Meghan Markle Gets ‘Real’ in ‘Unusual’ Wildfires Instagram Video
Meghan Markle is getting “real.” The Duchess of Sussex took to Instagram to share how she got in touch with Billie Eilish to replace a teenager’s concert T-shirt that burned in the California wildfires. Ahead, what a body language expert said about Meghan’s video. Plus, the “unusual” part about it.
Meghan gets Billie Eilish merch for teenager affected by California wildfires
Meghan took to Instagram on Feb. 4, 2025, to share how she helped a teenage girl, whom she met when she and Prince Harry visited Altadena, Calif., last month as wildfires ripped through the Los Angeles area, get a replacement for an Eilish concert tee she lost when her family home burned.
Meghan explained that she and the Duke of Sussex, 40, had gone “to a community where all the homes were left in ashes.” There they met a woman whose 15-year-old daughter was looking through the ashes to see if her Eilish t-shirt was still there.
“When they came back to see their house for the first time, which is as we were meeting them,” Meghan recalled, “all that she had been looking for in her home was the T-shirt from the Billie Eilish concert that she had just gone to that she left in the washing machine or the dryer. Of course, they now see their home and the washing machine and the dryer are ash. They’re not there anymore.”
Meghan continued, saying she told the mother she’d “figure out how to get you this shirt” despite not knowing the Grammy winner. The actor-turned-British royal then sent a voice note to friends hoping it would get to Eilish.
Meghan excitedly shared Eilish sent a stack of signed merch—clothing, a lunchbox, and her newest album “Hit Me Hard and Soft”—for the teen.
“Huge thank you to Billie Eilish,” Meghan said. She also gave a special thanks to Levine and Prinsloo, who got it “over the line.” (The couple lives in Montecito, Calif., near Harry and Meghan.) “This is going to mean so much to her.”
Meghan got ‘real’ instead of ‘actressy or regal’ in her Instagram video
Sharing her analysis of Meghan’s Instagram video for Daily Mail, body language expert Judi James saw the duchess getting “real.” The former Suits star gave viewers a “real narrative, rather than anything more actressy or regal.”
“We are shown ‘normal’ body language rituals like nose-rubbing, hair-tossing, and even some arm-folding to suggest a lack of vanity here, which is a strong bonding and rapport trait that influencers […] use to create rapport with the viewer,” James explained.
The low camera angle combined with Meghan’s “soft” tone of voice further emphasized the “sense of intimate conversation. And she almost seems to be tiptoeing around her own house to make the video in secret. At one point her voice drops to an excited whisper as though she’s scared of waking the kids.” Meghan’s sweatshirt, jeans, and make-up free face only added to her “emphatically informal body language.”
All of this “makes the viewer feel they are sharing the moment by creeping around [and] colluding with their star like a best friend.”
Meghan’s wildfires Instagram video also had an ‘unusual’ element
The video, however friendly and casual, still had one “unusual” aspect. “It’s unusual to cut out the middle man and record your own acts of kindness yourself,” James said.
Meghan, though, seems to have got it pitch-perfect. James said the 43-year-old “will have left fans gagging for a follow-up Insta” where “we get to see her gifting and presumably hugging the young girl in person.”
Showbiz Cheat Sheet acknowledges conditions and cultures can impact body language and is sensitive to all backgrounds.
