Truth behind Meghan Markle’s ‘snub’ in Prince Harry’s birthday message from royals

Prince Harry’s 40th birthday sparked shock public messages from his estranged royal relatives.

Both the social media accounts of King Charles and the Prince and Princess of Wales marked the Duke of Sussexes’ milestone birthday with a message on both X and Instagram. The official royal account went first and posted a striking image of a beaming Harry with the message: “Wishing The Duke of Sussex a very happy 40th birthday today!”

Minutes later the same post was shared on William and Kate’s account with the message: “Wishing a Happy 40th Birthday to The Duke of Sussex!” The snap used in both posts shows Harry smiling during an engagement when he was a working royal on a trip he and wife Meghan Markle made to Ireland in 2018.

It was taken at the Dogpatch Labs start-up in Dublin in July of that year and online sleuths claimed the birthday posts made a dig at Meghan by cropping her out of the post. That’s because there is a wider shot of the image, which shows Harry sitting at a table with his wife along with other guests.

However, it seems that there are in fact two versions of the picture available – the wider shot and one that has already been pre-cropped by the photographer, which just features Harry and is available for use through picture agencies, such as Getty Images.

Getty Images confirmed to the Mirror that the photo is a pool image collected from a non-Getty Images photographer – but added that it is “standard practice to crop images to get singles, as has been done here”. Therefore it is likely the Royal Family official accounts did not crop Meghan out of the image themselves – and rather they chose the available single pre-cropped image of Harry to use in the post, given he was the one celebrating his 40th birthday.

It comes as Harry, who lives in California after stepping down from the working monarchy, is believed to have spent his birthday on Sunday with Meghan and their children Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet. He is then said to have headed away for a gathering with close friends.