Prince Harry, Meghan Markle’s Birthday Message For Princess Charlotte Criticized For This Reason

They may have meant well by wishing their niece a happy birthday on Instagram, but Prince Harry and Meghan Markle still wound up in the hot seat when they commented on one of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s photos of their four-year-old daughter.

The couple’s Instagram Account, @Sussexroyal, commented on one of the three new images that were shared of Charlotte in honor of her big day, writing “Happy birthday Charlotte! Lots of Love, H and M xo.”

However, eagle-eyed royal watchers quickly honed in on the message, criticizing it as disrespectful for not referring to Charlotte by her title of “Princess.”

“It’s Princess Charlotte,” one user wrote.

“Where is the ‘PRINCESS’ why only Charlotte?!!!” another asked.

However, others defended the couple, who are expecting their own first child together any day, stating that while it was written in a public space, they were making a more personal and private wish towards their niece, and they likely referred to her the same way they do when in person as well.

However, another fan criticized the pair over commenting on the image at all, after their recent decision to stop following the other royal family accounts entirely.

“You unfollowed this account two days ago? Are you back to following? I wonder what happened,” one royal fan wrote.

The decision to stop following other royal accounts was criticized, but it’s noteworthy that the pair did so for a good reason. They shared in their most recent post on the account that they were only following accounts that expressed the same message they were trying to convey for Mental Health Awareness Month, and that they had solely followed those accounts for the sake of giving them more publicity and make them more noticeable.

“To pay tribute to all of the incredible work people across the globe are doing in this space, we are hoping to shine a light on several Instagram accounts that promote mental; well-being, mental fitness, body positivity, self-care, and the importance of human connection—to not just hear each other, but to listen,” they captioned the post. “There are countless organisations doing amazing work for mental health-please consider the accounts we’ve highlighted as a small snapshot of this global support network. We are all in this together.”

“We invite you to explore the extraordinary stories of strength, and the commitment to kindness as seen in the above accounts,” the post continued. “Each month we will honour this same concept and change the accounts we solely follow based on a different theme or cause. Please go to our homepage and click “following” to see each of the select accounts and find out more about their work.”