The Real Reason Prince William and Kate Wished Prince Harry a Happy Birthday Is Because of a New Rule Change

The Duke of Sussex's surprise birthday messages from his father, brother, and sister-in-law were sent because of a change in royal protocol.

Prince Harry‘s 40th birthday came with a surprise, perhaps even for the duke himself, when members of his family, who he’s been feuding with, sent him happy birthday wishes.

After Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, stepped down, the family continued to send them birthday wishes via social media. That is until the reality of their feud and what the Sussexes continued to reveal became too much, and the royals stopped publicly recognizing the duke and duchess’s birthdays.

Therefore, many royal watchers were taken aback when they recognized Harry’s this year. Some wondered why they decided to now especially when they didn’t post anything about Meghan’s a month earlier.

Could it be an olive branch and a sign that they are now ready to reconcile? Is it because it was a milestone birthday? Or is the family trying to be civil and keep the peace hoping the Sussexes don’t lash out again? Well, now a royal commentator is revealing the real reason why Harry got those messages and it has to do with a change in protocol.

What the royals said in their birthday wishes to Prince Harry

The prince celebrated his milestone birthday on Sept. 15 and the royal family’s official X account, which posts content for King Charles and Queen Camilla, featured a picture of Harry smiling wide with the message: “Wishing The Duke of Sussex a very happy 40th birthday today!”

That was followed by a post on The Prince and the Princess of Wales’ account which read: “Wishing a Happy 40th Birthday to the Duke of Sussex!”

But what’s so interesting about these posts is that Harry’s relatives had stopped publicly marking his and Meghan’s birthday on social media the last couple of years following the Harry & Meghan Netflix docuseries and the prince’s memoir Spare. So why now?

For the most part the royals have been praised for the move with many commenters opining that it shows a lot of “class” to do so. But displaying “class” isn’t the reason they did it.

Commentator says a change to royal protocol is the reason for the birthday posts

Royal commentator and To Di for Daily podcast host Kinsey Schofield appeared on Talk TV and broke down the reason. She shared that the messages were posted on Harry’s 40th birthday following a change in protocol for all royal social media posts.

According to Schofield, “It was after Megxit, after Epstein, there were new social media protocols put into place where the royal family would only acknowledge non-working royals on their birthdays when they were milestones. So translation, if there’s a zero at the end of that birthday.”

She continued: “I think it would have been more of a story knowing that the royal family had changed the rules on how they managed social media. I think it would have been more of a story had Prince William and the Princess of Wales opted not to share the king’s post and acknowledge the king’s post because of the rules in place.

“So I think it was kind of them to do it. I absolutely think it was very nice … but is this opening a door to a reconciliation? Absolutely not.”