MEGHAN Markle is hoping to branch out on her own – but she’s very much in need of Prince Harry to stay relevant, says a royal expert.
The Duchess of Sussex yesterday returned to Instagram – six years after deleting her accounts and beloved lifestyle blog The Tig.
She posted for the first time on her @meghan account, uploading a video of herself frolicking at the beach and writing “2025” in the sand, teasing more to come in the New Year.
Royal author Hugo Vickers said there’s clearly a “strategy” and it is playing on the fact both of them have been launching solo ventures of late.
Mr Vickers told The Sun: “The strategy seems to be at the moment that she does the things that she’s good at, and he does the things that he’s good at, and very often these are done separately.”
While Harry is still very much tied to events akin to his time in the Firm, Meghan is more of a “red carpet person”, he suggested.
Mr Vickers said on the one hand, “I guess she probably doesn’t really need him” in that sense to remain in the public eye.
Asked if she seems happier she’s branching out more, the expert said Meghan “looked perfectly happy” in the video.
However, he said the Sussexes “can’t be entirely happy”, adding: “They know how much people criticise them, and they mind about that.
“They read everything available that’s written about them, and they monitor everything.”
And long-term, he believes she certainly needs her ties to Harry and the Royal Family – from which they both stepped down in 2020.
Referring to the handle of Meghan’s new account, he admitted she has certainly built a brand around her own name which is instantly recognisable.
“We certainly know who Meghan is,” he said. “If you ask anybody what the name Meghan meant, we know. We’ve got it in one.”
Mr Vickers compared Meghan in that sense to the late Queen.
“If you said the Queen, you didn’t have to say Queen of Denmark, the Queen of Queen of the Netherlands, or anything like that,” he said.
“It was obviously the Queen, our Queen, because everybody knew her as such all over the world.”
However, in contrast, he said of Meghan: “The reason that we know that, of course, is not because of her career as an actress in Suits and other things – it’s because she married Prince Harry.”
Mr Vickers said it was the Buckingham Palace comms team who forced the duchess to remove her social channels and blog prior to her wedding in 2018.
It was likely an example of the type of control on her life that led to her stepping down as a working royal just two years later.
Mr Vickers said: “When she was over here she didn’t like being controlled.”
He went on to say her social channels were “inappropriate” in the eyes of the Firm “and I guess she didn’t like that, but probably saw that that was what she had to do at the time”.
However, he added, referring to her new Instagram: “Now she can do exactly what she likes.
“The interesting question is: is she, as Meghan, able to go her own path?
“Does she still need the Prince Harry connection? And I suspect the answer is that she does. “I’ve often wondered whether she has a habit of dumping people.
“I’m not suggesting she’s going to – but let’s say she did dump Prince Harry. What would the world think? I think that would be probably treated in a rather negative sort of way.
“So I don’t know. We’ll see what happens.”
The Sun has approached the Sussexes’ representatives for comment.
