Prince Harry and Meghan will touch down in Sydney on Tuesday for what has been described as a “faux-royal” tour that will be dramatically different from the pair’s first visit to Australia.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will visit Sydney and Melbourne during their four-day visit, while Harry will do a solo Canberra trip.
But it will be a private – and at times promotional – tour, not a royal visit, with more lofty pursuits than the pomp and ceremony of representing the firm.
On Thursday, Harry will be a keynote speaker at InterEdge’s “psychosocial safety” summit, a two-day professional development event with tickets ranging from $498 for a virtual attendance to $2,378.65 for the platinum experience. He is expected to talk about workplace mental health.
Meghan will headline the three-day “Her Best Life” retreat in Sydney, including participating in a Q&A. Pitched as a “girls’ weekend like no other”, tickets cost $2,699 including accommodation, or $3,199 for a more VIP experience including a group table photo with Meghan.
“Back in 2018 they were newly married, newly pregnant and we were very, very excited,” Flinders University associate professor and royals researcher Giselle Bastin says.
“They had a glamour attached to them … they felt like a new beginning, like the future of the Windsors.
“[But] there’s been so much fracture and unhappiness around the couple and their relationship with the royals … the celebrity shine has rather worn off.”
In 2018, they were welcomed by rapturous crowds and met the then prime minister Scott Morrison. Throngs of people attended their public outings, lavish receptions were thrown, and flowers were presented.
There will be no walkabouts to meet the public because of security and cost concerns.
Instead, along with the luxe wellness retreat, Meghan will be promoting As Ever, her collection of products that the website describes as “more than a brand”.
“It’s a love language,” it says of its assemblage of jams, spice kits and candles.
“They’re not reading the room,” Bastin says.
“Having to flog $3,000 tickets to a wellness retreat looks quite pointless in the current world climate. It’s tin-eared.”
Harry has said the 2018 tour caused waves in Buckingham Palace because of Meghan’s ability to charm the public.
“It was also the first time that the family got to see how incredible [she] is at the job,” he said in a 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey.
He compared it to a 1983 trip by his parents, Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales.
Revelations in that Winfrey interview exposed the extent of the breakdown of the relationship between Harry and Meghan and the rest of the royals.
On this trip, there will be a range of sporting, mental health and veteran-related events.
The pair will visit the Royal Children’s hospital in Melbourne, Meghan will visit a women’s homeless service, and Harry will visit the Australian War Memorial, go to an Invictus Australia event, and attend the last post ceremony on Anzac Day.
It is a privately funded tour, although some taxpayer-funded policing services will reportedly be provided to ensure public safety.
Daily Mirror royal editor Russell Myers told Today the schedule looked like a “box-ticking tour”.
In 2020, Harry and Meghan signed a five-year, US$100m (A$1.42m) Netflix deal, a deal that was renewed last year.
Nine newspapers published a brutal rundown of the pair’s income stream on Monday, in a piece titled “Australia was good to Harry and Meghan. Now they want to use us as an ATM”.
It noted the couple struggling to afford a 16-room, $14.65m ($21m) house in Montecito, California; while also listing their $20m ($28m) Spotify podcast deal; $20m ($28m) from Penguin Random House for Harry’s book Spare; a “substantial sum” from his father for life outside Britain; £6m ($11.4m) inherited from Diana; and £8m ($15.2m) from the late Queen Mother’s estate.
Bastin says they still need cash, and are using Australia to raise it.
“They have an enormous output in terms of money and they don’t have as much coming in,” she said.
“It’s a faux royal tour. They’re not working royals.
“I think they’re using Australia as an opportunity to get a sense of the mood, about how they’ll be received … to cosplay what it might be like if they once again become working royals.”
