Meghan Markle and Prince Harry may be in for a mixed reception when they fly to Australia next month – their first visit since they married almost eight years ago.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s last tour of Australia – just after their 2018 wedding – was a big success with huge crowds turning out to greet them.
But now they have been warned to have ‘thick skins’ when they go Down Under in mid-April because they are ‘no longer assured of a warm welcome’.
Experts have predicted that their visit will become a ‘lightning rod’ for Australia’s republicans and ignite further debate about whether King Charles III should be head of state.
And royalists upset about the Sussexes’ years of potshots at Harry’s family may also turn out to greet them, meaning the warm welcome they enjoyed in 2018 may have evaporated.
‘I think there will be plenty of monarchists and republicans who won’t welcome Harry and Meghan’s visit. Any “royal” visit, even by members of the family who no longer represent the King, will inevitably create debate about the monarchy’, an insider said today.
‘Harry and Meghan’s visit will inevitably prompt questions about why there haven’t been more frequent visits there by other members of the family. It will throw the spotlight on the Prince and Princess of Wales in particular’.
Meghan and Harry’s last appearance together in the UK in 2022 saw them booed as they arrived at St Paul’s Cathedral to attend the service of thanksgiving for the late Queen’s reign.
Journalist Tom Sykes wrote on his The Royalist substack of the upcoming Australia trip: ‘The Sussexes are likely to be lightning rods in Australia’s ongoing debate about the royal family and the country’s constitutional future.
‘For now, one thing seems certain: Harry and Meghan will need thick skins when they arrive in a country where they are no longer assured of a warm welcome’.
The Sussexes’ trip to Australia in around seven weeks time will also cause a major headache for King Charles and Prince William.
A spokesman for the couple said they ‘will visit Australia in mid-April to take part in a number of private, business and philanthropic’ engagements’.
It has not been confirmed yet whether the Sussexes’ children, Prince Archie, 6, and Princess Lilibet, 4, will join them on the trip or remain in Montecito, California.
‘Back in September, the Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese had tea with the King at Balmoral and publicly invited the Prince and Princess of Wales to tour the country’, the Mail’s royal insider added.
‘There have been rumours of a visit in July or August but it’s not looking likely at the moment.
‘Either way, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are going to get there first’.
The couple confirmed yesterday that they will be visiting Australia in the coming weeks, marking more than seven years since their royal tour.
When the Sussexes visited Australia as newlyweds, the country welcomed them with open arms.
Meghan was pregnant with Archie and Harry said he could not think of a better place to tell the world that they were having their first child.
But later Harry said that the tour ‘really changed’ his family’s view and treatment of his wife, claiming she showed them how ‘effortlessly’ she took to royal duties.
‘It was the first time the family got to see how incredible she was at the job,’ adding that she was already ‘one of the greatest assets to the Commonwealth that the family could have ever wished for’.
It would prove to be the catalyst for Megxit less that two years later.
In Valentine Low’s bombshell book Courtiers: The Hidden Power Behind the Crown, where Palace staff made bullying claims about Meghan, which she has consistently denied, adding that she is the target of bullying herself and is deeply committed to supporting those who have experienced pain and trauma.
Mr Low wrote of Australia: ‘Massive crowds were turning out to see them, and Meghan’s refreshingly informal approach to royal visits was proving a hit with the Australian public.
‘Behind the scenes, however, it was a different story. Although she enjoyed the attention, Meghan failed to understand the point of all those walkabouts, shaking hands with countless strangers’.
Reports suggested the Duke and Duchess of Sussex could visit Sydney and Melbourne next month.
While their plans have yet to be announced, it is likely the couple will meet with Australia’s armed forces or veterans’ community, given Harry’s connections to both.
However it is understood Meghan could also venture into Australia’s podcasting scene, with reports she is due to appear as a guest on the ‘Her Best Life’ podcast, launched and co-hosted by Jackie O Henderson through her ‘Besties’ company.
The embattled radio star, who is currently in the news following the shock collapse of the Kyle and Jackie O Show last week, ‘stepped away’ from the podcast in February.
Meghan is also rumoured to appear as a special guest at an upcoming Besties event, similar to actress Gwyneth Paltrow who took part in a Q&A with Henderson at Sydney’s Darling Harbour in 2023.
The Sussexes last travelled to Australia in 2018 as working members of the British royal family.
Meghan had just announced she was pregnant with her and Harry’s first child, with the trip widely considered a huge success for the-then newlyweds.
Within 18 months of the tour, the couple had had stepped back from their royal roles and moved to California with their son Archie.
Royal historian Tim Ewart told Sky News: ‘Australia broke Harry and Meghan and was one of the catalysts for them leaving the Royal Family. She and Harry had expected they would get much more praise and recognition from that royal tour.’
In their 2021 Oprah Winfrey interview, Harry said: ‘It really changed after the Australia tour, after our South Pacific tour’.
