EXCLUSIVE: As Princess Lilibet celebrates her fifth birthday, questions are growing over Meghan and Harry’s changing stance on privacy as the young royal appearing more frequently on social media
Princess Lilibet is celebrating her fifth birthday today, but unlike in her earliest years, she is no longer entirely hidden from public view.
Since relaunching her Instagram account at the start of the year, Meghan Markle has increasingly shared glimpses of family life in California, with Lilibet featuring in a number of posts. Today, the Duchess shared two unseen photos of daughter to celebrate the milestone with the caption: “Our dream girl. Happy 5th birthday, Lili”.
While the Sussexes still largely shield their children’s faces, royal watchers have noted a clear shift from the couple’s previous stance on privacy. For years, Harry and Meghan fiercely guarded Archie, seven, and Lilibet from the spotlight, while also campaigning for stronger protections for children online. The Duchess has become a prominent advocate for online safety, making the couple’s decision to share more family content even more controversial.
Royal expert Duncan Larcombe believes the change is unlikely to go unnoticed. “I’m sure her accusers will say she’s exploiting [the children],” he told the Mirror. “Lecturing about children’s privacy but then posting her own children as clickbait.
“They are growing up a bit, but that will make it more of a problem. It’s all carefully orchestrated. It seems to promote Meghan, it’s all about Meghan. She’s in most of the pictures. You wonder whether it’s Meghan having to make sacrifices because things haven’t gone well for them.”
While Duncan does not believe Meghan’s online safety campaigning explicitly means parents should never post photographs of their children, he questioned the optics of the decision.
“She hasn’t suggested you can’t post pictures of your children, but you would think as a campaigner the last thing she would want to do is get her own children’s faces out there in the public eye,” he said.
The issue could also prove particularly sensitive for Prince Harry, who has repeatedly spoken about the pressures of growing up under intense public scrutiny.
According to Duncan, the Duke may feel conflicted about the family’s new approach. “There’s every chance that Harry might be allowing it through gritted teeth,” he said. “He knows what it’s like being a child in the public eye, and he doesn’t want that for his kids.
“But I think we know who wears the trousers in the relationship. It will make Harry pretty uneasy given what we know and what he’s said in the past.”
As Lilibet grows older, Duncan believes her public profile is only likely to increase. “It certainly looks like she’s now being brought out as part of the branding, albeit cautiously,” he said.
He pointed to the example of William and Kate’s children, who are now instantly recognisable to the public, but noted there is one key difference. “William would have done that because he knows for someone like Prince George, who is the future heir to the throne, he can’t keep him hidden.
“Meghan and Harry have the option to keep their children completely private. We will likely see them more and more. As they get older, it becomes impossible to keep it private.”
That raises questions about how Archie and Lilibet themselves may eventually feel about their childhood being shared online. “You wonder if they will feel manipulated or annoyed by it,” Duncan said. “But they have been born into a high-profile family. They are going to have to learn sometimes that, to some extent, they are public property.”
For now, Lilibet’s fifth birthday marks another milestone for the young royal living thousands of miles away from the monarchy. But as the Sussexes increasingly open the door to family life on social media, it may also offer a glimpse of what the future holds.
“I think there’s a good hint of what’s to come,” Duncan said. “Harry and Meghan will be accompanied by their children on visits and public engagements, but they have told the world they weren’t going to do that.”
Last month, Meghan shared an image on Instagram showing Lilibet sitting at her feet in a wardrobe packed with designer fashion, hours before leaving for Geneva to attend the inauguration of a memorial dedicated to children who have lost their lives as a result of online abuse. At the event, she also met bereaved families impacted by online harm.
The Duchess of Sussex said that children’s safety online is a “public health issue” as she spoke at a World Health Organisation event in May. “Our children are not products, they are not experiments and not expendable,” she said, as she urged for stronger protections for children navigating the world online.
Just the night before, Meghan had shared a mirror selfie with Lilibet to her 4.5million followers, surrounded by designer clothes, adding the caption: “Mama’s little helper.” Royal expert Tom Sykes fiercely criticised the move. Speaking on The Royalist, he said: “The hypocrisy is breathtaking. It is a boastful image. It is a vain image. It is a staggeringly tone-deaf image.”
Meghan also posted a snap of her daughter clutching a bunch of red balloons while in her father Prince Harry’s arms on Valentine’s Day. “These two + Archie = my forever Valentines,” she captioned the photo.
“I would think they have had some pretty fiery rows about the topic, because it’s not at all how Harry wanted it to be,” royal expert and author Ingrid Seward recently told the Mirror.
“They have completely ignored the fact that they said they were leaving the royal family because they wanted a more private life, and they have created anything but that for themselves. It appears they left the family because they wanted a public life and to earn money.”
In response to the allegations of hypocrisy, Meghan’s spokesperson told Newsweek: “The Duchess has always been clear that there is a distinction between sharing moments from her life and exposing her children to public scrutiny. By obscuring their faces, she is demonstrating the very principle she advocates for: giving children privacy, agency, and protection in an increasingly digital world.
“Far from being contradictory, by concealing their faces she is actually reflecting the message she delivered in Geneva: that parents can choose to share family experiences while still taking deliberate steps to protect identities, privacy, and digital footprint.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: mirror.co.uk
