SARAH VINE: Did they think twerking like trailer-trash teens would endear them to the masses?

Goodness, these AI versions of celebrities are getting eerily good, aren’t they? The Duchess of Privacy herself, twerking like some vulgar commoner to Starrkeisha’s viral hit The Baby Momma Dance, while Prince Harry dad-dances around her like an over-excited flamingo doing an elaborate courtship dance?

It can’t be real – can it? Whatever next, the Prince and Princess of Wales doing sl*tdrops to Beyonce’s Gimme Some? Their Majesties King Charles and Queen Camilla mouthing along to Lola Young’s Messy? Surely there’s a law against such obscenities? Treason!

That was my first thought when I saw the latest video on Meghan’s Instagram. Eye-popping, jaw-droppingly embarrassing. Some joker must have cooked this up in his mum’s basement, hacked her account and posted it. It’s the only explanation.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, shy, retiring creatures that they are, would never – NEVER – expose their jealously guarded private life like this.

Not after moving halfway across the world to escape the prying eyes of the paparazzi, not after mobilising armies of lawyers to emphasise (at a cost of several hundred pounds an hour) the need for ‘boundaries’ and ‘respect’ from the media, not after weeping into the arms of Oprah and sundry about all the horrid and mean things being said about them on account of their exposure. Surely not. Or would they?

Meghan posted a video of herself dancing and twerking while pregnant with Princess  Lilibet on Instagram to mark her daughter’s fourth birthday

Well, it appears they would.

It started with the Duchess posting a black and white picture of her and little Lilibet – whose birthday it was yesterday – on her Instagram account. It was sweet, and rather classy – albeit a little surprising, since the four-year-old’s appearance, together with that of her brother, has been so jealously guarded by the couple that even the child’s own grandfather has yet to see her in the flesh.

This was quickly followed by another post, this time a Clinton card style black and white of Prince Harry holding up the swaddled infant, and a colour snap of the two of them hand in hand, captioned ‘The sweetest bond to watch unfold’.

Now, obviously it’s totally up to Meghan what she posts on social media, but some might say that if one’s husband has just spent untold thousands suing the Home Office for withdrawing one’s automatic security detail on the grounds that without it one and one’s family aren’t safe on British soil, it might perhaps not be the best idea to post a picture of one’s child to a social media account with three million followers.

But anyway: then this, a video of the pair of them in the delivery suite, twerking like a pair of trailer-trash teenagers, Prince Harry busting his ‘gangsta’ moves while she works it like she’s doing a shift at Stringfellows. I mean, fine as a light-hearted private moment between the two of you – marriage is full of those; but not something you share with the entire world, surely? Especially when, you know, ‘privacy’.

So why? And more to the point, why now?

Desperation, perhaps? It’s fair to say that the Duke and Duchess’s reputation as once-stellar royals has taken quite a beating of late. Largely, it must be said, as a result of their own actions and behaviour. In particular, Meghan’s attempts to endear herself to the world via her As Ever brand and Netflix cooking show haven’t exactly been an unmitigated success.

She’s been cast as a sort of cross between Gwyneth Paltrow and Nigella Lawson, with mixed results. She lacks the sincerity of the former and the warmth of the latter, but the main problem seems to be that she is just so awfully pleased with herself, and people (for some reason) aren’t too keen on that.

Maybe she thought that a ‘kooky’ display of twerking might endear her to the masses, show how down-to-earth and ‘normal’ she is (after all, that dance was a viral hit on TikTok). Perhaps she thought it would frame her as a woman of the people, just another relatable ‘baby mama’ doing her thing.

Or perhaps this is just her ‘taking back control’, to coin a phrase. There’s a definite sense here that she is trying to write her own narrative. And in a way that’s perfectly in keeping with the person she’s always been – right from the start, she seemed determined to do things her way, even if that meant putting a few noses out of joint.

But it’s hard to see what she wants to achieve with this video, not just because it’s crass and vulgar, but also because it really does remove any remaining leg she and the Prince might have had to stand on in terms of protecting their privacy.

It’s possible, of course, that neither of them actually care, or cared, about that in the first place – that it was just an excuse to get out of Dodge and live their lives, their way. In which case, fine – but why the scorched earth? Why put everyone through all that agony?

For what? To end up twerking for clicks on Instagram? Hmm. All I can say is I hope it was worth it.