‘Breathtaking hypocrisy’: Meghan Markle accused of sharing ‘tone deaf’ image of Lilibet – hours before giving a speech warning of dangers of social media
Meghan Markle was criticised today for sharing an Instagram image of Lilibet sitting at her feet in a wardrobe packed with designer fashion before leaving for Geneva to warn of the dangers of social media for children.
Royal expert Tom Sykes, who was in Switzerland for her speech outside the United Nations, has claimed: ‘The hypocrisy is breathtaking. It is a boastful image. It is a vain image. It is a staggeringly tone-deaf image.’
The Duchess of Sussex said in her ‘no child lost to social media’ speech at a World Health Organisation (WHO) event on Sunday that children’s safety online is a ‘public health issue’.
‘Our children are not products, they are not experiments and not expendable,’ she said as she advocated for stronger global protections for children online.
Slamming the social media firms ‘shaping our children’s lives’, she said: ‘The platforms value profit over people.’
After her ten-minute speech, she then hugged grieving parents who have lost their children to online harm in front of 50 illuminated light boxes, remembering each of them ahead of the 79th World Health Assembly.
But the night before, Meghan shared a mirror selfie of herself and her four-year-old daughter to her 4.5 million followers on Instagram, with the caption: ‘Mama’s little helper.’
‘Just hours before this vital event, Meghan chose to post a photograph of herself smirking as her four-year-old daughter, Lilibet, watched her try on outfits,’ Tom Sykes claimed in his Substack, The Royalist.
‘Yes, a woman who is about to stand alongside the world’s most senior public health official and discuss the measurable, preventable harms of exposing children to social media has just exposed her own child to social media.’
He added: ‘The Geneva speech is the rhetoric. The closet photograph is the reality.’
Meghan on Saturday shared a photo showing her daughter Lilibet helping her pick an outfit for the UN event in an Instagram post with the caption: ‘Mama’s little helper’
Hours later, the Duchess of Sussex spoke on online harms in Place des Nations in Geneva
She embraced attendees at a memorial for children who died after viewing harmful content on social media
He claimed the Lilibet ‘Mama’s little helper’ photo contained outfits worth at least $250,000, with an Armani coat ‘prominently’ in the foreground of the mirror shot with ‘the label clearly visible’.
He added: ‘Her Instagram account is a public-facing shop window: it is the funnel that drives traffic to her lifestyle brand, As Ever, to her Netflix content, to her podcast.
‘The argument that Meghan does not show Lilibet’s face, and therefore protects her privacy, has become absurd. Not showing a child’s face does not prevent that child from becoming a social media star. If anything, it manufactures a curiosity gap.’
The Duchess of Sussex’s spokesman has been asked to comment
Meanwhile, Meghan’s supporters have praised her speech on the dangers of online bullying, calling her words so ‘powerful’ they moved parents watching it to tears.
One woman sobbed as she embraced the duchess.
Her fans also dismissed photographs from the UN’s European headquarters, including one where only one member of the public appeared to be watching.
Other photos showed around a dozen people at security railings, before her speech began.
A supporter said: ‘Meghan does not need a crowd to be heard! She is a global icon.’
Another Twitter user wrote under the images: ‘She doesn’t need anyone to show up. This story of her in Geneva is being told around the world.’
A third wrote: ‘Her speech! Meghan is an orator! Omg! So good. I really hope this gets traction. We owe it to our communities to keep children safe online.’
One person in the square said that there were around 60 to 70 invited guests for the speech, plus around 50 members of the public.
‘It was not embarrassing, but it was not, by any reasonable measure, a throng,’ they said.
Some shared this image of Meghan waiting to speak in front of a sparse crowd next to chief of the WHO, Adhanom Ghebreyesus
Yesterday, Meghan embraced grieving parents who lost their children to online harm ahead of the World Health Organisation assembly in Switzerland.
The Duchess of Sussex attended the opening of a memorial to the children, partly funded by the charitable organisation she runs with her husband, Prince Harry.
In a speech alongside the chief of the WHO, Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Meghan, 44, urged global health leaders to take steps to improve safety for children online.
She then mingled with members of the crowd, which included bereaved families, with photos showing her hugging several visibly emotional attendees.
Meghan also posed for selfies with fans and accepted gifts from children who had been watching.
The ceremony marked the opening of the Lost Screen Memorial and ran ahead of the 79th annual WHO assembly.
The installation features a poignant tribute to 50 children who died as a result of digital harm.
They have been remembered through illuminated light boxes, with each showing the mobile phone lock screen of one of the children.
Meghan insisted that children’s safety online must be framed as a ‘public health issue’ during her address to the crowd, which she later posted to Instagram in a video.
Referring to the screens behind her, displaying the lock screens, Meghan said: ‘Not statistics, not avatars, not data points, children.
‘Each name belonged to a child who was loved beyond measure. A child whose laughter once filled a kitchen, whose shoes once waited by a front door, whose future once felt limitless.
‘And now their faces ask the world questions we can no longer avoid.’
She said: ‘Children today are being shaped by systems designed to capture attention at any cost: relentless algorithms, exploitative engagement, and endless exposure to harmful content that they are not seeking out.’
Meghan said new technologies, such as AI, are ‘not just repeating past mistakes’, but ‘accelerating and amplifying’ them, adding danger now travels globally.
She said: ‘We are seeing new forms of harm emerge faster than our systems are prepared to respond, affecting children at an alarming scale and across borders.
‘But these outcomes are not inevitable, and prevention begins with one simple principle: children must be safe by design, not safe by chance.
‘Because danger now travels globally – instantly, invisibly, intimately. And our protections must do the same.’
The duchess strode out wearing an all-black suit, including a jacket that appeared in the mirror selfie featuring Lilibet posted on Saturday
Some members of the crowd, which included bereaved families, were visibly emotional during their meetings with Meghan
She called on attendees to ‘speak up’ and ‘demand better from the platforms shaping our children’s lives’.
Listening to the duchess’s speech was online safety campaigner Amy Neville, whose 14-year-old son, Alexander, is among the children featured in the memorial’s exhibition.
Meghan said the voice of Ms Neville, and the voices of ‘so many’ others, ‘remind us what is at stake’.
She added that, during an ‘increasingly polarised time’, adults must ‘all universally agree on one thing: we want our children to be safe’.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have both advocated for stronger protections for children online, including backing a social media ban for under-16s brought in in Australia.
In April last year, the couple unveiled a memorial in New York City to young people who lost their lives due to the harmful effects of social media and met families who believe social media played a part in the deaths of their youngsters.
Some five months later, Harry warned that the impact of social media on children is ‘one of the most pressing issues of our time’, as he spoke at a gala in New York.
At the same event, Meghan said she and her husband often discussed how they would protect their own children, seven-year-old Archie and Lilibet, four, as they grow older.
In preparation for the event, Meghan enlisted her daughter Lilibet to help her select an outfit.
The duchess on Saturday shared a mirror selfie of herself and her four-year-old on Instagram, with the caption: ‘Mama’s little helper.’
Meghan was wearing an all-pink outfit featuring a statement overcoat, with the Princess sitting at her feet in a red dress.
Hanging on the wardrobe was a black suit jacket, which appears to be the one she ultimately chose to wear in Geneva.
Meghan’s office confirmed on Friday she would be attending the ceremony to ‘pay tribute to the children remembered in the installation and underscore the urgent need for stronger global protections for children online.’
