Sad truth in Prince Archie’s new sixth birthday photo

As Meghan and Harry’s son Archie celebrates his sixth birthday, there is a sad truth hidden behind this simple Instagram snap.

Well, the backs have it. Symbolism and butter yellow and rapper Doechii are in and for Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex, so are backs.

She launched her Instagram account with her own one, her back to the camera as she trotted around a windswept beach and since then we have been treated to the sunshiney outdoors backs, on-the-patio backs, gardening backs and flowering-picking backs of herself and her family.

Now in the space of a few days she has shared two new pictures to express her marrow-deep love for her family - of backs - and which are nothing short of a bit devastating.

First came an artsy image of Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex with the Sussexes’ kids walking away, the symbolism of which was about as subtle as a fondue fork to the eye after the duke’s BBC eruption last week, veering between sad sack and sour puss, in which he really let his family and Buckingham Palace have it.

Gettit? He was strolling off into the Californian sunset so to speak.

Subtle.

She shared this image of Archie in honour of his sixth birthday. Picture: Instagram / @meghan

Then on Tuesday Meghan was back at her back-fluencing with her sharing an image of son Prince Archie looking out over the sea to mark his sixth birthday.

It’s sweet, of course, the caption, adorable (“Our son. Our sun.”) but it’s also undeniably tragic.

Archie might have everything a lad could want - adoring parents, a seven-acre estate with 16 loos and all the bodyguards in the world to give him giddy-up horsie rides around his mum’s kale patch - but he is also growing up at a complete remove from half of his family.

King Charles has not seen his youngest grandson since 2022 and has only met his sister Princess Lilibet, three, once.

Once.

The door on any slim chance of that changing any time soon has now been slammed resolutely shut.

On Friday last week Harry gave an extraordinary 20-minute interview to the BBC in which he said his father “won’t speak to me” and that he doesn’t “know how much longer” the King has as he is continuing to be treated for cancer.

Archie had a lot of family around him after he was born in 2019. Picture: Sussex Royal / Instagram

He also said he “can’t see a world” in which he brings his family back to the UK after losing his High Court battle over his official security and that the 2020 decision made by the Metropolitan Police to withdraw his taxpayer funded protection “knowingly [put] me and my family in harm’s way.”

The duke’s splenetic venting might have felt good, or at least I hope it did, because back in London resolve and backs were only stiffening.

The Telegraph has reported that, according to palace insiders, Harry’s outburst will only “cement the palace’s resolve that he cannot be trusted to keep anything private.”

Harry has, per a palace source, “just proven why, yet again” there can be “no contact” between the King and his son.

Meghan shares some family updates to her social media. Picture: Instagram / @meghan

The upshot of which is that any hope of Archie and Lili ever getting to spend a jolly, wellie-wearing weekend tumbling around Grandpa Charles’ 5,000 yew tree Sandringham topiary or getting their favourite organic cashew butter on Queen Camilla’s second favourite drinks trolley has now shrunk to micronically zero.

If this isn’t all glum enough, consider the Sussexes’ Wales cousins.

It is not known how often Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis have met Archie but it certainly would not have been since 2019.

They have never met, as far as is known, Lili.

Charlotte and Lili are the only such ‘blood princesses’ of their generation and the only chance of them ever coming face-to-face is if they accidentally bump into each other ascending the staircase at 2042 the Met Gala.

(Anna Wintour will still be presiding over it all from Chanel’s first and only designed cryogenic chamber.)

Archie has not seen his cousins for a very long time. Picture: Supplied

The inheritance that Archie, Lili, George, Charlotte and Louis will share is they will all grow up having zero relationship with each other and only knowing what the others look like thanks to Insta and the Daily Mail’s sidebar of shame.

Step back and think about this week’s Archie birthday photo versus the very first images of him the world ever saw, showing him with the late Queen and Prince Philip in an image captured in the very tweedy bosom of the royal family, Windsor Castle.

Now, the only chance of Archie returning to the 1,000-year-old castle is if one day he is willing to fork out the 20 quid tourist ticket price and bear joining the ambling tide of gum-chewing tourists gawping at all the Van Dyks.

The new image of six-year-old Archie makes for some glumsville viewing.

Harry and Meghan with Archie after he was born. Picture: Dominic Lipinski / POOL / AFP

It’s testament to the fact that somehow things irreparably and achingly fell apart for the Sussexes and the royal family in less time than it takes for a Dundee cake to reach its use-by date.

Harry has not seen his father since February 2024 and it’s nearly impossible to imagine when or how they might change.

And Archie and Lili ever being getting to dig into the sugary, gluteny joys of a Dundee cake?

Truly unthinkable.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

Originally published as Sad truth in Prince Archie’s new sixth birthday photo