Meghan Markle's return to Instagram has sparked a setback for Prince William and Princess Kate in terms of their video views.
The Duchess of Sussex's Instagram videos, known as reels, have achieved significantly higher view counts than Prince William and Princess Kate's posts in 2025, despite Meghan having far fewer followers.
Since her surprise return to social media on New Year's Day after almost four years away, Meghan has averaged 7.6 million views per reel across 22 posts.
Her content has totalled 168 million views, with her most popular reel announcing the rebranding of her online shop from American Riviera Orchard to As Ever, achieving 26.9 million views since February.
Meghan Markle return sparks setback for Prince William and Princess Kate.
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Even her least viewed post garnered 2.7 million views, showing her arranging flowers set to an LL Cool J song.
By contrast, the Prince and Princess of Wales have averaged just 2.8 million views per reel despite having 16.8 million followers, almost six times as many as Meghan's three million.
Across 47 reels, William and Kate have accumulated 134.8 million total views in 2025.
Their most successful post was a collaboration with science influencer Big Manny, which gained 17.6 million views. Their second most popular reel marked Prince William's birthday in May, showing him playing and jumping in woodland, which received 11 million views.
Meghan Markle's Instagram has reached three million followers.
Instagram / @meghan
However, their least viewed content, a post about Prince William learning to be a football referee, attracted only 1.1 million views.
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, William and Kate have other social media accounts, and 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 stylised, more curated version of content already in the public domain, and are less frequently the original source for major announcements.
Kate and William's Instagram account has 16.8 million followers.
Instagram / The Prince and Princess of Wales
LATEST ROYAL NEWS:
Meghan Markle regularly posts on her Instagram profile @meghan.
Instagram / @meghanMeghan 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.
Princess Kate's announcement that she was in remission from cancer began with a press release about a visit to the Royal Marsden Hospital, generating an initial wave of stories before she posted an Instagram reel about the January 14 visit.
The reel received 4.5 million views but did not mention the key news about her remission, simply stating: "The work of the @royalmarsden is world-leading, pioneering and lifesaving."
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