Despite recent claims to the contrary, the late Queen Elizabeth II did approve of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle naming their daughter Lilibet.
“Meghan and Harry 100 percent got permission from the queen to use the name Lilibet,” a source exclusively tells Us Weekly.
Eyebrows were raised after a former member of the queen’s staff claimed that Elizabeth, who died at age 96 in September 2022, was “as angry as I’d ever seen her” after Harry, 39, and Meghan, 42, publicly claimed that they consulted with the monarch before naming their now 2-year-old daughter.
The allegation was made in Robert Hardman’s upcoming book, Charles III: New King. New Court. The Inside Story, which hits shelves later this month and is currently being excerpted in the Daily Mail.
“The report is not true. [Harry and Meghan] don’t know where this is coming from,” the insider tells Us of the allegation. “They’re shocked that this is coming now; it seems out of nowhere and out of left field. They just feel like it’s more of the same spear campaign that continues against them.”
The source adds that “multiple people are aware” that Harry and Meghan, who also share son Archie, 4, got Elizabeth’s blessing for their daughter’s moniker.
“They feel it’s convenient [that] this is surfacing now when the queen is not here to defend herself and can’t say what is true or false,” the insider shares.
Royal biographer Omid Scobie, who cowrote the book Finding Freedom about Harry and Meghan’s 2020 step down from their senior royal duties, has also shut down the claim that the couple’s baby name caused drama in the royal family.
“None of these Lilibet ‘revelations’ are doing the late Queen Elizabeth II any favours,” he wrote via X on Tuesday, January 16. “Not only do they contradict details shared by the Palace with a cooperatively written biography in 2022 (see pic), they also depict the monarch in a way the public haven’t known her to be.”
Scobie included screenshots of a Daily Mail excerpt from Gyles Brandreth’s 2022 book, Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait, that said Elizabeth viewed her great-granddaughter’s name as “the compliment it was intended to be.”
Upon announcing Lilibet’s birth in June 2021, Harry and Meghan noted via their Archewell website that they chose the moniker as a nod to Elizabeth’s “family nickname.” A source exclusively told Us at the time that the name had “always” been Harry and Meghan’s favorite option.
“It was important for them that the queen signed off though, and that didn’t happen until right before the birth. They both agreed it would only be right if Her Majesty gave her approval, especially with something so personal,” the insider continued.
Lilibet — whose middle name is Diana in honor of Harry’s late mother, Princess Diana — was born in California after Harry and Meghan stepped down as senior royals and relocated to the United States in 2020. Archie, meanwhile, was born in London in 2019.
