The author of the celebrated Princess Diaries series, 58, took to Facebook on Sunday, Jan. 18 to clarify an earlier post she made to honor her late mother, Barbara Cabot.
She initially shared a GIF of her mother's favorite scene from The Sound of Music, which saw Christopher Plummer's character Captain Von Trapp tear down a Nazi flag and rip it in half. "Just posting my mom's favorite scene from her favorite movie here for no reason whatsoever," Cabot wrote in her post.
However, because the GIF seemed to have glitched for some users, only the image of a Nazi flag appeared -- which led some fans to believe Cabot was endorsing the exact opposite message of the scene.
"I'm very sorry to anyone who was hurt or confused by this, especially since my mother's father (my grandfather) was shot during WWII, fighting Nazis," Cabot wrote in her follow-up post.
The author then denounced Nazi ideology while alluding to her most famous series: "I hope everyone knows that I'm not a fan of fascism, only democracy and constitutional monarchies run by princesses."
Cabot publicly shared the news of her mother's death days earlier on Jan. 15 in a post on Instagram. Barbara, known to loved ones as Jinx, died on Thursday, Nov. 27, Cabot wrote, alongside a snap of her mother on a golf cart ride, a photo of her as a young woman and a painting she created of two birds sitting on a flowering branch.
"Losing my mom on Thanksgiving Day was tough, but the loving attention she received from her [caregivers] helped so much, as has the support from so many of you," Cabot wrote in the caption. "Thank you. 'Jinx' will be missed, but never forgotten."
Cabot's Princess Diaries series -- which has been published in more than 38 countries, per her site -- reached an even larger audience with the 2001 film adaptation of the same name, starring Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews.
The film follows Mia Thermopolis (Hathaway) whose grandmother Clarice Renaldi (Andrews) appears after many years away, only to surprise her with the news that she's royalty. The sequel, Princess Diaries 2, picks up with Mia in her ancestral homeland of Genovia, as she navigates romance, an arranged marriage and her ascension to the throne.
In addition to the movie, a new graphic novel adaptation also arrives in the spring to introduce the next generation of readers to Mia in all of her awkward glory. A main plot point of the books' and movies' story revolves around a relationship inspired by Cabot's mom, who called The Princess Diaries her favorite film and was unfailingly supportive before her death.
"She knows that her daughter wrote these books, and she knows what the books are. She doesn't make the connection that I'm her daughter, which is really sad," Cabot recently told PEOPLE. "So, in a way, going back to this project was really great for me because it really helped at a time when I was feeling emotionally vulnerable and upset to kind of provide some comfort even to me as the writer."
The Princess Diaries: The Graphic Novel by Meg Cabot, illustrated by Bethany Crandall, will hit shelves on April 7, 2026 and is available for preorder now wherever books are sold.