Harry and Meghan’s daughter Lilibet turned three on Tuesday, but if you had been waiting for the flurry of royal tweets and Instagram posts about it you’d be left disappointed.
Lilibet’s birthday passed with barely a trace of acknowledgement online — not even from her famous parents.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Harry and Meghan release 1st birthday photo of Lilibet.
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The royal family marked older brother Archie’s birthday on May 6, but there was radio silence around Lilibet.
Technically, Archie and Lilibet are a Prince and Princess, despite their parents the Duke and Duchess of Sussex stepping away from royal duties and moving away from the UK in 2020.
Royal correspondent Danielle Stacey believes the public acknowledgement of non-working members of the royal family has been curtailed since King Charles III took to the throne.
“In recent years and certainly since King Charles III’s reign began in September 2022, we have only seen public messages from the royal family’s social media accounts for working members of the royal family,” she told HELLO!
“Such as the Prince and Princess of Wales and their children, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh and the Princess Royal.”
But it wasn’t just estranged members of the family who didn’t acknowledge the little girl’s birthday in public.
Lilibet’s own parents also refrained from posting a public message about their daughter’s big day.
It’s understood Lilibet’s birthday was celebrated quietly with close friends of Harry and Meghan at their home base in Montecito, California.
For William and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales, it has become a tradition to release a new photo of their children George, Charlotte and Louis, on each birthday.
However, the same tradition has not been observed by Harry and Meghan for their children.
The last time an official portrait of Lilibet was released was on the occasion of her first birthday.
The only other official image shared of her by her parents was in their 2021 Christmas card when she was only six months old, which also features Archie.
Archie was born before the Sussexes stepped away from royal duties, and therefore more official portraits exist of him, but they are mostly from his infancy.
He was photographed as a newborn, at his christening and during his parents’ tour of South Africa when he was four months old.
In the Netflix documentary Harry & Meghan, viewers only saw fleeting glimpses of the Sussex children.
“We’ve been really conscious of protecting our kids as best as we can,” Harry said in one segment of the documentary series.
Meghan added that it was important they protect their children “as best we can … also understanding the role that they play in this really historical family.”