{"id":2423729,"date":"2026-05-19T19:15:46","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T19:15:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2423729"},"modified":"2026-05-19T19:15:46","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T19:15:46","slug":"meghan-markle-sets-record-straight-after-controversial-selfie-royal-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/meghan-markle-sets-record-straight-after-controversial-selfie-royal-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Meghan Markle sets record straight after controversial selfie | Royal | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This week, Wille Rydman, a right-wing politician currently serving as Finland’s minister of Social Affairs and Health, shared a selfie with the Duchess, captioned \u201cA dinner with Meghan.\u201d The duo can be seen beaming in a picture taken inside the UN headquarters in Geneva; however, its release sparked public backlash. Users on social media uncovered Mr Rydman’s controversial past, which includes allegations of racism and sexual harassment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Following the backlash, a spokesperson for the Duchess issued a statement and claimed she had \u201cpolitely\u201d agreed to the politician\u2019s request after the meal.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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They told the Daily Mail<\/a>: \u201cThe 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cAs 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The spokesperson added: \u201cUnderstandably, vetting the background of every person who asks for a selfie is not possible.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cTo 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Rydman is a controversial figure in Finland.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In 2023, he was involved in a racism scandal after various of his texts to his former girlfriend were published in a newspaper.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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He could be seen complaining about Muslim women wearing headscarves, describing people from the Middle East as \u201cmonkeys\u201d and himself as \u201cNazi\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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He did not apologise but said he is \u201ccommitted to equality and non-discrimination\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In 2022, Mr Rydman was accused of grooming and sexually harassing young women and girls.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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He vehemently denied the claims.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation started a preliminary investigation, but no charges were brought against him.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In February 2023, he published his own book titled The Secret That Did Not Exist.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.express.co.uk \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week, Wille Rydman, a right-wing politician currently serving as Finland’s minister of Social Affairs and Health, shared a selfie with the Duchess, captioned \u201cA dinner with Meghan.\u201d The duo can be seen beaming in a picture taken inside the UN headquarters in Geneva; however, its release sparked public backlash. Users on social media uncovered […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2423730,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[34927,34928,23067,475025,228266,34911,475026,475027,475028,475029],"class_list":["post-2423729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-harry-and-meghan","tag-harry-and-meghan-news","tag-meghan-markle","tag-meghan-markle-backlash","tag-meghan-markle-latest","tag-meghan-markle-news","tag-meghan-markle-politician","tag-meghan-markle-wille-rydman","tag-wille-rydman","tag-wille-rydman-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Meghan-Markle-sets-record-straight-after-controversial-selfie-Royal.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2423729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2423729"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2423729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2423731,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2423729\/revisions\/2423731"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2423730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2423729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2423729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2423729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}