Meghan Markle could be getting a new stepmother after her estranged father, Thomas Markle, shared his wishes to marry his new girlfriend. The former Hollywood lighting director, 81, fell in love with Filipino nurse Rio Caneda, 46, while he was being treated at a rehabilitation hospital in Cebu, Philippines, late last year. Markle became seriously ill at his home in the city in December 2025 and underwent emergency surgery to amputate his left leg.
“Thomas told me he’d marry her in a heartbeat,” a source told the Daily Express. “He’s telling the rest of the family he’s happier than he could ever have imagined at the thought of spending the rest of his life with Rio. He still has a recovery stretch to navigate with at least a few months in America, where he’s been FaceTiming Rio almost every day.”
After moving to the Philippines in January 2025 with his son, Thomas Markle Jr, 59, Markle is now back in the United States with his eldest daughter, Samantha, 61. According to the source, Markle has told friends he “would love” to bring his new lady love to the States, and that formalising their relationship is “very much” on the cards.
“From everything he’s been saying, the sound of those (wedding) bells is very much on his mind, and it’s pretty clear she loves him to bits too,” they said.
The Duchess of Sussex, who at 44 is just two years younger than the divorced mother-of-two, is said to be “concerned” about her estranged father’s new romance after finding out about it through the media. “[Meghan] is shocked and thinks it’s sad because it seems from the age gap and the state of him that he’s at risk of being used,” a source claimed to Woman’s Day. “She is concerned about this woman in her father’s life... She has no doubt he genuinely thinks he’s in love, but this Rio woman could easily become an even bigger thorn in her side than her father.”
Before meeting Rio, Markle had been married twice, first to secretary Roslyn Loveless from 1964 to 1975, and then to Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, from 1979 to 1987. Despite her parents’ divorce when she was just six, Meghan remained close to her father and lived with him for a significant portion of her childhood. They became estranged shortly before her May 2018 wedding to Prince Harry, and their last known contact was when the duchess sent him a handwritten letter following his leg amputation. Markle has repeatedly voiced his wish to reconcile with his daughter and meet his grandchildren, Prince Archie, seven, and Princess Lilibet, four.
