Buckingham Palace's Silence On Lilibet's Birthday Could Be Considered A 'Snub,' Royal Expert Suggests

The royal family may have snubbed Princess Lilibet on her birthday, a royal expert has suggested.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's daughter turned 2 years old Sunday. However, royal fans noticed that no official message publicly acknowledging the occasion was shared via social media or a statement by King Charles III, Queen Camilla, Prince William and Princess Kate.

Journalist and royal correspondent Katie Nicholl explained why the royal family's silence could be considered a "snub" to the daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who also share 4-year-old son Prince Archie.

"Well in the past we have seen the royal family take to their social media channels to celebrate birthdays ... and I know that the king raised a toast to Archie during his coronation weekend who celebrated his fourth birthday that weekend so I think the fact we didn't see any birthday wishes to Lilibet is unusual," she told Entertainment Tonight.

Nicholl noted that while it is not an official royal protocol to publicly acknowledge the birthdays of family members, the royal family has been issuing birthday wishes for years, including when Lilibet turned 1 last year.

"The palace is saying that this is not a tradition of wishing family members a happy birthday on social media -- that might be true, but certainly we have seen them extend wishes on social media and it does feel that this might be something of a snub to Princess Lilibet ... because there have been no official birthday congratulations either on the Kensington Palace social media channels or indeed on Buckingham Palace," the royal expert told ET.

"We understand that ... this isn't something the royals traditionally do, birthdays are deemed private affairs and private celebrations. However, in the past, they have taken to social media channels to celebrate birthdays, and we see them with emojis and balloons, particularly for younger members of the royal family who are celebrating their birthdays so it is a bit unusual that no messages have been exchanged to congratulate Princess Lilibet on her second birthday," the "New Royals" author continued.

An unnamed royal source, however, denied that the lack of public acknowledgment of Princess Lilibet's birthday from Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace is a snub or a sign of the rumored tension between the Sussexes and the royal family.

"It has never been protocol to share formal birthday wishes for non-working members of the royal family or their children on the official channels. Any such birthday wishes would be shared privately," the source told ET.

Prince Harry and Markle stepped back from their roles as working royals and moved to California in 2020.

The royal family also did not publicly wish Prince Archie a happy birthday last month. The young prince turned 4 on the same day as his grandfather King Charles III's coronation.

This marked a change in course from last year, when the royals posted birthday wishes for Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet when they celebrated their third and first birthdays, respectively.

"Wishing Archie a very happy 3rd Birthday today," Prince William and Kate Middleton's social media pages wrote on May 6, 2022, adding balloon and cake emojis. The official account for Queen Elizabeth II shared a similar message.

On June 4, 2022, the Prince and Princess of Wales tweeted. "Wishing a very happy birthday to Lilibet, turning one today!"

King Charles and Queen Camilla, meanwhile, wrote: "Wishing Lilibet a very happy 1st birthday today!"

Last month, King Charles and Queen Camilla's Twitter and Instagram pages celebrated Prince William and Princess Kate's daughter Princess Charlotte turning 8.