Meghan Markle won’t be taking part when members of the royal family greet Donald Trump during his state visit next month, a new report claims.
A number of royal family members, including Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles, are set to meet with Trump and First Lady Melania Trump for a ceremonial welcome on Monday when the American president arrives for his state visit. As CBS News reported, the members will then take Trump to a private lunch with even more members of the royal family, including Prince William and Kate Middleton.
But Meghan Markle will reportedly not be there. The report said that the mother to a newborn child will not be among those welcoming Trump to England. As The Hill noted, Meghan is officially still on maternity leave, giving her an out from meeting Trump.
“Meghan is not snubbing Donald Trump, it is simply for one very good reason: she is on maternity leave,” royal family expert Victoria Arbiter told Inside Edition .
“When the Trumps arrive in London, Archie is going to be just shy of his one-month birthday.”
The news came after weeks of speculation that Meghan Markle would be skipping out on greeting the American president. Many believed that Meghan would indeed use the birth of her son as a convenient excuse to avoid Trump.
“I’m told that there are no plans for Meghan to meet President Trump,” Duncan Larcombe, an expert on the Royals, told the U.K.’s The Sun back in April.
That now seems to be official, as news outlets are reporting that Markle is staying home rather than meeting with Trump.
Meghan Markle has been openly critical of Trump in the past, saying in 2016 that she supported Hillary Clinton “not because she is a woman, but because Trump has made it easy to see that you don’t really want that kind of world that he’s painting.”
Meghan Markle Won’t Meet With Donald Trump During His Visit With the Royal Family https://t.co/yU0GxV4Dw0 pic.twitter.com/n519o0CAjr
— Cosmopolitan (@Cosmopolitan) May 28, 2019
There will be something of an unwelcome greeting waiting for Donald Trump when he does arrive in the U.K. There are already a number of protests planned, with some estimates putting the number of protesters at 1 million or more. These protests will include a super-sized version of the Donald-Trump-as-a-baby blimp that first made its debut during Trump’s first visit to the U.K. Now that he is ready for a more official and ceremonial state visit, organizers have created an even bigger version of the blimp to greet Trump, The Guardian reported.
