Footage appeared to capture Meghan Markle glaring at an adviser after she tapped Prince Harry on the back during a children’s hospital visit this week.
Meghan’s warm facial expression noticeably dropped during the awkward moment on the couple’s four-day tour in Australia.
Meghan and Harry were on their first public engagement on Tuesday, an internal walkabout of the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, which had been opened by the prince’s grandmother Queen Elizabeth II in 2011.
A small, enthusiastic crowd of staff, visiting patients and families gathered in the hospital’s ground floor atrium, with Harry in meet-and-greet mode when the moment occurred.
He had patted and chatted to children and had just been embraced by a smiling woman when the Sussexes’ staffer, the couple’s long-term chief-of-staff Sarah Fosmo, approached from behind and placed her hand on his right shoulder.
She still had her hand on Harry’s back when Meghan fixed her with a stare, the duchess’s mouth tightening in its grin.
The glare lasted for around two seconds as Meghan moved in closer to Ms Fosmo, batting her eyelashes as she grabbed her husband’s hand.
Ms Fosmo was trying to alert Harry to the people who had gathered above on the glass-lined walkways which zig-zagged from the ground floor up three storeys and were by then a crush of waving fans.