Harry and Meghan are on a different kind of foreign trip (just don’t call it a royal tour)

By Hilary Whiteman, CNN

Brisbane, Australia (CNN) — The last time Australia hosted the Duke and Duchess of Sussex they were the fresh new faces of the royal family, ready to walk the path set by decades of tradition.

This time, there was no royal walkabout, but a mix of quasi-regal public engagements and private commercial events for a tour that’s part-celebrity, part-charity.

A tour by Harry and Meghan to Australia – where his father is still the king – was always going to be controversial given their deliberate attempt to distance themselves from the family yet retain some vestiges of royal status.

Even before they arrived, some complained about cost to taxpayers of police security, and the couple’s attempt to cash in on their titles – as one newspaper column put it, to use Australians “as an ATM.”

Yet, for all the headlines about their money-making exploits, it’s unclear how much cash they’ll make from the privately funded tour that includes many unpaid appearances.

Prince Harry wasn’t paid anything to speak at the InterEdge Summit on Thursday, a spokesperson told CNN. And sources say rumors about Meghan’s huge payday for a surprise appearance on MasterChef Australia are also false.

To observers, the tour – and the couple’s status – was hard to define. “What exactly are they? They’re not royals, but they’re assuming the facade of royals,” commentator and author Bonnie Greer told CNN.

Holly Wainwright, the executive editor of Australian news site Mamamia, wrote that Harry and Meghan had returned to Australia not as royals or celebrities but ”some kind of new, indestructible hybrid.”

Australia’s relationship with Harry and Meghan

The couple last touched down in Australia in 2018 for a formal tour as royal newlyweds, whose wedding was watched by millions worldwide and boosted that year’s sales of Australian women’s magazines.

Less than two years later, the couple announced their split from the royal family, but interest in them remained high as mostly negative headlines from Rupert Murdoch’s UK tabloids – longtime foes of Prince Harry – carried over into News Corp’s vast stable of Australian mastheads.

As a member of the Commonwealth, Australia has a direct connection to the British royal family, with King Charles as its head of state.

While rumblings of a republic are never too far away, a survey taken at the end of the king’s last visit to Australia in 2024 showed most Australians wanted to keep the status quo.

By then Harry and Meghan’s popularity had taken a hit in Australia, but local media coverage of their latest tour suggests – love them or hate them – interest is high.

Harry and Meghan’s arrival in Melbourne Tuesday on a commercial Qantas flight made local breakfast news with live reports from journalists who stopped passengers for comment on the famous couple.

“They were super friendly around the toilet areas,” one passenger said.

Australian media has followed their latest trip closely – covering Meghan’s comments on bullying and Harry’s thoughts on parenthood.

“Every day for 10 years, I have been bullied and attacked. And I was the most trolled person in the entire world,” Meghan told students at Melbourne’s Swinburne University of Technology at an event by batyr, a mental health organization, on Thursday.

Harry also reflected on his past challenges in royal life at an event the same day.

“I don’t want this job. I don’t want this role – wherever this is headed, I don’t like it,” he recalled feeling as a teenager, speaking at the InterEdge Summit. “It killed my mum, and I was very much against it.

“Eventually I realized – well, hang on, if there was somebody else in this position, how would they be making the most of this platform and this ability and the resources that come with it to make a difference in the world?”

Earnings from this week’s tour

Most of the negative headlines this week are around the private engagements with hefty entry costs, though it’s not clear how much money they’ll take home to California – if any.

Proceeds from ticket sales to the InterEdge Summit – from almost 1,000 Australian dollars ($720) to more than twice that – would be used to support Lifeline Narrm, the Victoria branch of a national charity that runs a 24-hour crisis support and suicide prevention hotline, the spokesperson said.

It was also questionable how much Meghan would financially benefit from taking part in the “Her Best Life” retreat at the InterContinental Hotel.

Marketed as an “intimate luxury weekend,” the event was organized by podcaster Gemma O’Neill, who last month told listeners that Meghan was turning up effectively “as a favor” to their mutual friend Markus Anderson, described by Marie Claire as Meghan’s “long-time confidant.”

As of Wednesday, tickets were still available for the exclusive event – priced at up to 3,199 Australian dollars ($2,283) for two nights’ accommodation, a gala dinner with free-flow drinks, two breakfasts, one lunch, a Saturday-night disco, yoga, sound healing, talks on mediation and manifestation and, of course, a chat and a group photo with Meghan.

O’Neill told her listeners she’d worked hard to keep prices the same as the last retreat she hosted. She did not respond to CNN’s request for comment, but sources suggested any fee paid to the duchess was nominal.

In a price-sensitive economic climate – with Australians being warned that fuel shortages related to the United States and Israel’s war on Iran could drive up inflation and interest rates – the notion of people spending thousands of dollars on a weekend retreat may have touched a nerve.

But this is Sydney, one of the world’s most expensive property markets. Some people can afford to drop thousands of dollars on a luxury weekend.

Reports suggest the pair may be setting the stage for the potential expansion of Meghan’s lifestyle brand “As Ever” to Australia, but at the time of writing that hadn’t been confirmed.

It’s clear the duke and duchess need to create new revenue streams to maintain their life as ex-royals. (Meghan’s partnership with Netflix for her show “With Love, Meghan” ended last month.)

But to sell anything requires willing buyers – and so far, this tour has shown that there’s still an audience for Harry and Meghan in Australia – working royals or not.

Their four-day tour ends on Friday.

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