Meghan's twerking video was so cringey it was like parody – but it did exactly what she wanted, expert says

The Sun

2 days ago

Meghan's "cringeworthy" twerking video was like a parody - but it did exactly what she wanted, according to a royal expert.
Meghan, 43, posted the hospital twerk footage on June 3 to celebrate daughter Lilibet's fourth birthday.
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The Duchess showed off her dance moves in the delivery room
Credit: Instagram
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The couple resorted to dancing in an attempt to induce labour
Credit: Instagram/Megan
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Even Prince Harry joined in and dropped it down low for the camera
Credit: Instagram/Megan
However, Bronte Coy, the Royal Correspondent for Australian news site News.com.au, believes the release of the twerking footage was a tactical ploy by Meghan - and a very successful one at that.
Speaking on The Sun's Royal Exclusive YouTube series, hosted by our Royal Editor Matt Wilkinson, she called the video "very difficult to watch".
"I honestly genuinely had to go to her page to make sure it had originated there because I thought it was a parody," she added.
But she believes that Meghan is now in the influencer game and her goal is to get as many eyeballs on her content as possible - by any means possible.
Coy said: "She's someone who is now working as an influencer. The direct marketing campaign is to your Instagram audience.
"In that respect, I think she's got something like 42 million views on this video, which I think all of us were among them, but everyone I've ever spoken to seems to have been among them."
She added: "There are people watching what she's doing. That directly relates, I would assume, to the sales that she's having and eyes that are on her Netflix show and that are going to her website as ever.
"It was obviously very difficult to watch, it was quite cringeworthy but you are generating headlines.
"That is the aim of people in this space, but then when you compare it to how we would react with the working royals putting out that kind of content, I think it's apples and oranges. because, of course, looking at it through that filter, you think, what are you doing? This is not appropriate."
Moment Meghan Markle twerks and dances with Prince Harry before giving birth to Lilibet in rare birthday video
Wilkinson credits Meghan's decision to launched her Instagram account on January 1 as the move that kickstarted her move into the influencer sphere.
He said: "It started on January 1st with a huge explosion, and it hasn't stopped. It's been on fire all year.
"At the end of last year, I was going through all the Sun front pages, and I put them all out on X, to show what had happened throughout the Royal year.
"And Meghan wasn't on it. I think she was on once with Harry when Harry was in Canada, at a pre-Invictus Games event. She wasn't there. She wasn't big news last year.
"She is big news now because of her Instagram."
Coy says the Duchess is now living in a world in which "relevance is currency" - while The Sun's Royal Photographer Arthur Edwards believes Meghan wants to be "the second Gwyneth Paltrow."
Meghan has used her Instagram to show snapshots of her family life, as well as sharing details of her businesses and her Netflix show 'With Love, Meghan' which has been picked up for a second series.
While the panel agreed that we will be unlikely to see footage of William and Kate in the delivery room any time soon, there was a general agreement that Meghan is now operating in an entertainment capacity rather than a royal one.
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Royal experts say joining Instagram has set Meghan on the path to full-time influencer
Credit: Instagram
ITV's Royal Editor Chris Shipp said: "It doesn't matter what people are saying about the video and, of course, some people loved it, other people absolutely hated it, but people are talking about them.
He added: "They did say after Harry's book that this was him closing the chapter on looking back all the time.
"'We're now going to look forward on our business, Meghan's business,' she doesn't care what people in the UK think about her twerking video in a labour ward four years ago.
"She cares about eyeballs, relevance, whether that translates into her business empire."
Ship added: "She sees potential in her brand and Instagram is the vehicle to get her that business and that custom and it's all about the United States, it's not about here."