‘Why, why, why?’: Clip reveals bizarre Meghan Markle moment
The Duchess of Sussex has just shared a rare Instagram post – and it’s truly one that you have to see to believe.
Royals
Don't miss out on the headlines from Royals. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why.
I know my job is to have cogent thoughts about the royal family and then make bad puns about Princess Anne’s hair, but Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex’s new Instagram post is beyond me.
I’ve watched it multiple times and all I can really offer is a long, plaintive WHYYYYYY.
How to digest and make sense of something that is simultaneously so very clearly well meant and yet so odd and so toe-curling?
MORE:Neighbours unleash on ‘villain’ Meghan
Specifically, on Thursday, Meghan released a video via Instagram that is unlike anything – anything – we have ever seen from her before. It was, I think we can assume, meant to be touching and inspiring, a tribute to the goodness of humanity and a testament to the rallying power of Angelenos after the devastating Los Angeles fires.
However, the end result is a cringe-worthy round of name-dropping and squeaks and breathless “oh my gods” and her grabbing her forehead like she’s just won Powerball.
As Meghan explains to the camera, she recently met a 15-year-old who had returned to the ashes of what was her home with the one desperate wish of retrieving a Billie Eilish T-shirt she had left behind in the laundry. It was, of course, gone – along with everything else.
The emotional duchess goes on, “And so I said, ‘I don’t know Billie Eilish, but I’m gonna figure out how to get you this shirt’.”
“So I thought of everybody that I knew, and I made a voice note. And I was like, ‘Please, can someone get this voice note to Billie Eilish? Here’s what I’m asking’.”
Clearly it worked.
MORE:‘Fake’: New Meghan Markle lie exposed
In the video, the duchess then giddily shows off a stack of merchandise, including T-shirts and a lunch box that I would have assumed was better suited to a kindergartener still on individually-sliced grapes. I think I’ve seen religious converts less overwrought.
Meghan ecstatically exclaims, “Huge thank you, Billie Eilish, this is going to mean so much to her, and honestly, to Adam Levine and Behati, you guys helped me get this over the line”.
What I can’t quite fathom is, why did the Duchess of Sussex decide to put this out into the world?
Yes, it’s a touching tale, a banding together of big-hearted celebs willing to take a break from their adaptogen smoothies to help a young woman who has just lost everything. But we’re talking about … a few T-shirts. Did it really warrant such an excessive reaction and a whole Instagram video?
Yes, it’s a very, very sweet thing Meghan has just done, but for comparison’s sake, the same day that she released this video it was reported that this week’s FireAid concert, at which Eilish performed, raised $159 million for relief efforts.
When Harry thoughtfully tracked down a doughnut for a fire evacuee while volunteering last month, no one put out a press release.
Why has Meghan just taken such a massive risk here? Last month, she and Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex were labelled “disaster tourists” for visiting the literal ashes of people’s former lives, so did anyone think that her using anything even tangentially related to the fires for content purposes was a swell idea?
If Meghan’s post was meant to serve as a corrective, if it was meant to flip the Sussexes’ image after that fiasco, then buh bow.
The video has instead only opened the duchess up to criticism of using the disaster for her own PR purposes. (And why post the video before the girl got her haul? It’s hardly going to be a surprise now).
Name-dropping Maroon Five’s Levine and his Victoria’s Secret wife Behati Prinsloo was never going to win the duchess points either.
And why has Meghan’s Instagram account just veered from the polished and the shiny towards a makeup-free collection of TikTok-y quick-cuts?
The reception to the video, numbers-wise, has been tepid.
At the time of writing, nearly 24 hours after this video was posted, the duchess’ @Meghan account had 1.6 million followers – only 200,000 more than she had after her previous post, a video tribute after her beloved beagle Guy died, from early January.
Only about half the number (five million) of people have watched the T-shirt video as her debut January 1 video (10.6 million) and the With Love, Meghan trailer (9.6 million) got.
Moreover, is this where Harry and Meghan are now? Tracking down T-shirts to make a teenager’s year is lovely stuff, but it’s a far cry from the scale of do-goodery that Harry and Meghan used to be capable of.
In 2021 they were named as part of TIME’s 100 most influential people issue (remember that abomination of a Photoshopped cover of them?) with the World Central Kitchen founder José Andrés writing of them “They don’t just opine. They run toward the struggle”.
That same year, 2021, Harry made his first major US public appearance at Global Citizen’s Vax Live concert in Los Angeles which helped “mobilise” $480 million and the couple were headline acts at another vaccine fundraising concert in New York that September.
That’s a helluva long way from sourcing a stack of popstar merch.
Today, the Sussexes are still valiantly “running towards the struggle”, only the early promise of their philanthropic careers being globetrotting, trailblazing ones has fizzled.
To be fair, Harry and Meghan have been doing plenty of other things to help out after the fires. The duke turned up to thank firefighters and the duchess has been doing her bit for the Altadena Teen Girls Fire Recovery group
Prince Harry stopped & thanked South Dakota firefighters in S. Cal. Monday asking q's & chatting--no media in sight. He also talked with CalFire personnel. SDWF and 3 VFD’s (Whispering Pines, Black Hawk, and Fairburn) are part of a task force assisting with wildfires in S. Cal. pic.twitter.com/6GmsVEnjzM
— SD Wildland Fire (SDWF) (@SDWildlandFire) January 23, 2025
In both cases it was the volunteers moved by the Sussexes’ support who made their involvement public.
Also, in January, their Archewell Foundation “made donations to several impactful organisations, providing immediate support to those affected by the fires”, according to their website, promising “we will continue to uplift and support those most in need”.
At least we know that somewhere in California today, there is one teenage girl who, having lost her home and her every belonging, is about to have her day made. That, and there’s a swell lunch box coming her way.
Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles
Originally published as ‘Why, why, why?’: Clip reveals bizarre Meghan Markle moment
Fans spot personal detail in Meghan video
Eagle-eyed fans have spotted a rare personal detail in Meghan’s latest social media video.
Queen Mary stuns in new portrait
The Australian-born Danish royal looks beautiful in a new portrait released to mark her 53rd birthday. See the image.