The CEO of Prince Harry’s Invictus Games reveals how he was told to correctly address Meghan Markle with her response far from what a former senior royal would be referred to.

The Invictus Games Vancouver Whistler 2025 appointed Scott Moore as its new CEO to lead the delivery of the first-ever winter Invictus Games.

As revealed in Richard Eden’s column for the Daily Mail, he said: “I did make sure to ask how I should be addressing them when they get here.”

In a three-word demand, Scott Moore was told: “‘Ma’am’ is fine.’ He was also told a simple ‘Sir’ was fine to address the Duke of Sussex.”

Male members of the Firm should be greeted as ‘Your Royal Highness’ in the first instance and subsequently ‘Sir’. For female members, it’s ‘Your Royal Highness’ and then ‘Ma’am’.

Following Harry and Meghan’s decision to step down as senior working royals in 2020 they were consequently stripped of their HRH titles.

This means the couple cannot be referred to as Your Royal Highness, but they are however allowed to keep their Duke and Duchess of Sussex title.

The decision to be addressed as Sir and Ma’am is also in stark contrast to Harry’s decision in 2020 when he asked for delegates at a tourism conference in Edinburgh to address him simply as Harry. Ahead of the short speech, event host Ayesha Hazarika told the gathering: “He’s made it clear that we are all just to call him Harry.”

The Invictus CEO asked the question about addressing the couple, ahead of Harry and Meghan’s trip to Whistler in Vancouver, Canada earlier this year.

In February 2024, the couple met competitors at the Whistler Blackcomb ski resort ahead of the 2025 games. Around 550 competitors from up to 25 nations will take part in events including sitting volleyball, swimming and wheelchair basketball. Winter sports such as alpine skiing, snowboarding and wheelchair curling will also be part of the competition for the first time.

Harry and Meghan have also made a big decision in relation to their children’s names, according to their revamped website Sussex.com.

Prince Archie, five, and Princess Lilibet, three, have been using the surname ‘Sussex’ since King Charles’s Coronation, where they were previously known as Mountbatten-Windsor.

These new names mean they’re now breaking a 64-year-old royal tradition established in 1960, which stated that male descendants of Queen Elizabeth II would be known by the name Mountbatten-Windsor.

The last name Mountbatten-Windsor was originally assigned by Queen Elizabeth II’s advisors in 1960 to her male-line descendants.