Kate Middleton wowing at Eurovision shows up Meghan Markle

Two new photos of Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton have emerged – and there’s a stark difference between how they were received.

COMMENT

It’s been a month of firsts – King Charles being dribbled with holy oil, Penny Mordaunt embracing her chance to do some Britannia cosplay (10 to one she asked to keep the sword) and Queen Camilla becoming the only crowned woman in history to have a special pocket sewn into her gown for her hip flask (we’re guessing).

Heaven forbid anyone thinks that Kate, the Princess of Wales was not in the game, because over the weekend she became the first HRH to appear as part of the Eurovision song contest.

On Saturday night, Kate gave the roughly 160 million viewers of the competition – including Volodymyr Zelensky watching from his Kyiv bunker – a surprise when she popped up during the broadcast in a video showing her playing the piano, dressed in a blue Jenny Packham gown to show her support for Ukraine.

She and husband Prince William’s social media accounts were soon humming with activity, most notably including a behind-the-scenes video of the shoot inside Windsor Castle’s Crimson Drawing Room.

However, intriguingly someone else with an HRH (albeit a mothballed one) also turned up on social media over the weekend – none other than the former hashtag imperator herself, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex.

While Meghan’s personal return to the platform has been much speculated on but yet to come to fruition, it was instead former model and co-founder of LA philanthropic group Alliance of Moms Kelly McKee Zajfen who shared the new image.

Ms McKee Zajfen commented under the image, which was posted on both her and the organisation’s accounts: “As Mother’s Day approaches, I can’t help but think of my own #commUNITY of Motherhood. I instantly think of you Meg. How incredibly nurturing and warm and open you are. What an incredible friend and mother. I’m truly in awe of you and I am so grateful you are part of my #CommUNITYofmotherhood.”

So, Kate and Meghan, two royal wives, both alike in dignity in fair Instagram where we lay our scene. But from ancient grudge break new social media mutiny. (My Shakespeare is handy when you’re writing about the royal family.)

But right now, only one of these two women seems to be thriving, kicking goals, riding high and various other idioms. Only one of them has seen their image and brand go from strength to strength while the other is reported to be on the cusp of a relaunch after a decidedly dud six months and waning public approval.

Want to guess which is which?

Exactly.

Kate Middleton’s star is very high right now. Picture: Instagram

Don’t just take my word for it, you only have to look at the numbers. The Kate post has been liked more than 585,000 times while the one from Ms McKee Zajfen has just 100.

Maybe there is a question of visibility here given the two accounts have 14.9 million compared with 64,500 followers, but c’mon. Imagine if this had happened in 2020. The newly exfiltrated Duchess of Sussex popping on Instagram would have been such a big story CNN would nearly have broken into its live coverage.

A new Meghan shot, especially one of her showing her support for this sort of good cause, would have been on every news site. Every detail would have been dissected like satellite imagery of tank deployments or a newly discovered copy of the Old Testament.

Instead the Meghan picture has made only a very minor ripple.

In just three years, the Duchess and her husband Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex have gone from being people who could probably get US President Joe Biden on the phone such was their global standing to being LA paparazzi fodder with their recent sushi date night ending up on TMZ.

Harry and Meghan’s pulling power isn’t what it was. Picture: Eddie Mulholland/WPA Pool/Getty Images

These two shots of Kate and Meghan perfectly sum up exactly where they are right now, like a sort of visual temperature check.

On one hand we have Kate who would appear to have well and truly decided to, Sheryl Sandberg-esque, lean into princess-ing with gusto. The hair! The gown! The choice of a sumptuous, over-the-top Windsor Castle room! The whole thing looked like a Hollywood set designer had been given the brief ‘princess’ and carte blanche in terms of budget.

She looked not only the business but like it was always her destiny to end up on the fast track to Queendom.

And Meghan looks like a cool LA ‘mama’ who has distinct opinions on Egyptian cotton sheets and the best crystal stockists and whose MBA is languishing, forgotten, in a bottom drawer. Really I suppose what I’m driving at is that it’s something of a portrait of squandered potential.

When Meghan and Harry fled royal life in the months before the pandemic started and we began sanitising individual grapes and leaving sourdough starter everywhere, it looked like the world was the Sussexes’ for the taking. Money. Power. Fame on a level not seen since the days of Diana, Princess of Wales. Co-hosting the Met Gala, presenting an Oscar, having weekend huevos rancheros with Jeff Bezos and Hillary Clinton.

It all looked like it was laid out on a platter for the Duke and Duchess.

Meanwhile, back in grey London, Kate and future supertunica-wearer Prince William looked like they were going to be eclipsed. In contrast to the Sussexes, they looked fuddy-duddy, rule-following, bound by the expectations of monarchy and Princess Anne’s death stare.

More importantly, they often seemed dull as tepid dishwater, two people who could make conversation about the weather to an Olympic level and who seemed to have the spark and dazzle of a microwaved train station sausage roll.

When Harry and Meghan left the royal family they were the glitz and glamour. Picture: Paul Grover/WPA Pool/Getty Images

The Sussexes were their diametric, thrilling opposite, all oomph and brilliance and the sort of audacious storyline that would have Hollywood begging on its knees.

It’s head-spinning how much has changed since those first weeks of 2020; to what degree that seemingly reasonable assessment of the Wales and Sussex fortunes has been totally and utterly dumped on its head.

Kate has proven to have more pluck than anyone had formerly thought and revealed a hitherto carefully hidden rebel streak, having launched her bid to remake a fundamental part of UK society and admirably discovering this great thing called fashion.

Meanwhile, over in California the Sussexes’ star has spluttered and fallen like a bust of a Space X launch. The majority of their commercial output has been them reheating their royal escape story and as of April YouGov polling had Harry being liked by 46 per cent and disliked by 26 per cent. For Meghan, the numbers were 36 per cent favourable and 24 per cent unfavourable.

Meghan and Kate’s lives are now worlds apart. Picture: Clive Mason/Getty Images

Despite having agents, lawyers, mega-deals and Oprah, Netflix and Spotify on speed dial, somehow the Duke and Duchess have managed to transmogrify themselves into cultural and political irrelevancy.

Their decision to spend the last few years litigating and re-litigating their case against the monarchy with the occasional charity interlude has left them in something of a gloomy position akin to post-divorce NFL wife territory, their stock dropping with them having dished on the gory, juicy details of how it all went so wrong.

The Sussex star is very much on the blink.

I understand entirely why the Sussexes wanted out – I personally think being trapped in royal life would be a constricting, suffocating experience – but they have not ended up anywhere near where anyone had thought they would today.

In 2023, they don’t carry weight as public voices in the way they once did.

There is a ‘but’ here. This week Meghan, and possibly Harry, will fly to New York where the Duchess will receive an award from the Ms Foundation and on Friday they will mark their five-year wedding anniversary. If ever there was a perfect moment for a rebrand, this is it. And would such a manoeuvre pull them out of their current US nosedive?

Lastly, how long until we see Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis being dragged into some sort of Eurovision video? Kensington Palace looks dangerously like it is truly hooked on the narcotic of hashtags and likes. Heaven help us all and the algorithm.

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