Kate Middleton and Meghan’s historic matching curtsies go viral

The moment the Princess of Wales and Duchess of Sussex performed matching curtsies at the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II has gone viral after fans resurfaced footage from the historic event on TikTok.

Kate and Meghan’s curtsies have both become the subjects of multiple social-media posts over the past year, since both Meghan and Prince Harry discussed the gestures in documentary and memoir projects.

Curtsies are traditional forms of reverence, offered by female members of the royal family to the monarch and their consort twice each day, upon greeting and saying goodbye. The gesture takes the form of a brief bend to the knee and bowing of the head. Fans and royal watchers are quick to spot curtsies at official events and engagements throughout the year.

A number of curtsies were on display during the official mourning period for Queen Elizabeth following her death at the age of 96 in September 2022.

All senior members of the royal family gathered in London for the state funeral, including Harry and Meghan. The couple were visiting Britain at the time from their home in California to attend charity events.

Uploaded to TikTok by user @itsmeren026 on December 28, the footage from the Westminster Abbey funeral in London of the late queen has gone viral. It shows Meghan and Kate performing a final curtsy to the monarch’s coffin alongside Queen Camilla and Princess Charlotte, Kate’s daughter.

The five women—in addition to the Duchess of Edinburgh, who is not seen in the clip—performing their curtsies became a widely shared image at the time of the funeral. It marked one of the last such gestures they would be seen publicly offering to Elizabeth.

Captioned “The royals last bow and curtsy to Queen Elizabeth II,” the latest clip has been viewed over 367,000 times in 24 hours on the platform and received more than 14,500 likes and almost 200 comments, many of which have praised the royals.

“MEGHAN curtsy was beautiful,” wrote one TikTok user.

“Kate showing how it’s done!” posted another, with a further comment reading: “Strange how Megan managed a proper curtsey and not the travesty she demonstrated in the Netflix show.”

This comment references a controversy that was sparked by Meghan in her 2022 docuseries Harry & Meghan. There, she described first thinking that being asked to curtsy to her partner’s grandmother was a “joke.”

In the Netflix docuseries, the duchess reenacted her first curtsy with an exaggerated bow. Although likely to have been a piece of self-deprecation to entertain viewers, it was interpreted by some as disrespect towards Queen Elizabeth and British customs.

In his 2023 memoir, Spare, Harry spoke in defense of his wife’s first curtsy, describing it as “flawless.”

James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek‘s royal reporter, based in London. You can find him on X (formerly Twitter) at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek‘s The Royals Facebook page.

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