How Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are 'diverging more than ever' after controversial Australia tour
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle appear to have increasingly "diverging" interests, according to observers in Australia, following their recent royal-style tour. While Harry, who made a surprise appearance at a security conference in Ukraine today, focused on good causes, Meghan, who is building her As Ever lifestyle brand, incorporated commercial opportunities into the trip Down Under last week. Alongside posing for selfies at a children’s hospital and serving up food at a women’s refuge, the Duchess of Sussex ended the trip with a lucrative appearance as a speaker at a weekend wellness retreat in Sydney. VIP tickets for the 300-person Her Best Life event at the five-star InterContinental Coogee Beach hotel, which included a group photo with Meghan, cost £1,675 each. Meanwhile, Meghan’s surprise addition as a judge on Australian MasterChef was followed by the announcement that she had invested in AI-powered fashion discovery platform OneOff, where she launched her own page for fans to shop her wardrobe during the tour – leading to accusations she was cashing in on her royal title. It has now emerged that the £1,000 outfit Meghan wore to meet survivors of last year’s terrorist attack at Bondi Beach had been quietly removed from the platform after a backlash. "It's clear that their 'his 'n hers' interests are diverging more than ever," Angela Mollard, a royal commentator with Australia’s Channel 7 network, tells HELLO!. Harry is all purpose with his mental health, parenting, social media and military engagements, while Meghan is building her brand. That's got to cause problems in the future because she's effectively leveraging off the family and institution she married into but ultimately rejected. "By front-ending their trip with charitable and meaningful engagements, they've garnered goodwill ahead of the commercial events. There's no question this visit follows the royal tour template, but when an event veers away from that template, we're reminded that Meghan, particularly, has an ulterior motive. "Uploading her outfits to the OnOff marketplace, where she's getting commission for selling designer clothes, jars with the fact the images were taken in a homeless charity. "It's incongruous and you can see why the late Queen was so reluctant to negotiate a 'half in, half out' arrangement back in 2020 because there are constant conflicts of interest."HELLO!'s Royal Editor Emily Nash agrees: "The late Queen made it clear that members of the royal family couldn't be half in and half out, and yet it seems that Harry and Meghan are still aiming for that. "The public engagements they've carried out in Australia have been straight out of the royal tour playbook. In many ways, this gives them the best of both worlds - they have the platform and the reach of royalty, with the commercial opportunities to match. “For many people observing these quasi-royal appearances, it might be hard to distinguish between what they are doing and what the senior working royals do week in, week out, a lack of clarity which the late monarch was keen to avoid."But they need to earn money and if they can make this work without heaping more criticism on the family they left behind, it could be a compromise others can live with."To read the full article, join HELLO!'s VIP club for instant access to the magazine on your digital device. The print magazine is available on newsstands now.
