Meghan Markle Returns to Instagram Nearly 5 Years After Last Post With Prince Harry

Meghan Markle is kicking off 2025 by beginning a new chapter on social media.

On Wednesday, January 1, the Duchess of Sussex, 43, launched her very own Instagram account under the username @meghan to connect with fans around the world and share updates on her latest projects.

For her debut post — which was filmed by her husband, Prince Harry, near the pair’s home in Montecito, California — Markle ran along a cloudy beach before stopping to write “2025” in the sand.

Meghan’s return to Instagram comes nearly five years after the final post on her and Harry’s joint page, @sussexroyal, was shared. “As we can all feel, the world at this moment seems extraordinarily fragile. Yet we are confident that every human being has the potential and opportunity to make a difference—as seen now across the globe, in our families, our communities and those on the front line—together we can lift each other up to realize the fullness of that promise,” they wrote in March 2020, referring to the Covid crisis.

Bringing up “the many issues that have presented themselves as a result of this pandemic,” Harry, 40, and Meghan noted that they were “focusing this new chapter to understand how we can best contribute.”

They continued: “While you may not see us here, the work continues. Thank you to this community — for the support, the inspiration and the shared commitment to the good in the world. We look forward to reconnecting with you soon. You’ve been great! Until then, please take good care of yourselves, and of one another.

Meghan previously deactivated her personal social media accounts in January 2018, shortly after her November 2017 engagement to Harry. Shortly before the @sussexroyal account went inactive, she and Harry announced their plans to step back from their senior roles as working royals and become financially independent from the royal family. They have since moved to U.S. with their son, Prince Archie, 5, and daughter Princess Lilibet, 3.

“I enjoy living [in the U.S.] and bringing my kids up here, it’s a part of my life that I never thought I was going to live and it feels as though it’s the life that my mom [Princess Diana] wanted for me,” Harry told Andrew Sorokin at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit on December 4.

Before launching her new personal account, Meghan returned to Instagram in March 2024 with a page for her lifestyle brand, American Riviera Orchard. “By Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex. Established 2024,” the account’s bio reads. The only posts on the account were uploaded to form the brand’s logo on its photo grid.

Meghan previously expressed that she “worries” about raising her kids in a social media-heavy world. “Everyone now is affected by the online world and social media. Some more than others,” she stated during a panel at the Project Healthy Minds’ World Mental Health Day Festival in October 2023. “We all just want to feel safe. In that so much of it can come down to, if someone is looking for something, please don’t feed them the thing that they’re not looking for that is going to harm them.”

Harry agreed with his wife at the event, adding, “I think for us, for myself and my wife, with kids growing up in the digital age, for us the priority here is to turn pain into purpose.”