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- Royals usually follow a strict protocol that dictates their behavior, from what they eat to how they sit.
- But, as in 2018, they’ve been known to deviate from the rules.
- Meghan Markle hugged a fan, for instance, despite royal protocol to keep some distance.
Sometimes, rules are meant to be broken. And when it comes to strict rules of royal protocol, even Queen Elizabeth herself has been known to brush them aside, calling them “rubbish.”
Here are 10 times that members of the royal family broke their own protocol this year.
Royals aren’t supposed to give autographs, but Markle signed a 10-year-old girl’s notebook.
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Royals aren’t supposed to sign autographs for security reasons: that way their signatures can’t be forged. That didn’t stop Markle from signing 10-year-old Caitlin Clark’s autograph book with a heart and smiley face.
Clark told HELLO! magazine that Markle misspelled her name and wrote “Hi Kaitlin,” but that she didn’t mind.
“I don’t really care,” she said. “My heart is still racing. I’ve never got a royal autograph before. This is going to make everyone jealous.”
Royals usually stick to more formal greetings, but Markle is a hugger.
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Embracing royals is usually off-limits for both security reasons and out of respect for their positions. But Markle goes right in for hugs.
At an event for International Women’s Day, People reports that when 10-year-old Sophia Richards told Prince Harry she wants to be an actress, he brought her over to meet Markle, who hugged her.
“Meghan told me that I can achieve whatever I want to achieve. And Meghan said she would like to see me on TV when I become an actress,” Richards told People. “It was a dream come true. I will never forget this day.”
Princess Eugenie says she “got in trouble” after taking a picture in an off-limits part of Buckingham Palace.
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Members of the royal family don’t have their own personal social media accounts. Instead, they share photos through Kensington Palace’s official pages. The exception to that rule is Princess Eugenie, the queen’s granddaughter and ninth in line for the throne, who has Instagram.
During the Trooping the Colour parade in June, Eugenie snapped a photo of her father, Prince Andrew, standing in Buckingham Palace.
“A wonderful and proud day celebrating Her Majesty’s birthday and @hrhthedukeofyork for his first Trooping the Colour as Colonel of the Grenadier Guards. #troopingthecolour,” she captioned the photo.
She told British Vogue that she was later chastised by palace officials for breaking royal protocol by sharing the photo.
It couldn’t have gotten her in too much trouble because it’s still up on her Instagram.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
See Also:
- The 11 biggest Photoshop scandals of 2018
- A resurfaced video shows the awkward moment when Prince William was asked about Kate Middleton after the couple briefly broke up in 2007
- 13 of the most underrated honeymoon destinations, according to an expert
