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The Duke and Duchess of Sussex welcomed a new baby girl to their family nearly two weeks ago and announced her name as Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor. There has been considerable debate over the choice of the name Lilibet, which is the Queen’s family nickname. Lilibet’s names and the inspirations for them, her date of birth and weight was the only information given out, and there was no picture of the little one.
While the vast majority of people reacted with delight to the happy news, debate over Lilibet’s name soon escalated into a media circus.
A BBC report claimed a Palace source told them that Meghan and Harry did not ask the Queen for permission to use her personal nickname.
However, the Duke and Duchess insist that they did and even fired off a legal letter to the BBC, accusing them of “false and defamatory” claims.
The Queen has failed to back her grandson on this matter and, according to the Mail on Sunday, told courtiers to correct reports that “misrepresent” her private conversations.
READ MORE: Meghan and Harry opted against calling daughter Gary in Queen tribute
However, it has been argued that all this drama is only because there is such a dearth of information around the birth.
If there had been a picture for the public to fawn over, for example, this may have been enough of a distraction to stop these conversations escalating.
Pod Save the Queen is hosted by Ann Gripper and features Daily Mirror royal editor Russell Myers.
The pair discussed the difference between this baby announcement and the one when Archie was born.
Ms Gripper said: “There is a bit of me that just thinks ‒ is part of it because there is now a vacuum? Conversation fills the vacuum and everyone just has this to talk about.
“Because there is no baby picture, there is no Harry coming down and doing that video chat about how excited he is to be a dad and greeting the horses…”
Mr Myers added: “Which is a real shame, because that was such a lovely moment.
“Do you remember that, when he was just absolutely beaming? He didn’t look like he had a care in the world, and his life is very, very different now.”
In this way, with the information vacuum and certainly with no picture to discuss, people have seemingly latched onto the issue with the name and ran with it, once again snatching the narrative away from the Sussexes themselves.
By contrast, Prince William and Kate, Duchess of Cambridge have used photographs to reclaim their privacy and their narrative.
The Duchess has become a dab hand at taking photographs herself and releases these on important dates, like birthdays, Christmas and Father’s Day.
In return, they are left alone by the paparazzi and can control what they are putting out into the world of their own children.
The Cambridges appeared to have found a good balance of telling the world just enough that it satisfies the curiosity without revealing anything too personal or intimate about their family life.
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