Meghan Markle shows rare look at children Archie and Lilibet’s faces in new video

Meghan Markle shared a rare glimpse of her two children in a new video celebrating Halloween.

Taking to Instagram, the Duchess of Sussex shared a festive reel featuring her family taking a trip to a Pumpkin patch in Santa Barbara, California, over the weekend (26 October).

The clip begins by panning over a pumpkin patch and includes herself, Prince Harry and their two children, Prince Archie, seven, and daughter, Princess Lilibet, four.

In the clip, Archie can be seen running around excitedly while his younger sister Lilibet sits in a wheelbarrow and examines mini pumpkins. Meghan's mother, Doria Ragland, is also seen carving pumpkins alongside Harry and a friend of the couple.

"Happy Sunday," she captioned the post, which has comments turned off.

Take a look at the reel below:

Although the two children's faces cannot be seen clearly, the video is still a rarity for the Duchess of Sussex, who has been a firm advocate in protecting her two children's privacy.

The children are usually photographed from behind or with their faces obscured, and on a recent birthday trip to Disneyland, the 44-year-old placed heart emojis over the children's faces.

Meanwhile, the family's 2024 Christmas card featured the children running away from the camera.

According to The Sun, this is the first time fans have seen a glimpse of Lilibet's face since 2022, when her face was shared in an official portrait, while Archie's face was last seen in the family's 2021 festive card.

Why do Meghan and Harry hide their children's faces online?

Unlike their cousins, the Wales siblings, who are regularly photographed in public, Archie and Lilibet have remained firmly out of the public eye since their births, which is understood to be for privacy and security reasons.

"Our kids are young... They're amazing," Meghan previously told CBS. "But all you want to do as parents is protect them.

"And so, as we can see what's happening in the online space, we know that there's a lot of work to be done there, and we're just happy to be able to be a part of change for good."

The decision to hide their children's identity is part of a wider trend online, which has seen influencers, celebrities and public figures either avoid posting images of their little ones or obscuring their faces.

However, one cybersecurity expert has warned that sharing pictures of your children without showing their faces may not be protecting them as much as you think.

"I need to be brutally honest here: putting an emoji over a child’s face provides virtually no real privacy protection whatsoever," Cyber Security Unity founder Lisa Ventura told The Independent.

"[By] sharing multiple images over time, and the combined data from all those posts creates a much bigger privacy concern than any single image."