Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are sending contradictory messages when it comes to their constant desire for privacy, especially when it comes to their children.
The Duchess of Sussex shared an intimate glimpse into her and husband Prince Harry’s domestic bliss after their move back to the UK on Instagram Sunday, which featured both their 5-year-old daughter, Princess Lilibet, and their 7-year-old son, Prince Archie.
But the move is “striking” in its “hypocrisy,” according to royal commentator Kinsey Schofield.
“If privacy is genuinely the priority, the most effective strategy is simple… stop broadcasting your family life to millions of strangers,” Schofield exclusively tells Page Six. “Every hyper-curated glimpse of the children, the dogs, the countryside, and their domestic routine invites more attention, more questions, and more interest in where and how they are living.”
The host of YouTube’s “Kinsey Schofield Unfiltered” adds, “You cannot deliberately feed that machine and then act astonished or outraged when people want to know more.”
The royal commentator also points out that Markle has spoken out publicly about the dangers of social media when it comes to children, but continues to show Lilibet and Archie on her Instagram.
“Archie and Lili are too young to meaningfully consent to having their voices, activities, and private family moments broadcast to millions of strangers,” she says. “Hiding their faces does not suddenly eliminate the attention it generates around them.”
Schoefield specifically calls out Harry’s role in his wife’s social media moves.
“He has spent years describing the damage he believes media attention caused him as a child, yet he is now participating in packaging portions of his own children’s childhood for public consumption,” she says.
“You cannot spend years telling the world that unwanted attention traumatized you and then actively manufacture public interest in the private lives of your own children,” she continues.
Royal commentator Tom Sykes shares a similar sentiment to Page Six, expressing that he felt the video was meant to “sell a narrative of glossy family perfection,” and finds the children’s inclusion in it “jarring.”
“Especially when you look at Harry‘s comments in a 2017 video which he recorded for the Heads Together charity in which he said said that one of the big problems with social media was that people portrayed a perfect life and then you can feel inadequate when you look at their fake portrayal of their perfect life,” he tells us.
“Even Harry was able to understand this in 2017 how damaging and fake this kind of performative video is and yet now he is doing the very same thing himself,” he continues.
In Markle’s Instagram video Friday, she shared footage of her and Harry holding hands while on a walk, and also showed Lilibet riding her bike alongside Archie running beside her.
She later showed one of her children putting their feet in front of a cozy fire, but was careful not to show her kids’ faces.
The former “Suits” star previously voiced her privacy concerns about Lilibet and Archie in a 2022 interview with the Cut, specifically, paparazzi potentially taking pics of them while she picks and drops them off if they were to attend school in the UK.
“Sorry, I have a problem with that,” she said at the time. “That doesn’t make me obsessed with privacy. That makes me a strong and good parent protecting my child.”
The couple have since enrolled their children in a ritzy $35,000-a-year prep school.
Schofield told Page Six earlier this month that local parents have already been warned about new strict rules surrounding the young royals.
“The message sent to families essentially said that, from time to time, some families joining the school may attract a greater level of public or media interest,” Schofield said.
She also shared, “It then reminded parents and carers not to photograph or film other children without permission, or share photographs, information or details about pupils or their families on social media.”
Earlier this month, Harry’s father, King Charles, made it clear in a latter that his son and daughter-in-law were still not working royals, despite moving back to the UK. The couple stepped back as senior members of the royal family in January 2020, and moved to Montecito, California.
The letter said Harry, 41, and Markle, 45, cannot use their titles of His and Her Royal Highness and are “private citizens with commercial and charitable interests,” a top palace official told the BBC.
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