Sydney moment destroys major Meghan claim

Dear Harry and Meghan,

It’s not you, it’s us. This might be an unpleasant message to hear, but this is hard for us too.

You thought you were special, we thought you were special. But it turns out that we as a nation are just hooked on HRHs.

On Tuesday afternoon, an estimated 10,000 people thronged and jostled and queued and waited on the Sydney Opera House forecourt, the Botanic Gardens and on boats to see King Charles and Queen Camilla in scenes that got monarchists a bit excited and which gave those that greeted Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in 2018 a massive run for their money.

With one fell swoop, Sydney has just managed to crush a major claim that goes to the very heart of Megxit.

The Sussexes’ tour, which feels like it was approximately 83 years ago, was supposedly the high water mark, the moment the tide of royal fervour in the colonies peaked with the arrival of the glamorous duchess.

Meghan was young! Bi-racial! Cool! She wore jeans!

The blazing success of that trip was tangible proof, you see, of the threatening popularity of Brand Sussex which, back in London, was awakening a green-eyed monster intent on taking down the duchess.

Only now, Sydney (and Canberra) have just delivered Harry and Meghan a stunning reality check.

It wasn’t you; it was never you. We as a nation are just, it turns out, dyed in the wool Windsorites.

When the couple sat down with Oprah Winfrey in 2021, they were clear – their Australia tour and the excitable droves that greeted them were a clear sign of their special touchy-feely je ne sais quoi.

They had “it” – the secret sauce, the stardust, the magic that could, the argument went, dramatically revive the flagging fortunes of a moribund institution out in the far-flung reaches of the Commonwealth and also with the young ‘uns.

Faced with the prospect of their newest recruit outdazzling more senior royalty, we were told, put noses promptly out of joint back at the Palace.

It was at this point when, as Meghan told Oprah, “things really started to turn”.

The Australian trip, Harry explained, was “the first time that the family got to see how incredible she is at the job. And that brought back memories” – those “memories” being of Diana, Princess of Wales upstaging Charles during their 1983 tour.

In Harry & Meghan, their friend Lucy Fraser said: “I think Australia was a real turning point, because they were so popular with the public that the internals at the palace were incredibly threatened by that”.

Harry told the Netflix cameras: “The issue is, when someone who is marrying in, who should be a supporting act, is then stealing the limelight, or doing the job better than the person who was born to do this, that upsets people”.

Except, as those 10,000 people in Sydney on Tuesday have just proven, it was not about Harry and Meghan. The Sussexes’ 2018 tour was not the moment they clearly thought it was, their popularity alarming and dangerous to the powers that be. It was never their individual flavour that brought people out by thousands, but royalty in general.

We just can’t get enough of the crowned and crown-adjacent.

Who would have thought that the masses would descend to catch a glimpse of two septuagenarians who look in need of a nice lie down and a fresh bunion pad? And yet, here

we are.

Any fears that Australians might not be that interested in two hard workers long past retirement age shaking hands was put paid to by those 10,000 fans.

Wonder if anyone in Montecito, California has been paying attention?

To shamelessly borrow from the duchess’ 2019 interview, the royal family, looking at the rapturous reception that greeted Their Majesties in Sydney on Tuesday, are thriving and thriving some more. Rather than being met by an indifferent nation, Charles and Camilla have been buffeted by waves of goodwill and shockingly large crowds both here and in Canberra, demonstrating the depth of support for this crown business.

The same can hardly be said for the House of Sussex, which now only seems to do a regular line in bad news and PR fiascos.

The painful truth is, Harry and Meghan are still brilliant – as entertainment value. In 2024, they don’t exactly matter in any sort of serious fashion; they no longer serve any larger, meaningful purpose. Oh yes, they do their charity and the duke especially has taken it upon himself to try and take on social media – and give the man a stage and a radio mic and he can really give good speech.

But what has been clearly established and resolutely proven by these Australian crowds is that they have failed to move the ideological centre of gravity from Buckingham Palace to Montecito. Heck, they haven’t even moved it one tube stop past Green Park.

Any notion of the Sussexes forming some sort of opposing alterna-court that could really give the Palace a run for its questionably-acquired money can be neatly put to bed.

Imagine going back in a time machine to October 2018 when these sorts of Opera House scenes were for the Sussexes, and telling them that six years later, they would have a reported $14 million-ish mortgage and their brand in the US would be a flagging, increasingly flaccid concern? The white jackets would have been coming out in no time.

Meghan’s designer jam empire is yet to eventuate, after signing with Lemonada Media in February there have been no new podcasts and even having uber agent Ari Emanuel as her rep for more than 18 months has yet to translate into any major new commercial deals or large-scale endeavours.

And Harry. Oh Harry.

Well, as we learnt thanks to Instagram last week, he’s learning to surf, so there’s that – handy since work-wise, his plate increasingly resembles a Dickensian orphan’s. Even dukes have to find a way to fill the daylight hours.

If the Duke and Duchess of Sussex did spend any time scrolling through the buoyant crowd shots from Sydney, how must it have felt? They had all of this – the adoration, the pulling power, the spare keys to Admiralty House – and they managed to blow it up in their mishandled, mangled withdrawal from frontline royal life.

Sydney has, this week, proven to be another turning point – but at the bottom of the third innings and with Charles at the crease, the score would seem to be Buckingham Palace, about 87, the Sussexes, three.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles