Meghan Markle today distanced herself from a right-wing politician who she enjoyed a selfie with during her recent trip to Geneva.
The Duchess of Sussex smiled alongside Wille Rydman, 40, in a picture shared on Instagram by the Finnish minister with the caption: ‘A dinner with Meghan’.
But social media users have uncovered Rydman’s controversial past, including allegations of racism and sexual harassment, causing a PR headache for Meghan.
Her spokesman has said it is impossible to vet everyone who asks her for a selfie, adding: ‘To be absolutely clear, the Duchess does not know Mr Rydman, had no prior awareness of him attending the event, and was unfamiliar with the concerning reports relating to him.’
Wille Rydman, Finland’s minister for social affairs and health, once allegedly joked about being a Nazi and was accused of calling people from the Middle East ‘desert monkeys’.
In a series of text messages to a girlfriend, later leaked to a newspaper, he also allegedly said Somalian people were spreading ‘like weeds’ and reportedly said he’d prefer to ban Muslim women in headscarves – more than headscarves themselves.
On Sunday, the Duchess of Sussex grinned with him in a warm selfie after a dinner with ministers and WHO delegates following her ‘no child lost to social media’ speech.
Meghan Markle smiles with controversial Finnish politician Wille Rydman, who was engulfed in a recent racism storm
Hours later, the Duchess of Sussex spoke on online harms in Place des Nations in Geneva
They had met inside the UN headquarters in Geneva after she delivered a 10-minute speech and met grieving families who lost their children to online harm.
A spokesman for the Duchess of Sussex told the Daily Mail that she had ‘politely’ agreed to his request for a selfie after the meal.
He said: ‘Understandably, vetting the background of every person who asks for a selfie, is not possible’.
The Sussex spokesman went on: ‘The Duchess attended a dinner hosted by the World Health Organisation in Geneva, where more than 25 ministers and delegates were present ahead of the World Health Assembly.
‘As she was leaving the venue, a number of attendees approached her requesting photographs. As is often the case at public engagements, and where time permits, the Duchess politely obliges such requests’.
Meghan and Rydman were both in Geneva for the World Health Organisation’s 79th World Health Assembly, held at the UN’s headquarters in Place des Nations.
The Duchess of Sussex said in her ‘no child lost to social media’ speech outside on Sunday that children’s safety online is a ‘public health issue’.
Rydman is a controversial politician in Finland.
Finland has been led by a centre-right government since 2023, bringing together the centre-right National Coalition Party and the more right-wing Finns Party after Sanna Marin’s Social Democratic Party lost power.
Rydman is minister of social affairs and health and a member of Finns, representing a constituency in the capital Helsinki.
Three years ago he was embroiled in a racism scandal after messages he sent to his former girlfriend in 2016 were published by the Helsingin Sanomat [HS] newspaper.
Minister Rydman, then a 30-year-old member of the National Coalition Party, allegedly complained about Muslim women wearing headscarves.
‘I’d still rather ban people who wear scarves than the scarves’, he reportedly said.
He also allegedly described people from the Middle East as ‘monkeys’ and ‘desert monkeys.’
Somalis are ‘spreading like weeds’, another text reportedly said.
In another message Rydman allegedly said: ‘Even if I bred with a pitch black Nigerian n***o, the child would still have a 26% chance of having green eyes’, according to HS.
His then girlfriend said her future children might have traditional Hebrew names. ‘We Nazis don’t really like that kind of stuff,’ he allegedly replied.
Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said at the time that while the messages had been private, the language Rydman used was ‘inappropriate.’
‘I cannot accept such a way of speaking,’ he said.
Rydman declined to apologise but said he was committed to equality and non-discrimination.
In June 2022, Rydman was accused by a newspaper of grooming and sexually harassing young women and girls.
He vehemently denied the claims.
Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation started a preliminary investigation but no charges were brought against him due to a lack of evidence.
He later published a book defending himself called ‘The Secret That Did Not Exist’.
Last year Meghan and Harry received an award for fighting ‘structural racism’ within the Royal Family.
Meghan had alleged in the couple’s Megxit TV special with Oprah Winfrey that an unnamed member of the Royal Family spoke about ‘how dark his (Archie’s) skin might be when he’s born’.
However, Harry later denied they had accused his family of racism.
The Duchess of Sussex has previously opened up about her experiences with racism in a 2012 campaign video that has resurfaced in light of George Floyd’s death and the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.
In the clip Meghan, discussed her heritage, while detailing the racist behaviour she has witnessed – including her mother, Doria Ragland, being called the N-word.
Meghan Markle has been criticised for sharing an Instagram image of Lilibet sitting at her feet in a wardrobe packed with designer fashion before leaving for Geneva to warn of the dangers of social media for children.
Meghan on Saturday shared a photo showing her daughter Lilibet helping her pick an outfit for the UN event in an Instagram post with the caption: ‘Mama’s little helper’
Royal expert Tom Sykes, who was in Switzerland for her speech outside the United Nations, has claimed: ‘The hypocrisy is breathtaking. It is a boastful image. It is a vain image. It is a staggeringly tone-deaf image.’
The Duchess of Sussex said in her ‘no child lost to social media’ speech at a World Health Organisation (WHO) event on Sunday that children’s safety online is a ‘public health issue’.
‘Our children are not products, they are not experiments and not expendable,’ she said as she advocated for stronger global protections for children online.
Slamming the social media firms ‘shaping our children’s lives’, she said: ‘The platforms value profit over people.’
After her ten-minute speech, she then hugged grieving parents who have lost their children to online harm in front of 50 illuminated light boxes, remembering each of them ahead of the 79th World Health Assembly.
But the night before, Meghan shared a mirror selfie of herself and her four-year-old daughter to her 4.5 million followers on Instagram, with the caption: ‘Mama’s little helper.’
‘Just hours before this vital event, Meghan chose to post a photograph of herself smirking as her four-year-old daughter, Lilibet, watched her try on outfits,’ Tom Sykes claimed in his Substack, The Royalist.
‘Yes, a woman who is about to stand alongside the world’s most senior public health official and discuss the measurable, preventable harms of exposing children to social media has just exposed her own child to social media.’
He added: ‘The Geneva speech is the rhetoric. The closet photograph is the reality.’
She embraced attendees at a memorial for children who died after viewing harmful content on social media
He claimed the Lilibet ‘Mama’s little helper’ photo contained outfits worth at least $250,000, with an Armani coat ‘prominently’ in the foreground of the mirror shot with ‘the label clearly visible’.
He added: ‘Her Instagram account is a public-facing shop window: it is the funnel that drives traffic to her lifestyle brand, As Ever, to her Netflix content, to her podcast.
‘The argument that Meghan does not show Lilibet’s face, and therefore protects her privacy, has become absurd. Not showing a child’s face does not prevent that child from becoming a social media star. If anything, it manufactures a curiosity gap.’
The Duchess of Sussex’s spokesman has been asked to comment.
Meanwhile, Meghan’s supporters have praised her speech on the dangers of online bullying, calling her words so ‘powerful’ they moved parents watching it to tears.
One woman sobbed as she embraced the duchess.
Her fans also dismissed photographs from the UN’s European headquarters, including one where only one member of the public appeared to be watching.
Other photos showed around a dozen people at security railings, before her speech began.
A supporter said: ‘Meghan does not need a crowd to be heard! She is a global icon.’
