No Royal Family Meghan Markle Birthday Shoutout Might’ve Been ‘Protocol,’ but a Commentator Says It ‘Lays Bare the Bitter Rift’
Meghan Markle’s birthday passed without public acknowledgment from the royal family. That means no happy birthday message on social media from King Charles III and Queen Camilla or Prince William and Kate Middleton. Despite reportedly being well within the royal family’s “protocol,” disregarding the Duchess of Sussex’s birthday only highlighted the wider, ongoing “rift,” according to a commentator.
Meghan Markle turned 42 on August 4
Just a few weeks following Prince George’s 10th birthday, Meghan turned 42 on Aug. 4, 2023. Royals typically celebrate their birthdays privately, save for the sovereign’s annual Trooping the Colour parade. Meghan and Prince Harry are no exception. Although they stepped back as senior working royals in 2020, they’ve continued to mark birthdays privately.
This year, however, the world learned a little bit about how the Duke and Duchess of Sussex celebrated. The pair were spotted at the Italian restaurant, Tre Lune, nearby their home in Montecito, California, on Aug. 2, 2023, presumably for an early birthday dinner.
It marked their first appearance since photos emerged of Harry and Meghan celebrating the Fourth of July with their children, Prince Archie, 4, and Princess Lilibet, 2, a month earlier.
The royal family put ‘distance’ between themselves and the Sussexes with Meghan Markle birthday ‘snub’
It seems protocol was behind the absence of any royal family birthday shoutout for Meghan. Per a Newsweek report, the royal family adopted a new protocol in 2022 under the late Queen Elizabeth II’s reign, where only working royals received public birthday acknowledgments.
“When Meghan turned 40 Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall and the Cambridges [William and Kate] sent birthday wishes,” Fitzwilliams told the outlet. “When she turned 41, the queen did not. But the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall and William and Catherine did. This year they ignored her birthday which has been represented in the press as a snub.”
The king, who ascended the throne in September 2022 upon his mother’s death, is said to be keeping the protocol.
Fitzwilliams continued, saying not recognizing Meghan’s birthday underscored the current state of her and Harry’s relationship with the rest of the royal family.
“In reality, it lays bare the bitter rift in the royal family,” he said. “Harry’s memoir Spare and the interviews he gave to promote it, have been extremely damaging to it. So have the Sussexes’ previous interviews, especially that with Oprah.”
“The institution cannot rebut their accusations point by point, as well they know,” Fitzwilliams explained. “However, they can place an obvious distance between them, which is precisely what they have done. This makes perfect sense.”
Meghan’s birthday “snub” comes after the royal family did the same for Lili’s birthday in June 2023.
Prince William ‘wants absolutely nothing to do’ with Prince Harry ‘at the minute’
Meghan’s birthday, even a “basic” acknowledgment on social media, is an association it seems the Prince of Wales doesn’t want to make at the moment, per royal commentator Angela Levin. “Meghan didn’t recognize [Queen] Camilla’s birthday publicly,” the author told the U.K.’s The Sun before adding, “William wants absolutely nothing to do with Harry at the minute.”
The Princess of Wales, Levin claimed, is “also really fed up with Meghan too.” Although the Prince and Princess of Wales could’ve wished Meghan a happy birthday with a “very, very basic” sentiment, the author added, they didn’t want to risk a Sussex “attack.”
As for whether or not the royal family will wish Harry a happy birthday, that remains to be seen until he turns 39 on Sept. 15, 2023.
