On Wednesday, the Duchess of Sussex posted four carefully curated photos for her daughter’s fourth birthday. Two pics of Lili Diana with mama, two pics of Lili Diana with her dad. All was well, and those photos probably would have been the lead royal story anyway. But soon after Meghan posted the pics of Lili and Harry, Meghan also posted a four-year-old video of what happened in the maternity suite on June 4, 2021. Meghan was overdue and nothing else was working to get the baby out, so Meghan and Harry tried dancing. There are so many “tricks” and recommendations for overdue women to induce labor naturally – spicy food, sex, exercise, and yes, dancing. This is not something invented by Meghan, but given the Salt Island coverage, you’d think that no overdue mom had ever tried to dance a baby out of her body. I’m skipping most of the pearl-clutching coverage from the British media, but this one was too much. Camilla Tominey hasn’t been on the royal beat for years, she’s been trying to do hard-right political journalism these days. But Tominey dusted off her royalist badge to write: “Even in my wildest pregnancy moments, I can’t imagine twerking like Meghan.”
When I was a week overdue with my second child (ironically named Harry), I did sort of go mad. Not Meghan-twerking-in-a-hospital-room crazy, but bonkers nonetheless. With my son, my due date came and went, along with my sanity. My father, a retired GP, recalls me calling him day and night, demanding to know why, in his medical opinion, the baby hadn’t arrived yet. It was undoubtedly the hardest seven days of all three pregnancies – including having to be induced with my third, another daughter. So like many mothers, I watched Meghan and Harry’s latest Instagram video with a mixture of genuine empathy and gobsmacked astonishment.
On one hand, I understand the sheer lunacy that can accompany being overdue. On the other, I’m not sure even in my wildest moments I would have chosen to “twerk” my way through it. I mean, I’m not sure twerking would even feature on the bingo card of “things you do while in labour”: gas and air? Check. Epidural? Check. Lash out at husband? Check. Perform a sexy slut drop, while lip-syncing, to the camera? Probably not, no.
What’s even more mind-boggling about the 80-odd second video – in which a very heavily pregnant Meghan, accessorising her black dress with a cannula, dances to a song called The Baby Momma Dance – is the fact the privacy-obsessed couple have released it.
…I appreciate the Sussexes have always had a rather nuanced interpretation of privacy with the whole Oprah-induced “infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it in for me” thing. South Park’s notorious episode celebrating their World Wide Privacy Tour of every available TV studio perfectly summed up the irony of a couple opining press intrusion while dishing every last piece of dirt on their nearest and dearest to anyone who would listen. But the children were always supposed to be out of bounds. Lest we forget, the couple refused to tell anyone where they planned to give birth to Archie until the very last minute – forcing their PRs to scramble to inform the media hours after the event that he had, in fact, been born at that celebrity newborn haunt, The Portland.
That pregnancy, Meghan later revealed, was overshadowed by her mental health struggles, including suicidal thoughts, amid the “stress and isolation” of being a member of the Royal family. Now no one’s quite as interested in their bodily functions, disclosure appears to be the new black – for Meghan at least.
While one can imagine Harry preferring to keep his personal space free from social media invaders (notwithstanding his propensity to constantly spill the beans about his daddy issues), the Duchess appears more than willing to let it all hang out these days.
“Perform a sexy slut drop??” As always, Camilla Tominey is a racist, misogynistic a–hole. My God. I honestly believe “what about their PRIVACY” must have been the palace-issued talking point in the WhatsApp group, because that’s the consistent focus of many of these columns. It makes zero sense, but the “privacy” argument never made any sense. These people can’t actually say why the video really makes them mad: because Meghan and Harry are charming, charismatic goofballs (unlike the other couple) and the Sussexes are happy and private in California. Like, this is a four-year-old video of a couple dancing in a maternity suite. It’s not like Meghan posted the actual birth video. Meghan released it herself because she’s goofy and funny and because she didn’t have fifty old British farts breathing down her neck for that pregnancy.
Meghan and Harry are such icons ???????? pic.twitter.com/gPgSwW0hSu
— Hannah (@queen_meghan14) June 4, 2025
Photos courtesy of Meghan’s IG and Cover Images.
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USA Rights Only – London, UK -20190110-Meghan Duchess of Sussex during her visit to Smart Works, in London, on the day that she has become their patron, as well as patron of the National Theatre, the Association of Commonwealth Universities, and the animal welfare charity, Mayhew.
-PICTURED: Meghan Duchess of Sussex
-PHOTO by: PA Images/INSTARimages.com
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Featuring: Meghan Duchess of Sussex
Where: London, England, United Kingdom
When: 10 Jan 2019
Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages.com**USA Rights Only**
