If Meghan’s ex resented her success why DID he send these loving posts?

Of all the slurs in that oh-so-sickly biography, perhaps the cruellest is that Meghan’s first husband Trevor couldn’t cope with her fame. Here, his uncle blasts back – as Facebook messages beg the question...

OF ALL the unanswered questions about the Duchess of Sussex’s past, perhaps the most intriguing is: why did she divorce her first husband, Trevor Engelson? He was the hustling film producer with the neversaydie attitude who used every setback in his career — and hers — as a spur to overcome the next challenge. But after seven years as inseparable boyfriend and girlfriend, then just 23 months of marriage, they split up.

Ever since, it has suited them both to draw a discreet veil over the reasons for their parting. They had new lives and new partners and neither had any wish to dig up the past.

For Hollywood producer Engelson, who did so much to propel Meghan to the acting stardom she craved, the incentive to tell must have been greater. Here, after all, was the man who really knew what made the girl who married the Queen’s grandson tick.

yet despite every inducement, he has gallantly remained silent about the split.

But the publication of Finding Freedom, the controversial — and onesided — new book about Meghan and Prince Harry, risks changing that.

For amid all the feuding and petty scoresettling with the Royal Family, courtiers and the media, it offers the first insight into Meghan’s view of her earlier marriage and the husband she wed in a romantic oceanside ceremony in Jamaica. And the narrative it presents is brutal and unsavoury.

Trevor, who had been her mentor and soulmate and to whom she had clung as his fortunes rose and hers just bumped along, is portrayed as envious and resentful of her success. We learn that while they were still dating, Meghan had wondered aloud to her closest friends why ‘Trevor didn’t always act as if he supported her acting career’.

If this was indeed so, one is tempted to ask why she not only stayed with such an unenthusiastic partner but went on to marry him.

Helpfully, there is a ‘friend’ on hand to explain Meghan’s thinking. Apparently, it was all about Trevor being the ‘breadwinner’ on whom Meghan depended for introductions and connections in the film business. But their marriage coincided with her big break as paralegal Rachel in the hit TV series Suits.

‘Suddenly the dynamic was changing,’ the ‘friend’ is quoted as saying, ‘and he [Engelson] didn’t like that.’

UP UnTIL then, authors Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand suggest, Trevor was ‘the dominant character’ and Meghan felt he liked her being dependent on him. This jealousy, the book implies, hastened the breakdown of their relationship. When Trevor was invited to the 2013 Oscars, he went alone. According to the book, he explained it was because he had only one ticket.

That didn’t cut it with Meghan, who, the authors suggest, ‘wondered if he didn’t want to share the spotlight’. Which echoes how Meghan and Harry feel they have been treated by the royals and a Palace establishment that couldn’t cope with their megawatt stardom.

In their eyes, so great was the Sussex roadshow and their soaring popularity, they risked overshadowing the rest of the Queen’s family and therefore represented an existential threat to the wellbeing of the monarchy. Thus they were sidelined, hence Megxit. Or so they have suggested.

But with this argument already unravelling, what should we make of Meghan’s claims about her first marriage?

Just how accurate is this inside view of a couple who even the authors of Finding Freedom — written, remember, with the apparent cooperation of the Duke and Duchess — acknowledge had appeared ‘deliriously in love’?

And is it really true Trevor Engelson was eaten up with envy provoked by Meghan’s success?

Those close to Trevor have a different recollection of events.

Engelson’s uncle, MickeyMiles Felton, a lacrosse coach from Arizona, is in regular contact with his nephew. ‘Trevor is too good a person to have these kind of thoughts,’ he told the Mail this week. ‘That is not even close to who he is.’

Instead, Mr Felton suggests, the reasons for the divorce given in the book are an attempt to sanitise the reputation of someone ‘who did something wrong and needs to make themselves look good’.

Like everyone else, his nephew was not without faults, he says, but adds: ‘He is not the kind of person who would be jealous of somebody else’s success.

‘He has made successes out of a lot of people who have worked for him. So, I think the word you use in England for this claim would be “rubbish”. We would say “trash”.

‘To me it’s an absurd notion. Whether that makes me naive or not, I don’t know. But in all the years I’ve talked to him, I’ve never heard anything like that.’

Mr Felton added that, as Trevor was in a position to help Meghan when she was an unknown actress, he would have done everything he could to further her career.

‘Wouldn’t you want to help people you are totally in love with? He was just happy for her success. Just thrilled.

‘I’ll tell you something: Trevor has excellent selfesteem. He knows who he is and where he’s going, and he’s not going to be intimidated by his wife’s success.’

A browse through Engelson’s Facebook page reveals that, far from being jealous of Meghan’s career and her breakthrough role, he was clearly proud of it.

When news of her casting in Suits reached the moviebusiness trade press in 2010, Engelson was quick to share it, reposting the Hollywood Reporter’s headline ‘Meghan Markle books lead role on Legal Mind’ (the original working title for Suits).

AyEAR later, when the show was about to screen in June 2011, he expressed delight for his ‘badass fiancée’, adding a month later: ‘Suits tonight on USA ...my girl rocks!’

He even noted the show’s ratings, ‘liking’ an update that said ‘Suits rises’. When the second series was confirmed in August