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Royal Family Wishes Meghan Markle A Happy 40th Birthday

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News Desk

Updated on August 5, 2021

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Despite tensions with the Sussexes, the British royal family turned to social media on Wednesday to wish Meghan Markle a happy 40th birthday.

Queen Elizabeth II took to the royal family’s official social media pages to wish Duchess Meghan a happy birthday. The homage, which was posted on the royal family’s Twitter and Instagram Stories, includes a photo of the duchess and Queen Elizabeth’s 2018 visit to Cheshire, as well as one of Meghan, Prince Harry, and their son, Archie Mountbatten-Windsor, on their 2019 trip of South Africa. The post said, “Wishing The Duchess of Sussex a very Happy Birthday today!”

The @ClarenceHouse Twitter account, which represents Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, tweeted a virtually similar message, “Wishing The Duchess of Sussex a very happy 40th birthday,” along with a balloon emoji and a photo of Markle beaming.

William and Middleton shared a similar statement on Twitter alongside a photo of her sitting down and wearing a lei during Markle’s 2018 trip to Australia, New Zealand, and the South Pacific, .

“Wishing a Happy 40th Birthday to the Duchess of Sussex!” read the message.

Meghan has decided to keep her birthday celebrations low-key this year. According to a source close to the duchess, she intends to spend the day “privately” with Prince Harry and their two children, Archie and Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor, at their home in Montecito, California. The duchess has kept a quiet profile since the birth of her second child, Lili, last June, with both she and Harry taking parental leave.

Meghan wanted to spend her 40th birthday doing good. The Duchess of Sussex is starting her 40×40 initiative, which aims to empower women when they reenter the workforce, through her and Prince Harry’s non-profit organization, Archewell. The duchess requested 40 of her friends, including Adele, Melissa McCarthy, Gloria Steinem, and Amanda Gorman, to mentor a woman in their community for 40 minutes.

The royal family’s relationship with Meghan and Harry has been strained in recent years. This spring, the pair formally stood down as senior members of the royal family, and shortly after, they delivered an explosive tell-all interview to Oprah Winfrey. They accused an unidentified senior member of the royal family in the interview of wondering how “dark” their son, Archie’s, complexion would be before he was born. Harry also chastised his father, Prince Charles, for failing to answer his phone calls.

Harry is working on an explosive memoir on his time as a prince.

After stepping down as senior members of the royal family, Markle and Harry relocated to Los Angeles in March 2020.

Since then, Harry has visited the United Kingdom twice to be with his family: once in April for the burial of his grandpa, Prince Philip, and again in July for the unveiling of his late mother, Princess Diana’s, statue at Kensington Palace. Meghan did not attend either ceremony since she was pregnant at the time of Prince Philip’s burial and had recently given birth to her and Harry’s baby, Lilibet Diana, at the time of the statue’s unveiling.