‘Unprecedented’ Meghan message in Princess Kate’s 43rd birthday post
Prince William has shared a highly unusual post to celebrate his wife’s birthday which contains a painful truth for the Duchess of Sussex.
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But was it a sponge cake? That’s my question.
To celebrate Kate, the Princess of Wales’ 43rd birthday, did she get, say, three perfect light-as-air layers wedged with thickly whipped cream and hand-harvested raspberries?
By which I mean, exactly the sort of gateau-y goodness that her sister-in-law Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex has been making for Netflix’s cameras as she whips up a new career for herself with her cooking show, With Love, Meghan.
(What else would a duchess famous for having fled the claustrophobic confines of the most British of institutions bake, but a very English sponge cake?)
MORE:‘Fake’: New Meghan Markle lie exposed
But more than just all that lovely sugar and butter unites these two women today, with the extraordinary post shared by Prince William to celebrate his wife once more drawing the duchess into the thick of things.
While the details of Kate’s exact birthday cake go woefully unreported, what can be said is that never before has coverage of her day so exhaustively featured the word “unprecedented”.
That’s because the Prince of Wales, rather than choosing some relatively unremarkable shot of the princess, chose to bestow upon us a new, unusual black and white image of his very casually-dressed wife, accompanying it with a nearly Hallmark-worthy, highly personal message.
In the post, the prince hailed the princess, writing “To the most incredible wife and mother. The strength you’ve shown over the last year has been remarkable. George, Charlotte, Louis and I are so proud of you … We love you. W”
For most human beings, a husband declaring his love for his wife on social media would be wholly unremarkable – but when has anything to do with Crown Inc even remotely verged on the normal?
In the royal context, William’s post is close to Old Faithful levels of gushing.
And there is only one person that the Waleses have to thank for their tilt towards the perma-emoting, none other than sponge-cake-maker-in-chief, Meghan.
It was the duchess, with her instinctive grasp of social media, who was the real revolutionary force behind the obvious shift in Kensington Palace’s communications strategy, away from the rictus and towards the real.
While the royal family had long had accounts on the major social media platforms, it was only after the former Suits star breezed into London in 2017 with her yoga mat and oddball notions about expressing these things called feelings online that the Waleses’ posed, rigid portraits of yore began to be phased out for far more candid shots and personal messages.
The success of @SussexRoyal in 2019, which racked up 4.3 million followers in less than its first week (ultimately, it would grow to 9 million), paved the way, with things like a shot of her newborn son Prince Archie’s tiny feet pioneering a new path, and Meghan like the Marco Polo of Meta Inc.
It was not long before the rest of Crown Inc cottoned onto how powerful and successful this sort of content could be and today, not only the prince and princess’ but King Charles’ Buckingham Palace X and Instagram accounts bear the fingerprints of the duchess’ style.
Somehow, I don’t think they have yet gotten around to writing her a thank you card.
And another thing – Kate’s birthday post also officially constitutes the death knell being loudly rung for Meghan’s former nemesis, the tyranny of the British stiff upper lip.
Over the last 12 months, the Waleses’ have released – by a factor of light years – the most intimate and expressive social media content of their lives, including Kate’s video announcing she had cancer, her June statement about having “good days and bad days” and the three-minute professionally-shot, dusty-hued home movie to let the world know she was cancer-free.
(Let us pause here and give due consideration to whomever is responsible for finding the money in the Kensington Palace budget for these high-gloss outings).
In the last year, the princess has openly talked about fear, love, gratitude and healing, words and concepts that if, at any other time, you stumbled across in a royal update you would assume their accounts had been hacked by a pilates instructor from Palm Beach.
Not so long ago, the prospect of the Princess of Wales so openly pondering her own mortality and inner emotional landscape would have been positively ridiculous, with the expectation that a senior member of the royal family with cancer would only ever exude stoicism and not give in to such horribly Continental displays of feelings.
Clearly, the days of painfully suppressing the personal and keeping things unhealthily bottled up are officially long gone. In 2025, Palace public vulnerability is the name of the newly revised game.
With this post, the prince is now the last member of the Wales family to put out such a heartstring-tugging first-person message. Last year, the Palace shared a Father’s Day post signed by their three children (“We love you, Papa. Happy Father’s Day G, C & L”), and then a week later, Kate marked William’s birthday with a post that read in part “we all love you so much!” and which was signed with a C and an ‘x’.
There is another interesting detail in the Kate birthday portrait too that cannot go unremarked upon – to cheaply co-opt Diana, Princess of Wales’ famous line, there are three of them in that post – William, Kate and their marriage.
The phrasing of the prince’s message puts the Waleses’ nearly 14-year union at the centre (dare I say, heart?) of things after wild speculation about their relationship virulently spread across social media last year.
In 2024, the accusations the couple faced were not only scurrilous but downright stupid – but that did not stop an untold digital army circulating toxic nonsense about the prince and princess.
Now, we have the prince very loudly praising his “incredible wife” accompanied by a photo that prominently co-stars Kate’s iconic engagement ring.
It’s all very sweet – and distinctly Sussexy – stuff.
The trailer for Meghan’s forthcoming show, out this Wednesday, enthuses “love is in the details”.
Like it or not, William and Kate are clearly following her savvy lead.
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 ‘Unprecedented’ Meghan message in Princess Kate’s 43rd birthday post
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