‘I Hung onto Those Words’: Meghan Markle Recalls Emotional Moment with Daughter Princess Lilibet

Meghan Markle is opening up about a special mother-daughter moment between her and Princess Lilibet.

The Duchess of Sussex, 42, visited a school in Nigeria’s capital Abuja alongside her husband Prince Harry, 39, on Friday, May 10. And while speaking with the children there, she detailed an emotional exchange that she recently had with her daughter.

“Our daughter, Lili, she's much, much tinier than you guys. She's about to turn three. And a few weeks ago she looked at me and she would just see the reflection in my eyes. And she goes, ‘Mama, I see me in you,’ ” Meghan recalled to a class full of little children.  

“Oh, now she was talking really literally. But I hung onto those words in a very different way,” she continued. “And I thought, yes, I do see me in you, and you see me…” 

Meghan then went on to tell the class that she saw herself “in all of you as well.” During the visit the couple played fun classroom games alongside the kids including a version of “jump up, turn around” and even shared some fun tidbits about her own children’s favorite activities.

She noted that “singing and dancing” was Lili’s “favorite class,” probably because of “all the jumping around,” and that Prince Archie, 5, liked construction, as children showed off their robotic projects in a STEM class.

The couple was also introduced to the oldest child in the class, who was 5 years old, with Meghan telling them, “our son Archie’s 5. He turned five last week.“

The trip to the school was one of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s first stops during their first trip -

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to Nigeria. They were invited to the country by Nigeria's Chief of Defense Staff, the country's highest-ranking military official.

The couple appear to have a busy itinerary for the weekend visit. The schedule includes Prince Harry meeting injured service members at a military hospital on the afternoon of Friday, May 10, and Meghan co-hosting an event of Women in Leadership with Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director General of the World Trade Organization on Saturday, May 11.

The couple will also attend a training session for the organization Nigeria: Unconquered and a reception hosted by the Chief of Defence Staff in honor of military families on May 11, and the following day, they are slated to attend a basketball clinic with Giants of Africa, a cultural reception and a polo fundraiser for Nigeria: Unconquered.

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The visit is also an important one for the couple, and especially Meghan, who revealed in 2022 that she had discovered via a geneology test that she was 43% Nigerian.

Talking about it in her Archetypes podcast, she told comedian Ziwe, "I'm going to start to dig deeper into all this because anybody that I've told, especially Nigerian women, are like 'What!' "

This is huge for our community," Ziwe, 30, said. "No, honestly, you do look like a Nigerian, you look like my Aunt Uzo. So this is great."

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