Meghan Markle is one of the most puzzling public figures of our time. She’s an American who married into the British royal family, convinced her literal prince to leave the monarchy, and relocated to Hollywood with him and their two children. And yet, despite that tabloid-worthy backstory, she somehow remains one of the dullest people in public life.

None of her projects have made much of an impression. Her podcast fizzled. Her Netflix show on cooking and entertaining was among the most excruciatingly bland productions ever green-lit by a major streaming platform. She radiates earnestness, but little else.

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Still, she manages to be the center of a vast and obsessive online ecosystem, a whole swath of the internet devoted to criticizing, doubting, and dissecting her every move. Much of the criticism is warranted. Markle often seems to struggle with consistency, lapses into self-mythologizing, and is caught telling stories that strain credulity. In one particularly baffling moment, she told actress Mindy Kaling on her Netflix show that her last name was “Sussex.”

For anyone understandably confused by that: Sussex is a royal title, not a surname. When Markle married Prince Harry, the late Queen Elizabeth II granted them the titles Duke and Duchess of Sussex. That doesn’t make “Sussex” her legal last name. Technically, her name remains Meghan Markle. The couple could also use the surname Mountbatten-Windsor, which is the official family name for descendants of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip.

To my surprise, though, Markle did something last week that was, dare I say, charming. She posted a video to mark her daughter Lilibet’s fourth birthday, showing her and Prince Harry dancing in a hospital room while waiting for labor to begin. She was nine months pregnant, a week overdue, and, based on the caption, being induced. Set to the track “Baby Momma,” the video showed Markle dancing with confidence and, yes, rhythm. While I could’ve done without the dress hike and twerk at the end, it was playful and unexpectedly relatable.

Naturally, the haters lost their minds.

Because my social media algorithms have caught wind of my own Markle skepticism, my feeds are filled with content from accounts dedicated to “exposing” her. These accounts often fixate on the conspiracy theory that Markle is not the biological mother of her children, a claim too ridiculous to entertain for long, but one I’ve occasionally fallen down the rabbit hole exploring, just for curiosity’s sake. Yes, there are some odd videos and photos out there, but the idea that a global figure could fake not one but two pregnancies without a single leak from medical professionals is, frankly, absurd.

Still, the conspiracy theorists pounced on the hospital dance video as supposed “evidence.” Their complaints were revealing — not of Markle’s duplicity, but of widespread ignorance about pregnancy and childbirth.

Some argued that no one could possibly move like that at nine months pregnant. In reality, dancing through early labor or before induction is not only possible, but common: There’s an entire TikTok trend devoted to it. Others claimed Markle was lying because her husband wasn’t in scrubs and she wasn’t in a traditional hospital gown. As any woman who has given birth knows, gowns are optional, and partners typically wear street clothes unless in a surgical setting. Not everyone’s experience includes a scrub-clad father or rigid hospital protocol, especially not VIPs.

Ironically, the backlash revealed something much deeper: a real illiteracy surrounding pregnancy, labor, and birth. Many people don’t know the difference between being induced and being in active labor. Many don’t realize that movement is encouraged, even in late pregnancy. That women can wear their own clothes in the delivery room. That partners aren’t required to be in costume. And perhaps most strikingly, that being a week overdue isn’t a medical emergency.

NETFLIX THROWS MEGHAN MARKLE UNDER THE DOUBLE-DECKER BUS

To be fair, Markle’s own caption wasn’t medically precise. She wrote: “Both of our children were a week past their due dates… so when spicy food, all that walking and acupuncture didn’t work—there was only one thing left to do!” Actually, there was one other thing: wait. Forty-one weeks isn’t abnormal. Babies don’t come with expiration dates, even if many mothers wish they did.

Still, Markle managed to do something rare: She made a goofy, personal video that made her look human and made her harshest critics look utterly unhinged. For once, Meghan Markle didn’t martyr herself. She danced and let the internet melt down around her.

Bethany Mandel (@bethanyshondark) is a homeschooling mother of six and a writer. She is the bestselling co-author of Stolen Youth.