Trooping the Colour is an annual celebration marking the British monarch’s official birthday. The event, held on Horse Guards Parade in Whitehall, features hundreds of officers, horses, and musicians from the Household Division in ceremonial uniform.

It’s also a day when members of the royal family gather on the Buckingham Palace balcony to watch a flypast and wave to the crowds below. It’s a time-honored tradition and one of the biggest royal events of the year but something Meghan Markle wasn’t familiar with until she married Prince Harry.

Now, a body language expert is looking back at the Duchess of Sussex’s first Trooping the Colour appearance and pointing out how to tell if she was happy or not. Plus, what went wrong the last year Meghan and Harry stood on the balcony with the rest of the royals.

Expert says Meghan was ‘happy’ before things went downhill

Darren Stanton is a body language and behavioral expert with a degree in psychology. He previously worked as a police officer and used his expertise to uncover the truth when interviewing hundreds of suspects. He later moved into media and TV as a consultant and has been dubbed the “Human Lie Detector.” Now, he’s analyzing footage of Meghan’s demeanor the very first time she stepped on the balcony with her in-laws and observed how happy she looked.

Speaking on behalf of Betfair Slots, Stanton told Showbiz Cheat Sheet: “Meghan always comes over very confident. Her posture and the way she interacts with the rest of the royal family during her first Trooping the Colour highlights this. She took this debut in her stride. Her smiles are genuinely authentic and she’s using lots of open hand gestures, which are true signs of real happiness. There’s a real sense of authenticity here.”

However, once the flyover was over, things got a bit awkward for Meghan.

According to Prince Harry’s memoir Spare, that’s because the Princess of Wales (formerly known as Kate Middleton) asked Meghan a question and she tried to make a joke, but it fell flat.

In his book, the Duke of Sussex wrote: “Kate asked Meg what she thought of her first Trooping the Colour. And Meg joked: ‘Colourful.’”

Harry’s wife was expecting Kate to laugh but she did not. The prince then described “a yawning silence threatened to swallow us all whole.”

There was tension with Prince Harry on the balcony for Trooping the Colour 2019

The following year, a tense moment between Harry and Meghan on the balcony went viral.

The moment that had so many people talking was a brief exchange seen between the Sussexes during the 2019 Trooping the Colour as they stood waiting for the national anthem to begin.

The clip shows Meghan turning around to say something to Harry, but he ignores her words and appears to tell her to “turn around.” The duchess looked stunned and tried to say something to him again before the duke seemingly demanded a second time that she “turn around.” Meghan did turn and face forward as the anthem played.

Showbiz Cheat Sheet acknowledges conditions and cultures can impact body language and is sensitive to all backgrounds.