Before she became the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle was just a girl getting a bucket of water dumped on her head by Rory McIlroy.
Meghan, now 44, was nominated by McIlroy, now 36, to perform the viral ALS Ice Bucket Challenge in 2014, which she humbly accepted.
“I thought it seemed fitting that the person who nominated me would be the one to dump the ice on me,” Meghan said in a video at the time, which is when McIlroy, carrying a huge cooler of ice, revealed himself.
McIlroy stood on a stepladder on a New York City rooftop and drenched Meghan as the Suits star reacted in shock. In a social media post, McIlroy — who had recently broken off his engagement with tennis star Caroline Wozniacki at the time — called Meghan “a good sport.”
According to royal author Tom Bower, McIlroy and Meghan had dinner together that night at the Fitzpatrick Hotel.
The next day, McIlroy shot an opening round 74 at The Barclays, held at New Jersey’s Ridgewood Country Club, after “feeling worse for wear after a hectic night,” Bower wrote in his 2022 book Revenge: Meghan, Harry, and the War Between the Windsors.
Following his poor performance on the course, McIlroy almost immediately “drove back to New York to see Meghan,” Bower alleged.
Two months later, McIlroy and Meghan met up for dinner in Ireland, during which Bower wrote Meghan “gazed intently” at the golfer.
Around the same time, Meghan began dating celebrity chef Cory Vitello, who allegedly asked her whether she was “having a relationship” with McIlroy.
Meghan denied anything romantic between the pair, Bower wrote, insisting “their time together was innocent” and calling them “just friends.”
“The golfer was not her future,” Bower wrote.
Meghan would meet her now-husband, Prince Harry, roughly two years later. The couple got married in 2018.
McIlroy started dating his now-wife, Erica Stoll, in late 2014, and they got married in 2017.
While Meghan and McIlroy appeared to keep things friendly, the future duchess had no problem gushing about him on her now-defunct blog, The Tig.
“Ah yes. Rory McIlroy. The Rory McIlroy,” she wrote in August 2014. “Whispered (and shouted) to be the foremost golfer in the world, loved by Tiger [Woods], respected by [Arnold] Palmer, and dumper of frigid water onto my lone head for the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. That Rory McIlroy. He is a force who has the propensity to actually work hard and play hard — relishing intense practices to substantiate his title, embracing nights of sipping Opus One (his bold and impressive choice of wine) and indulging in group dinners at Cipriani — for the balance, of course.”
She continued, “And yet, beyond his work/play ethic, the most endearing quality of this man is his character — as real and honest as they come, appreciating a simple smile, never shunning a fan photo, enjoying a plate of pasta with veal ragu, and expressing a love for his parents that is rarely seen in men his age. Or at any age to be honest. He is not just the real deal … he is real.”
