Princess Eugenie just shared a never-before-seen pic of her family on Instagram
A royal having an Instagram account is very rare, but what trumps it all is when never-before-seen pictures start to crop up on their social media accounts, giving the public an insider glimpse into their lavish and extraordinary lives.
Recently, Princess Eugenie, the Duchess of York, posted a never before seen family picture on her Instagram account of her father, Prince Andrew, along with his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson and kids Eugenie and Beatrice in the same frame.
The photo, captioned, "90s flashback with Bea and parents to when my father commanded HMS Cottesmore... @hrhthedukeofyork@sarahferguson15," shows a young Prince Andrew posing for the cameras with his then-wife Ferguson and his daughters, both of whom look quite young in the photo.
Both sisters are spotted wearing matching white dresses embroidered around the waist with "HMS Cottesmore," which is nothing but the name of the patrol vessel in the British Royal Navy that their daddy commanded.
Princess Eugenie is the only British royal with an Instagram account, and that has led to a lot of speculation as to why she gets to be active on social media like this, while royals like Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton, who have a much larger fan following than the Duchess of York, have to abstain from it.
Earlier in January, Meghan shut down her Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts after her engagment with Prince Harry. In December 2017, the US actress had 1.9 million people following her posts on Instagram, and more than 350,000 Twitter followers. Her Facebook page had almost 800,000 likes, according to BBC Online.
Although there is no iron-rule that royals cannot be active on social media, it is often considered to be an official royal protocol and something which both the Duchess of Cambridge and Sussex have chosen to abide by. Moreover, Princess Eugenie, unlike Kate or Meghan, is not a working royal.
Both Eugenie and Beatrice work full-time; but the fact that Eugenie is an associate art director of a contemporary art gallery, means she does not fulfill royal engagements in an official capacity and hence is not considered to be a working royal by the members of the British royal family.
About her being active on social media with her personal Instagram account, Princess Eugenie has said: “I hope to use this platform to share the causes, passions, and people close to my heart.”
The soon-to-be-married royal, who joined the social media site back in March this year, now boasts of a social media following of over 166k people, even though she has posted only about 19 pictures onto her Instagram account.
The Duchess of York is all set to wed her lover Jack Brooksbank in October this year, and the couple is currently residing in Kensington Palace, just a stone's throw away from their cousin Prince Harry and his newly-wed wife Meghan Markle.
Her engagement announcement came in January this year, only a couple of months after it was announced that Prince Harry had gotten engaged to his now-wife Meghan Markle. After their engagement announcement, both Eugenie and Jack made an appearance on The One Show, where they spoke about their romantic proposal which took place in Nicaragua.
During the interview, Eugenie revealed that she was ecstatic and that it was an "incredible moment" when her boyfriend of seven years put forth the question, and that she "cried" when he proposed.
In their first joint interview to BBC, the couple shared, "We literally told just our mother and fathers, brothers and sisters, and my grandparents. Granny actually knew right at the beginning. She was one of the very few people we told. We left her this weekend and had a very lovely time and she's very happy, as was my grandfather."
Princess Eugenie is believed to be the ninth in line to the British throne. She will have the option to take her to-be husband's last name and will keep her royal title when she weds Jack at the St. George's Chapel on October 12.