Meghan Markle is officially back on Instagram.
The Duchess of Sussex just launched a new lifestyle brand called American Riviera Orchard: Montecito with a website and Instagram account.
The Instagram account – which has the handle @americanrivieraorchard – currently only has nine posts that together make up the logo of American Riviera Orchard: Montecito’s logo.
The bio reads, “By Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex. Established 2024,” and the account’s first Instagram story featured a video of Meghan cutting white roses.
Many thought the Duchess of Sussex was back on Instagram in August of last year when a mysterious account with the handle @meghan went viral practically overnight.
The account was first created in June 2022 and still to this day hasn’t posted anything and doesn’t follow any other accounts.
But in August, the ‘Meghan’ account quickly amassed well over 100,000 followers.
It was rumoured that this Instagram account belongs to the Duchess of Sussex for a few reasons.
For starters, the profile picture is an image of pink peonies: Meghan’s favourite flower.
Years ago, Meghan wrote on her now-deleted lifestyle blog, The Tig, that peonies made her “endlessly happy”. Pink peonies also heavily featured at her 2018 wedding to Prince Harry.
Plus, among the hundreds of thousands of the account’s followers are Mandana Dayani, Meghan’s friend and former president of Archewell (Meghan and Harry’s media and philanthropic company), and activist Malala Yousafzai, who teamed up with Meghan and Harry on International Day of the Girl in 2020 to raise awareness for girls rights amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Also, the account was first created in June 2022 and a few months later in August 2022, Meghan told The Cut, “Do you want to know a secret? I’m getting back…on Instagram.”
But now we know she wasn’t talking about this mysterious ‘meghan’ account, she was talking about American Riviera Orchard: Montecito.
Meghan deactivated her personal Instagram (@meghanmarkle) once she married into the royal family. For a short time, from 2019 to 2020, Meghan shared an account with Harry (@sussexroyal) but that was deactivated when the couple stepped away from their royal duties.
