Meghan Markle has pulled back the curtain on her and Harry’s royal life before they relocated to Montecito.
The Duchess of Sussex had royal fans dissecting a photo she posted to celebrate Prince Archie’s seventh birthday that showed her and Harry's bedroom at Frogmore Cottage.
The Sussexes moved into the four-bedroom home in Windsor shortly after Prince Archie was born on May 6, 2019.
Highlights
- Meghan Markle shared a photo from Frogmore Cottage to celebrate Prince Archie's 7th birthday, revealing personal royal life details.
- The photo features a £250 Trotters cashmere blanket and a luxury £300 houseplant, sparking discussions among fans.
- Since stepping back as working royals in 2020, Meghan and Harry moved to Montecito and signed a $100M Netflix deal.
Image credits: meghan
Meghan's photograph shows the then-newborn covered with a blanket, sleeping peacefully on his father’s chest, as Harry, dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, gazes sweetly at his son.
“7 years later…happy birthday to our sweet boy 🤍,” she captioned the post.
In the comments, many eagle-eyed observers drew attention to a series of details in the Instagram picture, including a framed photograph of the late Princess Diana, Harry’s mother, placed on a dresser behind the prince.
Image credits: meghan
“Oh sweet Jesus, the Diana obsession is so creepy!” one Redditor wrote, while another referred to Meghan’s estranged father and said, “Wonder how many of her dad she has up.”
A separate critic said, “The box of her hair is supposedly by his bedside, according to Spare. Probably near the pic. Creepy.”
In his 2023 memoir Spare, the Duke revealed that he keeps a box containing Diana’s hair.
Image credits: meghan
He said he believed the memory of his mother, who passed away in a car crash in 1997, brought good luck to his and Meghan’s wish to have children.
Harry recounted in his book that on the day he learned Meghan was pregnant with Archie, he had fallen asleep while his wife was taking two at-home pregnancy tests. When he woke up, Meghan had placed the wands on his nightstand.
“I only kept a few things there, among them the blue box with my mother’s hair,” he penned. “Right, I thought, good. Let’s see what Mummy can do with this situation.”
Image credits: meghan
Meghan also took a piece of her Toronto home from the time she was living in Canada to film Suits. The walls of her former Frogmore Cottage bedroom show a painting by American modern artist Inslee Fariss.
The artwork, which depicts an unclothed woman, was completed for Meghan a few years before she met Harry.
The former actress purchased the painting for £520, according to Hello! magazine.
Image credits: meghan
Some questioned the Duchess for displaying the artwork celebrating the female body at her home.
“She has to be doing this on purpose, right, for the clicks? which mom would put n*de art next to their kid and then post it on social media? it’s not artsy or bohemian to do that it’s just plain nuts,” one critic wrote.
Moreover, many identified the luxury blanket that swaddled Archie in the snap. The cozy cashmere blanket is believed to be from the brand Trotters, with a price tag of £250.
Image credits: gpearsonimages/Flickr
Royal fans were surprised to see the luxury house plant in the Frogmore Cottage bedroom. The houseplant, placed atop the dresser, is reported to be a fiddle leaf fig plant, which has glossy green leaves and can retail for up to £300, per the Daily Mail.
Image credits: meghan
Meanwhile, others claimed that Meghan had edited her husband’s hair, changing the color and making it look fuller.
"Loving that photoshopped picture of Harry. His hair looks nothing like that,” one Redditor said.
"TBF there was more of it remaining seven years ago,” one observer replied, to which the Redditor countered, “Not the right colour or texture though. And it still showed signs of thinning back then.”
"It was never that red color,” agreed someone else, sharing a photo of Harry from 2018. “Here he is in direct sunlight on his wedding day. At best, his hair could be described as orange when it was at its brightest during his teen years.”
Image credits: meghan
To celebrate her son’s seventh birthday, the Duchess also posted a picture of him and his younger sister, Princess Lilibet, playing on a beach with their backs to the camera, hiding their faces from view.
Meghan and Harry stepped back from their roles as working royals in 2020, two years after their wedding, and relocated to Montecito, located in Meghan’s native Southern California.
Since then, King Charles has reportedly only seen his grandson a few times and 4-year-old Lilibet only once in 2022.
Image credits: Netflix
Image credits: meghan
Shortly after moving across the pond, the Sussexes founded Archewell Inc., which includes the couple's non-profit charitable organization as well as the for-profit media production companies Archewell Audio and Archewell Productions.
Image credits: inslee
Additionally, they signed a five-year commercial deal with Netflix for $100 million, which included the sports documentary Heart of Invictus and the lifestyle docuseries Harry & Meghan and With Love, Meghan.
According to a BBC report, the deal with the streaming giant was extended last year, though it’s unclear how many years it’s set to last.
