A friend of Meghan Markle's father-in-law has given his take on the Markle family - and he didn't hold back.

Nicky Haslam, an interior designer and socialite, is a close friend of the royal family's (his mother was Queen Victoria's goddaughter) and once worked for Prince Charles. He described the Duchess of Sussex's family as "common" and hinted that it was a good thing her father Thomas had missed her wedding to Prince Harry in May.

"They're frightfully common," he told the Daily Mail.

"It would have been awful if that huge lump [Thomas Markle] had been there.

"The royals probably don't quite know how to deal with them."

Ouch. "One person who wasn't common was her mother (Doria)," he added. Thomas had been due to walk his daughter down the aisle on her wedding day but was forced to pull out in the days before to undergo a heart operation. He had hit headlines in the weeks before when it emerged that he had staged paparazzi photos. Doria, who is divorced from Thomas, was the only member of Meghan's family to attend the nuptials. Nicky also laid into Meghan's Givenchy wedding dress, saying it looked as though it had been made of concrete. "I didn't very much like her dress — it didn't fit, among other things. "It should have been made of thinner stuff, it seemed to be made of concrete." Meghan could be in for even more of a headache over her family as her estranged half-sister sister is being tipped to appear on Celebrity Big Brother this year. The Daily Star has reported that producers were absolutely interested in getting Samantha Grant on the show.