Meghan Markle has addressed the question of her royal title during a surprise appearance on MasterChef Australia.
The Duchess of Sussex, 44, joined the judges and contestants on the July 26 episode of the popular cooking competition, filmed during her and Prince Harry’s trip to Australia in April.
After being introduced by judge Poh Ling Yeow as “the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle,” Yeow then turned to her guest and asked how she should actually be addressed.
“Do we call you Duchess?” she asked.
“Oh, call me Meghan,” came the reply.
The name that matters most to her
The moment was not entirely unexpected since Meghan and Harry have long preferred using their first names during public appearances rather than their formal titles, despite retaining the Duke and Duchess of Sussex titles granted to them by the late Queen Elizabeth II on their wedding day in 2018.
But the surname question is one Meghan has addressed before and clearly feels strongly about.
During her Netflix lifestyle series With Love, Meghan, a mild controversy arose when guest Mindy Kaling repeatedly referred to her as “Meghan Markle.”
Meghan gently corrected her.
“It’s so funny, too, that you keep saying Meghan Markle. You know I’m Sussex now,” she said, before explaining why the name means so much to her.
“I share my name with my children. I didn’t know how meaningful that would be to me, but it just means so much to go, ‘This is our family name, our little family name.'”
Meghan legally changed her name upon marrying Harry in 2018 and is officially known as Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, with Sussex as her family name.
The episode also featured a surprise appearance from Prince Harry, who joined his wife on screen during the MasterChef filming.
While calls for the couple’s titles to be stripped have surfaced periodically since their 2020 departure from senior royal duties, any such move would require an Act of Parliament and would be far from straightforward.
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