle made clear the world's attention on her romance did not faze her.

"I'm still the same person that I am, and I've never defined myself," she said. "The people who are close to me in anchor me in knowing who I am. The rest is noise. "