Meghan Markle’s reels have had more views in 2025 than and Princess Kate’s despite having far fewer followers.

The Duchess of Sussex had been off social media for almost four years before her surprise return on January 1, 2025.

The move came ahead of a flurry of new projects, her cooking show With Love, Meghan, her online shop As Ever and her podcast, Confessions of a Female Founder.

Why It Matters

Despite her long absence from Instagram, Meghan appeared to quickly regain a substantial audience, leaving her well placed to market her businesses directly to fans.

And it is doubly striking that she has quickly exceeded William and Kate’s established audience, who have been consistently served videos from their royal engagements dating back years.

Meghan Markle’s Instagram Account

The duchess posts pictures and videos connected to her lifestyle brand and Netflix show, as well as her personal life, and has 3 million followers.

Her most viewed reel announced she was rebranding her online shop from American Riviera Orchard to As Ever and has had 26.9 million views since February 17.

The post with the least views got 2.7 million and showed her arranging flowers set to the LL Cool J song Doin’ It.

Across 22 reels, she has had a total of 168 million views and an average of 7.6 million per post.

Prince William and Princess Kate’s Instagram

The Prince and Princess of Wales have had their Instagram for far longer and also post across a range of other platforms, including Twitter and YouTube.

Their most viewed post of the year so far was a collaboration with science influencer Big Manny, a favorite among British parents and teenagers, which gained 17.6 million views.

Next came a video released to mark ‘ birthday in May, which got 11 million views and showed him playing and jumping in woodland.

Their least viewed video was a post from March 11 about Prince William learning to be a soccer referee which got 1.1 million views.

Their lower view count came despite having 16.8 million followers, almost six times as many as Meghan.

Analysis

One reason Meghan’s posts gain more audience than William and Kate’s despite her lower follower count may be that her Instagram is the only place to get updates directly from her.

By contrast, not only do William and Kate have other social media accounts but most of their videos show royal engagements that were also covered live by British journalists and photographers from the royal rota.

Their Instagram reels are therefore a stylized, more curated version of content already in the public domain, and are less frequently the original source for major announcements.

For example, Meghan announced As Ever through an Instagram video, meaning news of the relaunch began with her post which was then widely cited as the source for follow up news stories.

Yet, Princess Kate’s announcement that she was in remission from cancer began with a press release about a visit to the Royal Marsden Hospital around lunch time.

This generated an initial wave of stories about her visit, at which journalists and photographers were present, followed up later by an announcement in text form that she was in remission.

Separately, she posted an Instagram reel about the January 14 visit but it did not mention the key news that she was in remission, simply stating: “The work of the @royalmarsden is world-leading, pioneering and lifesaving.

“It’s a remarkable charity supporting advances in cancer research, treatment and care, and the work of a hospital that has done so much for so many.”

The Instagram reel got 4.5 million views, some way below the couple’s peek of 17.6 million.

Needless to say, it will have been encouraging for Meghan to see high view counts on her Instagram posts after such a long absence.

Not only does she have fewer followers than William and Kate but she has also not caught up with her and ‘s now defunct Sussex Royal, which had 8.8 million followers compared to Meghan’s 3 million.

The views on her reels, however, show that follower numbers are not the only or even the most reliable way to measure the reach of a specific account.

Additionally, Meghan may well have been relieved to see she can still generate significant audience after months of in both the American and British media.

Williams Brown is chief royal correspondent for Regalrumination.com, based in London. You can find him on X, formerly , at and read his stories on Regalrumination.com’s .

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