Meghan and Harry’s 'contradictory' baby announcement taken apart before Lilibet's birth

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have welcomed their second child ‒ a girl named Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor. She was born in Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital on Friday and weighed 7lbs 11oz. The Royal Family said they were “delighted” by the news and William and Kate issued a message of congratulations to the happy couple.

While this wonderful news has been almost universally celebrated, the couple’s initial announcement that Meghan was pregnant was a little more controversial.

Back in February, Meghan and Harry told the world they were expecting another baby with a black and white photograph of a pregnant Meghan lying on her back with her head on Harry’s lap.

Meanwhile, Meghan had just recently won a huge privacy case against Associated Newspapers.

This led to mockery in certain quarters, including a front page on The Daily Star which featured the headline: “Publicity-shy woman tells 6.67bn people: I’m pregnant.”

READ MORE: Prince Philip’s emotional reference to ‘Lilibet’ in letter

One royal commentator argued that the picture sent a message that contradicts the one they had been pushing ‒ the idea that they left the Royal Family because they wanted to live a more private life.

Jane Moore told her Loose Women colleagues that she felt this was the latest in a string of contradictions.

Referring to The Daily Star’s front page, she said: “I think that particular headline was because they had just won another privacy case.

“And again, my issue with this couple is that it’s another contradictory message, because we were told they left the UK because they wanted privacy.”

She said the first contradictory message was leaving the relative privacy of Frogmore Cottage with its many acres of private land to move to California, the “paparazzi central of the world”.

She added that Meghan allowing her friend to speak to the authors of the biography Finding Freedom was also a contradiction if they supposedly do not want details of their private life in the public arena.

On the subject of the photo, she said: “It’s the staged photo ‒ my husband is a publicist, he’s worked for some incredibly big names for a very very long time and before we had even discussed this, he said ‘that’s a photo designed to get maximum publicity’ and of course that’s what it is.”

Ms Moore contrasted the Sussexes’ strategy to that of other famous people, for example Joaquin Phoenix, who never announced he was having a baby with his partner Rooney Mara, and so it was barely known.

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Cameron Diaz announced that she had a baby, but gave no further details.

Ms Moore asserted that there are many famous people who have very private personal lives and they work hard to keep it that way.

On the other hand, Meghan and Harry, she argued, chose to make their announcement in a way that would garner lots of attention.

Several of the other Loose Women hosts argued that if Meghan did not announce it, she would be pictured with a bump and the news would get out anyway.

Ms Moore pointed out: “But she’s very heavily pregnant in that photo, did you know she was pregnant?”

She also said she believes the public would say to “leave her alone” and not take pictures of her walking down the street if she had not put out that she was pregnant.

On the flip side, she said: “When you put it out there, you’ve opened that door.”

However, all the panel agreed that it was lovely news and is always nice to hear someone is expecting a baby.

Lilibet is the Queen’s 11th great-grandchild and the first to be born overseas.

She has a big brother called Archie Harrison, who is now two years old.