It was a New Year’s Day surprise, and I hope a harbinger of things to come this year: the Duchess of Sussex dropped a video on Instagram on New Year’s Day! It turns out that the @meghan IG account really does belong to Meghan. Hopefully, this is the start of something great for 2025 – Meghan on social media, promoting American Riviera Orchard and other projects, and a new era of visibility on her own terms. People Mag got the confirmation that Prince Harry was the one who filmed Meghan’s video too:

Meghan Markle is back on Instagram! On Jan. 1, Meghan, 43, kicked off the new year with a new account on the social media platform. It had long been rumored that the handle @meghan belonged to the Duchess of Sussex, and her first post under that account featured her in a video, wearing all white and running on the beach, writing “2025” in the sand before running back off camera. PEOPLE understands the unfiltered video was shot by her husband Prince Harry at a public beach near their Montecito, California home.

In addition to her first post, the @meghan account also updated its profile picture to a black-and-white shot of Meghan smiling and wearing white, though a different white look than in her first post.

PEOPLE understands Meghan is excited to return to social media as a way to reconnect with communities around the world and share updates about the projects she’s working on, looking to lead by example in demonstrating the potential for social media to bring joy and positive connection.

[From People]

“PEOPLE understands…” As in, this came from the Archewell team. Don’t @ me – Harry, Meghan and their team sometimes speak to the media in this way, and I wish they would do it more. Anyway, I’m glad she’s on Instagram and I wish she would have been ‘gramming this whole time. I get that she and Harry are rightly concerned about the effects of social media, especially on kids and teens. But social media can absolutely be a tool for good, a tool for promotion, and a platform to spread a positive message directly.

Photos courtesy of Instar, Instagram.