Meghan Markle and Prince Harry didn’t greet Prince George publicly on his 7th birthday this week.

According to Express, the royal couple faced backlash last year following the comment they posted on Prince George’s birthday portrait.

Kensington Palace shared photos of Prince George last year to commemorate his birthday. And they revealed that the snaps were taken by Kate Middleton.

Back then, the Sussexes were still using their Sussex Royal Instagram account. And they used it to comment on the young royal’s photo.

“Happy birthday!” they wrote alongside a red balloon emoji.

Several royal fans took their thoughts to Twitter to slam Prince Harry and Markle for their birthday greeting. Some of them said that the royal couple seemingly forgot that Prince George holds a higher position than them in the order of succession.

But some of Markle and Prince Harry’s supporters quickly came to their defense.

“Wow, so the haters are moaning on the fact that Harry & Meghan didn’t put the prince in the birthday message for George, they also seem to think it’s just Meghan alone who wrote the message, the haters would have complained regardless if they had put prince or not,” one royal fan tweeted.

“How can people just single out Meghan when the birthday message came from Meghan AND Harry’s Instagram account, this was the perfect excuse for the haters to use to single out Meghan YET AGAIN and bully her even more!” another royal fan wrote.

One royal fan also noted how Markle’s critics slammed her for writing Prince William in her birthday greeting for the future king. But when she and Prince Harry didn’t include Prince George’s name, they still complained.

Prince Harry and Markle didn’t respond to the backlash by then. And it was only recently that the reason for their silence was revealed.

In her recent statement, the Suits alum revealed that she was prevented from speaking up and defending herself by the British monarchy.

Markle also said in last year’s documentary that she tried her best to follow the British’s stiff-upper-lip practice. However, she found that it could be damaging to a person internally.

This week, Prince Harry and Markle didn’t post a birthday greeting for Prince George. But it is highly likely that they sent him a special message through Prince William and Middleton.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex no longer have an online platform that they can use to greet members of the royal family. After all, they were banned from using their Sussex Royal Instagram account post-Megxit.