Meghan Markle has returned to Instagram after a seven-year absence.
The Duchess of Sussex has opened a verified account, simply handled @meghan. Markle’s first post is a video of her running on a beach and inscribing “2025” in the wet sand.
ABC News reported that the footage was filmed by her husband, Prince Harry, and was captured at a public beach near the couple’s home in Montecito, California.
At the time of publication, Markle has amassed nearly 670,000 followers. Markle has not given reasons for her return to the Meta-owned social media platform.
The Duchess of Sussex deleted her Instagram account in 2018 after her relationship with Prince Harry became more serious and she started undertaking some light royal duties.
The former Suits actress was previously an avid user of the social media platform, posting about her rescue dogs, world travels, and favorite food joints.
Since then, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have dramatically split from the royal family and have pursued their own ventures in America, including filming a headline-grabbing Netflix access series.
Markle’s return to Instagram is unsurprising in this context, especially as she now has bespoke jam to plug via her new lifestyle brand American Riviera Orchard.
The embrace of Instagram could also be seen as Markle defying her trolls. The Duchess spoke of the “almost unsurvivable” abuse she received online during an appearance on the Teenager Therapy podcast in 2020.
“But what was able to just be manufactured and churned out, it’s almost unsurvivable, that’s so big, you can’t think of what that feels like.”
She picked up on this theme last year, telling an audience in Colombia: “Maybe your grandmother used to say it to you, ‘If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.’
“The digital age has almost created a culture where if you don’t have anything cruel to say, don’t say anything at all. And that is fundamentally changing how we move through the world, how we connect with each other.”
