Someone who knows Meghan well from childhood warns against taking these defining moments too literally. She has always had a propensity to embellish, to draw dramatic lessons out of the most anodyne events, and, especially since she became a public figure, to use poetical licence to highlight a point she wishes to make but which might not actually have happened the way she recounts it. Since investigation has never been able to turn up this racist dorm mate, notwithstanding the fact that there are records of which students shared quarters, it seems likely that this story is apocryphal rather than reminiscent. Her friend explains, ‘The way to tell is how neatly they [Meghan’s reminiscences] fit the story. Meg’s inventions are too tailor-made to be reliable. People just don’t act the way she says. Once you know her, you can tell which stories are Meghan and which really happened.’
Such incidents, whether actual or embroidered, were fortunately few and far between. By her own account, Meghan’s sensitivity regarding her race followed her from inclusive California to exclusive Illinois, despite no one noticing how affected she was by it. Since there are no contemporaneous accounts of her experiencing any actual racial difficulties, and her lifestyle suggests that she was fully accepted by all quarters, and indeed that she flourished in a way any girl with real problems would not have done, this suggests that she encountered no significant or actual prejudice. It also suggests that she had transcended such internal racial uncertainties as she would later claim to have possessed, so well that they did not prevent her from achieving all she wanted. Of course, we must take her word for the fact that they remained internal sources of discomfort, but the degree of acceptance also reflected positively upon her classmates at Northwestern, two of whom would remain her friends into the present time.
As her freshman year got underway, Meghan partied up a storm, was popular with the girls as well as the boys, and got herself one of the hottest boyfriends on campus when she paired up with a white, 6’5” basketball player from Lakewood, Ohio named Steve Lepore. He was on the basketball team in his sophomore year, and would prove to be as disciplined and focused as she was. But he was more interested in fitness than partying, intending to qualify as a pro, and made all the necessary sacrifices, such as foregoing female companionship the night before a game in keeping with standard practice amongst basketball, baseball, football, and hockey players. At the end of that academic year, he transferred to Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where he became a stand out player. At the time of writing, he is an assistant coach on Eastern Kentucky University’s men’s basketball staff, and, with his wife Carrie, is a proud parent to their young daughter Giuliana Rudi.
Patently, the relationship was not serious enough for Meghan to follow him, and she lost no time in replacing him in her affections, though for the remainder of her time at Northwestern she was never again one half of such a dynamic duo.
This had no perceptible effect upon the pleasure Meghan was having at college. She developed three friendships which went some way towards replacing the gap left when geography separated her from Nikki Priddy. Although the childhood friends kept in touch, Meghan now found a substitute of sorts in Lindsay Jill Roth, the attractive blonde daughter of Jewish lawyers from the prosperous Long Island village of Lattingtown within the town of Oyster Bay in Nassau County, New York. With a population of less than two thousand, of whom 94% were white, it had no real parallels with Woodland Hills save for both areas being predominantly white and both having median incomes above the regional averages, with Woodland Hills being a bit less than $100,000 per annum while Lattingtown was half again as much. The two girls now became fast friends after meeting in a Toni Morrison Literature class in their first year at Northwestern. They drank together, partied together, studied together, and later on, when they left college they kept in touch as Lindsay became a producer for Larry King Now,The Real Girl’s Kitchen, and Queen Boss, as well as publishing What Pretty Girls Are Made Of in 2015. Meanwhile, Meghan struggled until she got the role of Rachel Zane in Suits.
In 2016, when Lindsay married an Englishman named Gavin Jordan, Meghan was her Matron of Honour. This is revealing, for when Meghan married Trevor Engelson in 2011, she chose Nikki Priddy to be her Maid of Honour. Despite this, the bond between Meghan and Roth was strong. ‘We’re the kind of friends’ she said, ‘who can be 3,000 miles away and still be talking about or thinking the same thing, and even texting each other the same thing at the same time miles away. I don’t know many people who are as generous and supportive as Meg is. I think people assume that when someone gains notoriety that they change. But she’s still the same girl I met years ago, with the same values and priorities. She’s selfless, and that’s just a part of who she is and who she was raised to be. There’s a motto that Meg and I have consistently come back to throughout the years: “I choose happiness.” It’s a constant reminder to be self-aware, be uniquely you, be happy and to treat people with respect; to be kind, empathetic and to really learn from those around you in any circumstance. Meg does that. Meg has especially developed into an extraordinary businesswoman, actress, writer and advocate for women and
