There’s a pretty dramatic story surrounding the whereabouts of the Duchess of Sussex’s first engagement ring, which shares one striking similarity to the diamond she wears today.

The engagement ring Meghan Markle wears today wasn’t the first to grace her left ring finger. Before Markle became the Duchess of Sussex in the wake of her marriage to Prince Harry in May 2018, she was an established actress and the wife of Trevor Engelson, a producer (he’s best known for his work on the TV series Snowfall and the 2010 film Remember Me). According to Us Weekly, Markle and Engelson met in 2004, when she was just 22; they dated for six years before he proposed in 2010—and by 2011, just a few months after a little show called “Suits” premiered, Markle and Engelson tied the knot at an exclusive resort in Jamaica.

Per Hello!, the couple kept their engagement and ensuing nuptials a secret. Shortly after the wedding, the actress hit the red carpet wearing her freshly minted engagement ring—a cushion-cut diamond in a grand cathedral setting on a thin pavé band—and matching pavé wedding band, surprising media outlets and co-stars alike with the news. A year later (and in true Meghan Markle style!) she’d added to her ring stack, sporting two additional bands of diamonds (one chunky and one thin).

Her and Engelson’s marriage, however, was short-lived. The couple stayed together for just two years after their tropical celebration before going their separate ways in August 2013; in divorce documents, they cited irreconcilable differences as the cause of their union’s dissolution.

According to some accounts, their relationship’s ending—though quiet—was drama-filled, namely due to what the actress did with her engagement ring in the wake of their divorce. Biographer Andrew Morton wrote in his book Meghan: A Hollywood Princess that she returned her diamond in an unconventional way, reports Hello!. “A wealthy entrepreneur friend claimed the marriage ended so abruptly that Meghan sent her wedding and engagement rings back to Trevor by registered post,” he wrote. “Another confirmed that the decision to end the marriage was made by Meghan and that it had come ‘totally out of the blue.’”

It’s safe to say that Meghan Markle’s first engagement ring is no longer in her possession—but it clearly left a lasting impression. In fact, it bears one defining similarity to the three-stone bauble from Prince Harry that she wears today: both rings feature pavé bands. In fact, Markle actually updated her second ring, complete with diamonds from Princess Diana’s private collection, to ensure that feature was included; the piece the Duke of Sussex presented to her over a dinner at home originally featured a gold band, which Markle swapped out for a thinner, more sparkly iteration and basket in 2019.

The public has paid close attention to Markle’s engagement ring as of late, especially since it was largely absent from her finger for the majority of 2023. When she resumed wearing it in 2024, speculations swirled, with some alleging that the center stone appeared bigger than before. Markle, however, has never spoken about her current engagement ring’s changes. She gave a rare comment about the original piece in the couple’s engagement interview in November 2017. “It’s beautiful, and he designed it, it’s incredible,” she said at the time.