Meghan releases rare photo of Lilibet for her birthday
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I'd put money on it now: On June 4, 2039 Princess Lilibet will turn 18-years-old and it will trigger a media-free-for-all of comparing, contrasting and juxtaposing she and Princess Charlotte.
They are Diana, Princess of Wales' granddaughters and they seem cursed, no warty witch required, to be perpetually pitched against one another even though their lives bear no resemblance.
One girl's is of the highest calibre, full-focus exposure and a Getty archive of 22,606 shots of her. (Really.) The other's face has not been seen in public since she was a baby.
Charlotte is the only fifth grader in the world used to making small talk with the Archbishop of Canterbury during a live global TV broadcast and is already a dab hand at the regal Buckingham Palace wave; Lili's face has been on view since Queen Elizabeth was still firmly planted on the throne.
Until now.
Wednesday marked not only Lili's fourth birthday but her mother Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex pulling a surprising social media swerve by sharing a front facing photo of the tiny princess looking at the camera, showing more of her face than has been seen in years.
Since 2022, Meghan and Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex have followed a tried and tested celeb-y protocol and only released photos of their kids taken from the back, in profile or with something obscuring their faces.
It seemed like a nice midline: Their little ones' privacy was maintained while public interest was moderately sated.
However, since joining Instagram this year and with this new Lili image, a beautiful black and white shot showing her being embraced by a perfectly windswept, stunning duchess on a boat, Meghan appears to be inching closer and closer to backflipping on this one.
Is the Sussex status quo no longer a-go-go?
Protection and privacy have been the firmly entrenched watchwords of Harry and Meghan's approach with them clearly choosing to not put them on display.
Only last month, to mark Prince Archie's sixth birthday, Meghan marked the day by posting a single photo of the pyjama-clad primary schooler that was devoid of anything like detail.
Or on May 19, to celebrate the Sussexes' seventh wedding anniversary, she shared an image of a collage of touching family photos including some showing the kids' faces but which were so weeny and small it was nearly impossible to discern any real detail or see what they actually look like. Clever.
And yet now we have this Lili shot, her facing the camera, with the top half of her face clearly visible.
What is all a bit inexplicable is why, in under a month, the swing from that to this higher degree of exposure? Is this simply a one-off or are she and Archie being slowly revealed to the world like the latest model iPhone?
This Lili birthday snap clearly raises more questions than it answers, least importantly, how much time are Harry and Meghan spending at sea?
(To mark International Women's Day Meghan went the obvious route and shared a shot of Harry tenderly kissing his daughter on some sort of speedboat.)
More significantly, it highlights a split in the duke and duchess' attitudes towards social media.
In late April the couple were in New York where they launched an Archwell-backed memorial remembering the children and teens lost to social media harms, a cause they have been involved with for years. Harry made his feelings abundantly clear: 'Keep your kids away from social media..... Life is better off of social media'.
The Duke of Sussex also comes to the question of shielding his children with other complicating factors.
He has made abundantly clear the trauma that constant media exposure during his childhood did to this tender, young psyche.
Also, in August 2024, a friend of the Sussexes told Peopl e that ​​'Harry has been reluctant to show his children publicly, not out of a desire to hide them but to protect their privacy and safety from potential threats'.
Given all of this, what might Aitch, whose genuine joy and delight in fatherhood is a balm for his often publicly vinegary persona these days, make of a half of his daughter's face being broadcast to two billion people on Instagram?
There are other details about Lili's birthday posts that have not been explained either.
Archie got one birthday shot; for Lili Meghan has put out three posts including four stills plus a bizarre video of her and Harry twerking in the hospital ahead of her delivery, and all of it shared across nine hours, based on timestamps.
The main portrait (and another showing Lili with Meghan seemingly just after her birth) appears to have gone live at midnight California-time.
However a second post, one photo showing Harry with a newborn Lili and another of them barefoot, was shared at 7.40am followed by the awkward video at about 9.00am, according to online conversion tools.
The best answer I can come up with is that, swept away on a tide of maternal love and a sugar high thanks to a before school-run slice of cake, the Duchess of Sussex couldn't help but keep posting adorable images.
That or she was bored waiting for an Uber.
So are all these glimpses and peaks building towards something? Or are they as far as Meghan will go?
What the last few months have shown is that any and all photos of her children popping up on Insta are guaranteed to generate buzz and interest, handy if you're in the midst of a relaunch as a home-y, lifestyle doyenne.
Here's a dose of pathos to close things out.
Both Meghan and Charlotte's mother Kate, The Princess of Wales, have inherited bits and bobs of Diana's jewellery but in having daughters, they got something the late princess dreamt of.
'Diana always wanted a girl,' her longtime private secretary Patrick Jephson said in 2015.
'Both my daughters were born when I was working with Princess Diana, and she more than once said how lucky I was to have girls'.
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