Meghan is posting Lilibet and Archie online — but what does Harry think?

“Our dream girl” reads the caption over the little girl with auburn hair, perched in her father’s arms, back to the camera. Princess Lilibet and her brother, Prince Archie, might once have been off-limits on the Duchess of Sussex’s social media feeds – but now, they are an integral part of brand Sussex.

Since Meghan reactivated her Instagram account last January, around a quarter of her posts either mention or feature her children, according to analysis from Sky News Australia – often in relation to or in proximity to products she is trying to shift, or speaking engagements she is to attend.

Last month, on Archie’s seventh birthday, Meghan posted a photo of her son – unusually, with his face visible – as a baby asleep on Prince Harry’s chest. This week, for Lilibet’s fifth birthday, she has shared two new images, with her face covered by her hair.

With the Duchess recently releasing a range of candles through her lifestyle company, As ever, starting at $64 (£48) with one collection costing $256 (£190), many are now expecting more artfully curated photos of the family to appear. In one post last year, an off-camera Lilibet had a speaking cameo in one of Meghan’s videos, describing As ever’s jam as “delicious”.

Some observers argue that the change of direction contradicts the Sussexes’ position on privacy and campaigning for better protections for children on social media.

“You can’t ask for privacy for your children and then feature them on social media,” says Katie Nicholl, co-host of the Royals Uncensored. “I think that’s problematic, and opens you up to all sorts of accusations of hypocrisy.” She notes that a post last month featuring Lilibet, captioned “Mama’s little helper”, came just before she spoke at a memorial in Geneva dedicated to children who have died from digital harm. That image in particular “seems completely extraordinary and very tone deaf to me.”

A spokesperson for the Duchess recently told Newsweek: “The Duchess has always been clear that there is a distinction between sharing moments from her life and exposing her children to public scrutiny. By obscuring their faces, she is demonstrating the very principle she advocates for: giving children privacy, agency and protection in an increasingly digital world.

“Far from being contradictory, by concealing their faces she is actually reflecting the message she delivered in Geneva: that parents can choose to share family experiences while still taking deliberate steps to protect identities, privacy, and digital footprint.”

The success of As ever could not be more crucial, given that last year, the Sussexes reached the end of their deal with Netflix following two series of With Love, Meghan (which failed to make it into the streaming giant’s top 300 shows in the first half of 2025). As such, we’re seeing a “gentle but pronounced shift in their approach to their public profile,” believes Robert Hardman, author of Elizabeth II: In Private. In Public. The Inside Story. “They’re going from defensive to proactive as they try to find a new commercial modus operandi. If you’re going to promote products on the back of yourself, you’re going to have to pull the curtain back a bit.”

The question of pulling the curtain back has been a tortured one, especially for Harry (who has made explosive revelations about his life and family in his memoir and media interviews). The Sussexes have repeatedly spoken of the importance of safeguarding their family’s privacy, something the fifth-in-line to the throne reiterated in April at (where else?) the International Association of Privacy Professionals. He told the summit that he had been denied privacy “from birth”, going on to reference the seven years of litigation he has been embroiled in with UK media outlets, who he says are responsible for “systemic and unlawful invasions of privacy”.

Such comments might be at odds with his wife’s social media activity, Nicholl argues. “You’ve got a couple who claim that they can’t come to the UK without police protection because Harry feels his family wouldn’t be safe; a couple who campaign and lobby on the very matter of children and social media. And yet you’ve got Meghan putting her children on social media. It’s a contradiction.”

The Duchess may well have been guided by the marketability of the Waleses, whose social media feeds are sprinkled with their three children – and liked and commented on in the millions. Their wholesome snaps (Princess Charlotte hugging her dogs on her 11th birthday; the family clasping hands to mark the Waleses’ 15th wedding anniversary) symbolise a modern-day take on the much-loved royal family photo tradition dating back almost two centuries, to Queen Victoria. Daguerreotypes of the monarch with Prince Albert and their children were the first to capture the royal family on film; now, every birth comes with its own photoshoot.

That was, until the Sussexes. The world learned of Archie’s birth eight hours after the fact (such announcements are typically made during labour; Hardman calls photographers gathered on maternity department steps “the punctuation marks of history”). Neither Archie nor Lilibet had the customary birth shoot. “I can’t think of a previous child in the top ten in line to the throne who has never actually been seen by the world since the dawn of photography in the Victorian age,” says Hardman.

As such, speculation over the children’s appearance has been so frenzied that AI fakes abound. “They’re still effectively trading as royals, [so] the public have an expectation of seeing royals,” Hardman thinks. “If they can only half see royals, they feel somehow that they either don’t understand them, or they feel let down.”

Now, the children’s lives and images are slowly being shared more publicly. “I suspect that Harry is less comfortable with this, knowing that he has gone to great lengths to protect the identity of his children and to shield them from the media,” says Nicholl.

“They need to tread very carefully,” she adds. “Harry probably is more wary about this than Meghan. But she has a business to grow; she has to prove herself as an entrepreneur. And it seems if that involves using the children, she’s willing to do that.”