Meghan Markle has been accused of 'staggering hypocrisy' after sharing an Instagram photo of her four-year-old daughter Lilibet in a walk-in wardrobe on Saturday, just hours before flying to Geneva to deliver a speech warning about the harms of children's exposure to social media.
The Duchess of Sussex, who has 4.5 million followers on the platform, posted the image with the caption 'Mama's little helper 💜' ahead of her high-profile appearance at the United Nations' European headquarters.
The news came after months in which Meghan Markle had positioned herself as a prominent voice on digital safety and the impact of social media on young people.
Her Geneva engagement, where she addressed the World Health Organisation (WHO) on online harms, was presented as a serious policy moment and another step in her post-royal public role. Against that backdrop, critics argue that choosing to feature Lilibet in a glossy, lifestyle-style post on the eve of that speech undercuts the very message she is trying to champion.
View this post on Instagram
The image, shared from Meghan's account on Saturday, shows the former Suits actress smirking at the camera as she takes a selfie. Lilibet sits on the floor amid what appear to be rails and piles of designer clothes in a large dressing room. It is precisely the kind of artfully casual, highly curated photograph that has become a staple of celebrity Instagram.
For some royal-watchers, though, this one crossed a line. Speaking on The Royalist podcast from the Daily Beast, royal expert Tom Sykes said he and his co-host were left 'aghast' when they saw it. 'It was just so unbelievably tone deaf,' he said, adding that the timing made the choice particularly hard to defend.
Daily Mail showbusiness correspondent Alison Boshoff, appearing on the same episode, said she initially assumed she must have misread the situation. 'I actually thought I was seeing things,' she told listeners. She recalled being in Cannes when she opened Instagram and saw the post. 'I thought, no, I must have had too much rosé here — she can't actually have posted this, but yeah, there it was.'
Instagram Row Collides With Geneva Speech
Meghan Markle's Instagram activity came immediately before what allies have portrayed as one of the most important speeches of her public life. Her next post was a professionally shot clip of her addressing the WHO in Geneva, where Sykes had travelled to watch the event in person.
View this post on Instagram
On stage, Meghan urged her audience to 'speak up' and 'demand better from the platforms shaping our children's lives.' She called on adults to be 'an example in your own social media use of how to be intentional in every like, comment, post and share', and told them to 'hold your community to the same standard.'
To Sykes, that is exactly what she failed to do. 'Then she goes to Geneva and says, you know, it is absolutely essential that children aren't kind of farmed by social media without their consent, etc, etc,' he said. 'And she is literally putting Lilibet at the centre of her commercial story. I mean, it's just bonkers.'
He went further, arguing that the problem was not only the presence of Lilibet but the entire staging of the wardrobe shot. Sykes suggested that either the Sussexes are not taking professional communications advice, or they are getting poor guidance. He questioned why Meghan Markle would choose to showcase what he described as an 'extensive, pricey wardrobe' in the hours before addressing an organisation widely associated with improving conditions for ordinary people.
'I think if you had gone to any communications professional in the world and said, 'Tomorrow I'm going to be doing a big event at the United Nations in Geneva, the World Health Organisation, it's the biggest thing of my whole life — it's my chance to be Angelina Jolie. Do you or do you not think I should post something on social media tonight, and do you think that a good thing to post would be me in my dressing room, surrounded by clothes whose value probably equates to 25 times the annual salary of the typical person that most people think the World Health Organisation is there to help?''
The implication, in his view, is that the visual message jars badly with the seriousness of the cause.
Critics Question Meghan Markle's Messaging — And Harry's Absence
Boshoff argued that these kinds of Instagram choices risk drowning out the substance of Meghan Markle's philanthropic agenda. 'I'm not saying this is the case, but it just looks like all she cares about is the way she looks,' she said. 'That's what it says, doesn't it?' In her assessment, the post does not convey someone 'really committed to making a difference, and to combating digital harms.'
She also pointed to a more technical failing. Meghan's social media updates around the Geneva speech did not include links or signposts to any resources about the campaign she was promoting, Boshoff noted, calling that omission a failure of 'basic' campaigning practice. Instead of channelling people towards information, she said, the posts created 'this really weird, unclear narrative.'
'You know, you should actually have one thing to say and say it really well,' Boshoff continued. 'And by what she's done is she's muddied the narrative because you immediately then are talking about her and her wardrobe and her child and her behaviour on social media.'
The questions did not stop there. Listeners were also invited to notice who was not in Geneva. There was no sign of Prince Harry in the Swiss city for his wife's WHO appearance, and Boshoff argued that the couple mishandled that, too. If Harry had never intended to attend, she suggested, the Sussexes should have said so in advance.
'So why isn't Harry there?' she asked. In her view, Meghan could have framed expectations more clearly: 'I'm really excited. I'm going to this event in Geneva. When I get there, I'm going to post all these links, and you can all get involved. Harry's not coming. H isn't coming because' — and then give a reason.
Handled that way, Boshoff argued, the narrative would have stayed focused on Meghan Markle's social media campaign rather than her wardrobe, her child or her husband's whereabouts. 'Instead, when she's asking us to pay attention to the message, you're thinking, oh, is she wearing that jacket that we saw on Instagram last night? Is she — blah, blah? Who's with her? How many people attended?' she said. 'All that noise cuts into the message that they ought to be promulgating.'
A spokesperson for the Sussexes did not respond to an email requesting comment on the criticisms, and there has been no public explanation from Meghan Markle about her decision to post the Lilibet photograph or the thinking behind how her Geneva appearance was trailed online.
