If you think Meghan Markle having to delete her Instagram is bad, you don't know about the other humiliations she's expected to endure

Ugly shoes, ugly coats and people who will force you to wear a hat on all occasions: these are the sad realities of being a princess

Prepare for the ugliest footwear you’ve ever seen in your life, Meghan (Getty)

Stop the press: Meghan Markle has reportedly deleted her Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts. The fact that every tiny moment of her life will continue be documented for public consumption is beside the point.

OK, so who needs to take a selfie when the world’s lenses are constantly in your grill and what’s the point in updating your face book account with “H and me done a walkabout lol” when it’s the main item on the six o’clock news? Nevertheless, I feel sorry for her because although she will probably get an official “approved” Twitter account, operated by staff who never drink and tweet, she is letting go of the only form of mass communication that she herself can control.

Imagine how infuriating it must be to be in the public eye and not be able to refute some stupid tabloid story with a swift “b*****ks” sent out to the world via Twitter with the simple press of a button.

Just think how frustrated you’d be if you’d worked as hard as Meghan clearly has on that yoga bod and you couldn’t post a bikini-clad “flying tortoise” pose on your Instagram. I’d be livid – I’d probably give up the yoga and be a shapeless sack within months.

Obviously security must be a huge concern – but imagine if you “weren’t really allowed” to upload a selection of cute Corgi pics after a visit to your fiancé’s Nana, nor able to report to your umpteen thousand followers that certain visiting dignitaries are “a bit of a knob”.

This is why I could never be a princess. Apart from the fact that my knees are physically incapable of curtseying without firing off a volley of clicks that would have the entire palace diving for cover, I wouldn’t relinquish my social media accounts for anyone, not even Hazza – and I love Hazza.

It won’t be him, of course, who has asked his beloved to do this. Harry strikes me as a pro-Facebook livin’-it-large kind of guy; I bet his phone is chocka with pictures of him and his pals drinking goldfish bowls at Mahiki (a Chelsea nightclub where, apparently, his Highness once licked the table clean after spilling a £50 cocktail on it – a fact, if true, I find endearing, being a cheapskate drunk myself).

It must be Palace protocol that has demanded the deletion of the accounts because, for some reason, as soon as a young woman is adopted into the royal household, there are certain rules she must instantly follow.

For starters, she must always wear a pair of ugly shoes. These will be made from real leather and have a sensible low heel – they will be horrible, but supportive of one’s arch and discouraging of one’s varicose vein. There is a reason why the Queen hasn’t got great big bulgy blue lumps up the backs of her legs and that’s because she has worn hideous shoes for her whole life (shoes which apparently get broken in by a “same-sized minion” first).

The newbie royal must also start collecting hideous coats. Most of us only have to buy a new coat once every five or 10 years; in fact, the next coat I buy will probably “see me out”. The princess in the public eye, on the other hand, can’t keep wearing the same skanky leopard skin from the charity shop or that orange Marks & Sparks number she got in the sale. She has to buy an assortment of good quality British-made coats that will withstand the scrutiny of the fussiest Daily Mail reader. These will include something in camel – a colour which only suits a camel – an itchy tweed number that will give her a rash around the back of her neck, a blue one, a red one (so that the papers can write the headline “Lady in Red”) and a black one for posh funerals.

None of these coats will suit her and they will all make her look 20 years older than she is: see Kate for proof.

Which brings me to the hats: the final indignity of marrying the Queen’s grandson is that it automatically subjects you to hat-wearing for the rest of your life. As soon as that ring is on your finger, you are at the mercy of the “hat people”, all of whom are mad and have just the one intention – to make you look as mad as they are.

One of the biggest drawbacks of being a female royal must be putting on a hat and not laughing until you wet yourself to the point of having to change your tights. For this alone I would demand to keep at least one of my social media accounts, just so that I could publicly say “Sorry about the hat”.