There was excitement crackling in the air. Harry and Meghan were coming to town.
It was going to be the newlyweds’ first big international tour after their wedding in May, and they were still basking in the halo of goodwill — from most, although not all.
The pair descended the Sydney Opera House steps hand-in-hand, he in a tailored blue suit, she in her signature fashionable neutrals. They cuddled up to koalas, sat on the beach at Bondi and were greeted by local kids running up for a hug.
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There was even a bonus – Meghan was pregnant, which was officially revealed while they were down under, and were presented with 236 baby gifts over the course of their time here including a pair of teeny tiny baby ugg boots.
Harry and Meghan were hailed as a shining example of modern royals who can move through the world comfortably and casually, seemingly with authenticity and relatability.
What a difference eight years makes.
The duo are back in Australia today for a pseudo-tour with a mix of public appearances and commercial engagements.
It’s a weird expedition because the position they occupy in the public realm is strange. Royals but not, private citizens but not, controversial but shouldn’t be.
Meghan and Harry during their 2018 Australian tour. Credit: Pool/Getty Images/Paul Edwards
Harry and Meghan’s itinerary reflects this disjointed identity. Over their four days here, among their commitments will be a visit to a children’s hospital, the Australian War Memorial, a mental health charity, meet Indigenous veterans and events with the Invictus Games organisation which Harry founded.
They are also making appearances at two ticketed events — Harry at the InterEdge Summit in Melbourne, billed as a “psychosocial safety and leadership” conversation, where tickets cost between $997 and $2378, and Meghan at the Her Best Life retreat in Sydney, which is run by the lifestyle company started by Jackie O and Gemma O’Neill, with a price tag of up to $3199.
They will have likely been paid for their presence at those events, which is proving to be something of a sore point among some commentators.
This is the conundrum faced by Harry and Meghan — they’re damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
To many of their detractors, the idea they should leverage their public profiles to make money is unacceptable, but those same people also cry outrage at any kind of public expense used to support them.
NSW Police, Victoria Police and the AFP will have to deploy security resources to accommodate Harry and Meghan’s visit, especially any point in which they’re interacting with the public. This has already led to a churlish petition demanding no taxpayer funding for their trip.
Do those same 35,000 signatories cry out whenever state police provide any form of security for visiting celebrities and touring artists to manage crowd control in addition to the user-pays system?
Did they demand Taylor Swift reimburse any costs incurred by the taxpayer during the commercially driven Eras tour? Doubt it.
The choice of those two events – the InterEdge Summit and the Her Best Life retreat — were probably chosen not just for their themes related to wellbeing and mental health, but also because the tickets are inaccessible to the average punter.
People who can even consider shelling out at least $1000 to be in the presence of Harry or Meghan at a ticketed event are doing just fine financially, and no one would frame them as a victim of exploitation.
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex receives flowers and a card from a young patient on a visit to the Royal Children’s Hospital with her husband Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex on April 14, 2026 in Melbourne. Credit: Jonathan Brady-Pool/Getty Images
This pseudo-tour is something of a test balloon for Harry and Meghan. Since they stepped back as “working royals” in 2020, moved to the US and engaged in a series of public airings of their negative experiences inside the monarchy, they have become hugely divisive figures, especially in the UK.
While they have both travelled internationally for public appearances, there’s been nothing of this profile and breadth in a Commonwealth country where support for the British royals are still high.
In November 2025, fewer than a majority of Australians (43 per cent) support the country becoming a republic, although this figure was higher among younger demographics.
Here’s the rub. All this hand-wringing over Harry and Meghan, and how to frame and resolve this visit to Australia, and whether you approve of them as either individual humans or as symbols, is contingent on the idea that being a royal should matter, and how much it should matter.
There are obviously different perspectives on this, but it seems to be that if you see Harry and Meghan as a couple of hucksters who blew up his family and went off chasing millions from Hollywood, you would see them as the opposition force to the centuries-old institution of the British royals.
But in order to see them as attempted-destroyers, there has to be something of great worth that must be defended against destruction.
Meghan and Harry take part in a therapy session in the Kelpie garden with adolescent patients and staff at the Royal Children’s Hospital on April 14, 2026 in Melbourne. Credit: Pool/Getty Images
Look, the British royals still do a lot of good in terms of the charities they support, their patronages and the economic and tourism value they bring to the UK through cultural soft power. Plus, King Charles actually believes in environmental conservation and climate change.
And in this current era of political polarisation and extreme personalities, there is something to be said about a traditional institution not at the mercy of populism and the algorithm.
But the British royals are no saints, not throughout history and not in the present.
When you compare the legacy of ugly colonialism which is upheld by the monarchy’s continued existence, or what we know about how much “The Firm”, including, specifically, the late Queen, protected the former prince Andrew up until this year, if a Californian former actor wants to sell some overpriced jam and make silly TV shows where she repackages popcorn, does it really matter? You don’t have to buy it.
All this distraction of the so-called Harry and Meghan problem serves to shield the British monarchy from any real reckoning that is long overdue. What it represents is an elitist aristocracy that has amassed its power through racism, repression and exclusion. It has slowly evolved, but not revolutionised.
No offence to Kate Middleton, who appears to be a perfectly amiable person who has probably been through more than she’ll ever be allowed to reveal, but it really grates that she is held up as some kind of model of modern womanhood.
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex serves lunch at McAuley Community Services for Women on April 14, 2026 in Melbourne, Australia. Credit: Pool/Getty Images
Kate may be suited to the antiquated institution she represents — never step outside of your bounds, procreate some heirs and make them your whole world, smile, nod and make small talk, suppress anything unseemly — but she never even attempted a career before she married into the royal family, and there is nothing modern about that.
Meghan, for all her American woo-woo-ness, is messy and flawed, but she is much more like someone you would actually know and with whom you could down some Campari spritzes.
So, why are so many people so mad at Harry and Meghan? Because they don’t want to be in service to a monarchy that is anathema to the ideals of social progress.
If Harry and Meghan’s Australian pseudo-tour comes off without too much backlash, then maybe they are carving out something that is the middle ground between their former lives, one which Harry at least did not choose, and the ideal ones they want (you have to admit, not everything has gone to plan for them).
No one has really done this before, just like this odd little tour of theirs that is technically not a royal tour but is also not not a royal tour, so no wonder there’s been so much birthing pains.
You don’t have to agree with it or even wish them well. Ambivalence is perfectly acceptable. But to wish them ill or to suggest that they are somehow worse than the institution they defied reveals a lot more about you than it does about Harry and Meghan.
