Royal Family Didn’t Publicly Celebrate Meghan’s Birthday

On Sunday, Meghan Markle celebrated her 43rd birthday, and the former actress and her husband Prince Harry kept festivities on the down-low—though the couple did commemorate the special day with an interview on CBS News Sunday Morning. Markle’s in-laws also kept any acknowledgement of the duchess’s birthday private and for the second year in a row, did not wish her a happy birthday on social media, as they often do for other members of the royal family.

Typically, the family marks birthdays with a post to social media (see: Queen Camilla’s birthday post and Prince George’s black-and-white 11th bday portrait). According to the Daily Mail, however, royal aides revealed that the Firm only publicly celebrates the birthdays of working royal members.

Although, Markle didn’t get a social media shoutout, it’s possible that King Charles still reached out to wish his daughter-in-law a happy 43rd. Last week, Charles’s former butler, Grant Harrold, said he could see the king and queen extending well wishes to the duchess behind the scenes.

“Harry will make sure that Meghan is celebrated,” the former employee told told Slingo, per OK! . “I think they will get messages from the King and the Queen, whether that be electronically or by old-fashioned mail, I still think the King and Queen will still send birthday messages. I don’t think that will change certainly despite everything that’s happened.”

Over the weekend, People reported that the Duchess of Sussex was planning to celebrate “privately with family.” While she is believed to have kept things low key, it’s also possible that her mom Doria Ragland joined the festivities, along with her husband and their kids, Archie and Lilibet.

Markle’s birthday comes amid the deepening rift between Harry and his family members, specifically his brother, Prince William, and father, King Charles. People also previously reported that Prince William was not answering Harry’s texts and King Charles had been fielding his youngest son’s phone calls.

“He gets ‘unavailable right now,'” a friend of Harry’s told the outlet. “His calls go unanswered. He has tried to reach out about the King’s health, but those calls go unanswered, too.”