Meghan Markle appeared to make a poignant musical choice for Prince Harry’s birthday, selecting a song strongly associated with the late Princess Diana.
To celebrate her husband turning 42, the 45-year-old Duchess of Sussex shared nine previously unseen family photographs on Instagram. The images were paired with an indie-folk rendition of Tina Turner’s classic hit, The Best.
The choice is especially meaningful because the song holds cherished memories for both Harry and his older brother, Prince William. The Prince of Wales has previously recalled how their mother played it during car journeys to boarding school.
During a 2021 appearance on the Apple Fitness+ series Time to Walk, William said Diana would play a range of music to ease the nerves he and Harry felt before returning to school.
“One of the songs I massively remember and has stuck with me all this time, and I still, to this day, still quite enjoy secretly, is Tina Turner’s The Best,” he said. William explained that singing along from the back seat made the journey feel like “a real family moment.”
He remembered Diana singing loudly as the music helped distract both boys until they reached Ludgrove School in Berkshire. Only then, he said, did the reality of returning to school begin to set in.
“You’d be singing and listening to the music right the way out into the gates of school, when they dropped you off,” William recalled. “And that’s when reality kind of sunk in that you really were going back to school because before that, you’re lost in songs.”
He added that he would want the song to play again simply to prolong the shared family experience. Even now, William said, hearing it transports him back to those childhood car rides and memories of his mother.
The Duchess of Sussex, 45, celebrated her husband’s 42nd birthday with nine previously unseen photographs set to an indie-folk cover of Tina Turner’s hit The Best
The Prince of Wales has previously spoken about how their mother played the song while taking the brothers to boarding school.
On Tuesday, Meghan offered a glimpse into the Sussexes’ private family life by posting the collection of nine new photographs in honour of Harry’s birthday.
The Duchess, who has 4.8 million Instagram followers, shared candid images of Harry with her and their children. “He’s simply the best. Happy birthday, my love,” she wrote, adding a heart emoji.
The birthday montage was set to Simply the Best, performed by husband-and-wife musical duo The Hound + The Fox.
One affectionate photograph shows Harry enjoying an outdoor outing with Meghan, 45, Prince Archie, seven, and Princess Lilibet, five. Their Labrador, Pula, also appears in the family scene.
The image is believed to have possibly been taken at Earl Spencer’s Althorp home. In it, Harry drives a quad bike along a narrow track, with Archie and Lilibet seated on either side of an M&S food bag while Pula follows closely behind.
In another snap, Harry, who is wearing a Santa Barbara Fire Department cap, shared a kiss with Lilibet, who sported a bright headband and red and white patterned top, while enjoying a golf cart ride.
In a sweet tribute to her mother, the 3D embellishments on Lilibet’s fashionable headband appear to be miniature Mahjong tiles – rectangular pieces used to play a traditional Chinese board game adored by the duchess.
Showcasing their close father-daughter bond, the montage also featured an image of Harry holding hands with Lilibet during a ski trip – with the young royal keeping warm in pink gloves and purple trousers, while her father donned black salopettes and a grey jacket.
Harry and Meghan are firm fans of the winter sport and often enjoy trips to the slopes together – including visits to Whistler Blackcomb in Canada and Montana’s Yellowstone Club.
In one sweet snap, Harry drives a quad bike with Archie, seven, and Lilibet, five, sat beside an M&S food bag, while their beloved Labrador Pula trailing behind them
The montage also featured an image of Harry holding hands with Lilibet during a ski trip. The Sussexes are known to be firm fans of the winter sport
One black-and-white photograph shared by Meghan showed the prince carrying Lilibet’s pink tasselled bicycle as they walked hand-in-hand.
In another, the young princess took a photograph of Harry, who playfully posed with a basket on his head, with a Polaroid camera as the family sat down for a dinner which appeared to include olives and fruit.
Proving she is quite the camerawoman, Lilibet drew comparisons to her aunt, the Princess of Wales, who is a keen amateur photographer and in 2015 became the first member of the Royal Family to take the official first images of a royal newborn.
Dressed in a pair of spotty pyjamas, Lilibet and her father were seen in another image enjoying a peaceful lake view from a balcony.
Meanwhile, Harry and his son Archie enjoyed some father-son bonding with a game of archery in another picture. The father-son duo wore matching outfits, including shorts and white T-shirts.
Other images shared by the Duchess included an image of her and Harry sharing a warm embrace in a vineyard, while Archie is seen playing in the background.
Meghan chose a striking black-and-white photograph of the Duke, wearing sunglasses and a hat while looking out ahead deep in thought, as the first image of the carousel post.
Some royal fans have suggested the snap may have been taken by the Sussexes’ go-to photographer and close friend, Misan Harriman, who has documented key events in their lives and is renowned for his black-and-white images.
Soon after Meghan marked Harry’s birthday online, it emerged that the Duchess’s mobile number was reportedly being shared by parents at the school that Archie and Lilibet had just started.
Harry and Archie enjoyed some father-son bonding with a game of archery in another image. While the young prince wore sandals, his father stayed barefoot
The post also included a romantic shot of the couple sharing a warm embrace in a vineyard, while their two children are seen playing in the background
In a further security blow to the couple, screenshots from a WhatsApp group titled ‘Year 3’ that Meghan joined were said to be circulating online.
An alleged screenshot of the chat showed the duchess introducing herself with a message reading: ‘Hi moms! Thanks for the warm welcome [heart emoji]. So happy to be a part of this community xx’
The Sussexes refused to comment, but sources close to them said it was disappointing that fellow parents would seek to share such information.
Meghan is understood to have joined the group the night before Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet started at the school.
It emerged after Harry and Meghan decided to ‘reluctantly’ remove their children from the school they had just started over security fears regarding traffic.
The family’s bodyguards warned the couple that the busy commute was placing their unit ‘under strain’.
Rush hour meant the drive – supposed to take around 35 minutes – lasted as long as an hour, while on one journey a convoy carrying the prince and princess is said to have become separated, leaving the children ‘sitting ducks’ in stationary traffic.
One mother with two children at the school said Harry and Meghan’s decision to send their children there had been a coup and had excited many parents. But she added: ‘Parents at the school are completely baffled. You don’t need to be an expert to know how congested that area is. It’s one of the worst places to drive in the UK.’
Another mother said of the slow school run: ‘This was obviously going to happen.’
News of the WhatsApp leak was initially reported by The Sun.
Friends of the couple stressed that the decision to withdraw the children was not an issue with the school itself.
Archie and Lilibet will now join another school where they have already attended taster sessions. The Sussexes’ security, meanwhile, are said to be much happier that the new school will be a shorter commute from the family home.
But the fiasco has sparked questions over why the family’s drivers only tested the route during the summer holidays, amid claims that their return to the UK was ‘rushed’.
Their private protection team were seemingly unable to properly assess the hour-long journey to the unnamed school after the Sussexes announced the move in late August.
Former Met Police Chief Superintendent Dal Babu said: ‘It does beggar belief why they haven’t thought this through. I don’t think he [Harry] has helped himself or the situation by not arranging things in good time.’
Former head of royal protection Dai Davies also told LBC radio: ‘If you keep a low profile, most people outside the school wouldn’t know where you are, what they’re doing, and all the rest of it.
‘Do they really need to go in convoy with two little children on the school run? If they only just kept a little quieter, kept a lower profile, they’d be a lot safer in my view.’
The dramatic schools development came as it emerged that Harry’s demand for taxpayer-funded police protection is being ‘reviewed’ now he is back in Britain.
The duke and duchess are said to have been informed that ‘a decision’ was made at a meeting last week to examine the threat to both of them.
The prince has been at loggerheads with the Home Office for years over its decision to remove his automatic right to security. Harry has long argued that he was born a prince and needs police protection when in the UK.
But he lost a series of legal battles against the Home Office which deemed he had forfeited the right to be able to call at will on taxpayer-funded protection after he quit as a frontline royal in 2020 and moved to a new life in California.
Only last year, after yet another defeat at the Royal Courts of Justice – against his father His Majesty’s government – the prince declared in a petulant BBC interview that he could not imagine a time when he could safely bring his family to his country of birth.
But now that he has had a sudden change of heart, bringing Meghan, Archie and Lilibet to live in the UK, his access to police protection is being reviewed, it was reported on Monday evening.
The decision is said to involve reviewing the risks to Prince Harry and also to his wife.
