Instagram user evicted to make way for Harry and Meghan

A DRIVING instructor from Worthing found himself in the middle of a social media storm when his username was commandeered by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

Kevin Keiley, 55, chose the name @sussexroyal for his occasional posts on Instagram and Twitter to reflect his home county of West Sussex and support for Reading FC, the Royals.

Now, after being relaunched as a feed for Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, @sussexroyal has broken the world record for the fastest Instagram account to reach a million followers.

But Mr Keiley said he only found out that he had lost his username after his

‘I was Sussexroyal but I am now _Sussexroyal_ and

I am not overly impressed as they are not Reading fans’

children told him, claiming he received no notification in advance.

“On Instagram I was Sussexroyal and I am now _Sussexroyal_ and I have never used underscores in my life,” he said. “I am not overly impressed as they [the Sussexes] are not Reading fans.”

The father-of-two had not posted on his Instagram account, which had 12 followers, but used it to keep up with family news. The network has a policy by which it may transfer the names of accounts deemed to be inactive.

On Tuesday, when the Sussexes launched their Instagram account, Mr Keiley said he received a text from Twitter, asking him to sign in with a new password. Fearing he had been hacked, he deleted the message.

A Twitter spokesman said: “We don’t comment on individual accounts for privacy and security reasons.”

Mr Keiley has since regained access to Twitter and is rapidly gaining followers among royal fans in anticipation of the couple joining the site.

Last night, he tweeted: “I am still the only @sussexroyal on Twitter.”

On Instagram, @sussexroyal last night had 2.9million followers. It is understood the page is phase one of the couple’s social media strategy, with no current plans for Twitter or Facebook.