Welcome to The Royalist—all the latest royal news and gossip with Tom Sykes and Tim Teeman. For Beast Inside members only.
Birth Plan
Meghan Markle’s preference, according to the latest reports, is for a home birth. Although the palace wouldn’t comment on the arrangements around the birth to The Daily Beast, and the palace said today that they would be keeping all details around the birth ‘private’ until after the baby has been born, the reports certainly accord with her decision to hire her own female-led maternity team instead of using the queen’s OB-GYNs, whom she refers to as “men in suits” and who are all big believers in the supremacy of medical science and hospitals.
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Meghan’s decision to go for a home birth has had one unintended consequence, however: It has fired up the online crazies who think her pregnancy is fake. A home birth, the conspiracy theorists are suggesting, is the ideal way to mask a fake pregnancy.
Harry and Meghan Don’t Want Baby Gifts
On their Instagram account—4.4 million followers and counting—Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have made it clear they do not want baby gifts, even if, inevitably, they will receive many, many baby gifts.
Instead, the couple have asked that well-wishers send donations and support to four child-focused charities that provide help in health, food, play, and general need. In four separate Instagram posts, Harry and Meghan directed fans to the South Africa-based Lunchbox Fund, London-based Little Village, U.K.-based Well Child, and the Los Angeles-based Baby2Baby.
Thomas Markle May Not See His Grandchild
Meghan’s mom, Doria Ragland, is said to have her bags packed, ready to jump on a plane at a moment’s notice, but Meghan’s dad, Thomas, is unlikely to need to renew his passport.
Duncan Larcombe, The Sun’s former royal editor and author of Prince Harry: The Inside Story, says in a new documentary for TLC that the chances of Meghan’s father reuniting with Meghan and Harry when she welcomes her firstborn this spring are vanishingly low. With no indication that Harry has even met his wife’s father, there seems no reason to disbelieve him.
Ironically, Meghan’s screen dad from Suits, Wendell Pierce, will be in the U.K. for the birth. “It’s great to be living and working in London while the excitement builds around the Duchess of Sussex soon giving birth to her first child,” he tweeted this week, “Meghan I’m very happy for you. Blessings.”
Was This a Serena Williams Gender Reveal?
No one officially knows what gender Harry and Meghan’s baby is. But in a recent interview with E! News, talking about advice she has given a friend about to give birth, tennis champ Serena Williams—a good friend of Meghan’s—used the pronoun “she” to identify the gender of the child.
Williams said: “Accept mistakes and don’t expect to be perfect. We put so much pressure on ourselves. My friend is pregnant and she’s like, ‘Oh, my kid’s going to do this.’ And I just looked at her and I was like, ‘No, she’s not.’” Williams then quickly added, “I’m like, ‘No, you’re not.’” OK, it’s not a burst of pink confetti from a balloon, but royal baby watchers take their clues where they can.
Away From the Cameras
Speaking to Marie Claire, royal biographer Katie Nicholl has outlined what she believes will be Harry’s No. 1 priority for his kids: privacy. “It’s going to be really important to Meghan and Harry too. Harry grew up with a constant glare of the cameras on him. I think he’s pretty resentful of the media, particularly the paparazzi. He doesn’t like photographers. He doesn’t like the attention. He’s not going to want that for his own children. He’s going to want to protect them and keep them away from the spotlight as much as he possibly can.”
London Eye Gets Lit
The London Eye, the ferris wheel on the side of the Thames that became an immediate city landmark when it opened in 2000, will be lit up in Union Jack colors the night of the birth of Harry and Meghan’s baby. The wheel was lit similarly when Prince Louis was born in 2018.
