Meghan Markle Gets Mocked for How She Was Holding Onto Prince Harry at Recent Event
Online commenters accuse Meghan of “performative” PDA during official tours.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex recently undertook a strenuous and headline-making two-day tour to Jordan. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were out to witness Archwell-funded programs. Last year, the foundation pledged $500,000 to aid children affected by conflict in Gaza and Ukraine. However, during their trip, beyond their humanitarian agenda, a moment of body language set social media alight.
Harry and Markle travelled to Jordan at the invitation of Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organisation (WHO). Across a series of engagements, the couple met with officials and representatives working in health and community initiatives. They also drew comparisons to Harry’s mother, Princess Diana, who was known for her similar humanitarian style of work.
Photographs from the trip, widely shared online, showed the pair posing alongside Dr. Tedros and other dignitaries. And in several of the images, Markle is seen clinging to Harry’s arm. While the gesture could be interpreted as natural, it did not go down well with a lot of social media users. Some online commentators criticized the duchess, claiming she was “clinging on” to her husband “big time.”
Why does Meghan Markle, a 44 year old woman feel the need to constantly claw onto Harry at every outing, engagement, event, tour, whatever it is? It’s not affection but control. She knows that if she doesn’t physically hold him back and push herself ahead, the attention won’t… pic.twitter.com/88VPA3mWwb
— Queen Esther (@XOQueenEsther) February 27, 2026
One user criticizing how this has been a regular affair wrote on X (formerly Twitter), “Why does Meghan Markle, a 44-year-old woman, feel the need to constantly claw onto Harry at every outing, engagement, event, tour, whatever it is? It’s not affection but control. She knows that if she doesn’t physically hold him back and push herself ahead, the attention won’t naturally land on her. So she makes sure it does. Every single time.” Another commenter described the display as calculated, writing, “The ‘clutching’ Harry and the hand-holding and PDA is all performative. A narcissistic display: LOOK AT ME. LOOK AT US.” Similarly, someone else held that the positioning is always strategic. “It also means she stays in the picture. No one find a camera like she can.”
Referencing Markle’s past comments about growing up on television sets with her father, another user remarked, “MM did say that her father taught her how to ‘find’ the camera. It's about the one lesson in life that she has ever learned. Even when her head is facing forward, her eyes are often sideways looking at the camera.” While another with an out-of-the-box view said, “I think she likes to look like a weak and frail woman who is abused by everyone, and she needs Harry’s protection from it all.”
Some critics went further, arguing that the optics distracted from the purpose of the trip. “At some point, the camera should be secondary when you’re supposed to be the ‘humanitarian’. She must have missed that part of Angelina Jolie’s playbook, ‘Humanity for Dummies,’” one person wrote. The optics from the trip are not having the effect they had hoped for, it seems.
