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Meghan Markle Opens Up About Being Biracial In Hollywood

“Add the freckles to the mix and it created quite the conundrum."

One of these 41 women is none other than 2016's top-searched actress and Prince Harry's girlfriend, "Suits" star Meghan Markle, who opened up about her struggle to stardom.

"For castings, I was labeled ‘ethnically ambiguous.’ Was I Latina? Sephardic? ‘Exotic Caucasian’?” she told Allure. “Add the freckles to the mix and it created quite the conundrum."

The 35-year-old philanthropist, whose mother is African-American and whose father is Caucasian, has always spoken candidly about the racism she has experienced and went on to clarify in the Allure interview that her "sense of belonging" has never been about the colour of her skin.

“I have the most vivid memories of being seven years old and my mom picking me up from my grandmother’s house,” she recalled. “There were the three of us, a family tree in an ombré of mocha next to the caramel complexion of my mom and light-skinned, freckled me."

For Markle, her freckles are a much-loved part of her identity. “To this day, my pet peeve is when my skin tone is changed and my freckles are airbrushed out of a photo shoot," she explained.

#TBT to the time I was very tan and ever so serious for @sharpmagazine 🦁

A post shared by Meghan Markle (@meghanmarkle) on

Markle credits her father for helping her embrace her freckled face saying: "For all my freckle-faced friends out there, I will share with you something my dad told me when I was younger: ‘A face without freckles is a night without stars.’”

Other stars featured in the new issue of Allure include actresses Constance Wu, Eva Longoria, Samira Wiley, YouTube star Lilly Singh and 2015 Miss Universe Pia Wurtzbach.

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