Last week, on Monday 10th December, Meghan Markle presented a special award to her wedding dress designer at the British Fashion Awards. Her appearance was reminiscent of her old days as an actress on Suits, with the duchess looking every bit a glamorous celebrity in her sleek black dress and dazzling smile.
However, the press weren't too kind to her the next day.
In almost every report on the event, Meghan was called out for cradling her (now quite prominent) baby bump too much, and criticised for breaking royal protocol by some royal experts. So harsh was the criticism, in fact, that one boomerang video of Meghan standing with Clare Waight Keller (the dress designer) and actor Rosamund Pike had to be taken down - and one royal source thinks that the queen might have had something to do with it.
The above picture, which was taken by photographer Yvan Fabing, is a still from a boomerang that showed Meghan once again cradling her baby bump. It also revealed that the duchess was wearing black nail polish for the evening event. Shortly after it was posted to Fabing's account and the official British Fashion Awards page, however, it was taken down.
One royal source spoke to the Daily Mail about the incident this weekend, saying that Meghan might have been involved in the picture's removal.
"There was something ostentatious in the way she was posed holding her bump, plus she was wearing dark nail varnish that The Queen hates," the source said. "It wouldn’t be surprising if, aware of that, the Duchess herself asked for it to be taken down."
A little later, the post was replaced by a picture of Meghan standing onstage before presenting the award. With a microphone in one hand and an envelope in the other, she was not able to hold her bump, and her nail polish is also distinctly less visible. The same photo was then posted by the official Kensington Royal account, so it seems likely that they had a hand in deciding which pictures of Meghan were suitable enough to be on Instagram and which ones were not.
Of course, the duchess herself is not supposed to have any social media accounts, and was asked to give up her Instagram and Twitter accounts when she became more seriously involved with Prince Harry - but she still has a strong social media presence via official royal accounts.
It is unlikely that Markle will confirm or deny whether or not she had any direct involvement in taking the boomerang video down from Instagram, but it is plausible that she or someone responsible for her online image had it removed on account of her holding her baby bump and flashing her nail paint.
Once again, then, it looks like the duchess has gone against traditional expectations for the royal family - but she'll always have more fans than critics because of it.
