Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are facing a mix of reactions for moments in their quasi-royal trip to Australia last week, including their first stop, which involved meeting children with cancer and other life-threatening conditions at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne.
The hospital visit was supposed to evoke images of 1980s royal visits by Queen Elizabeth and Harry’s parents, Princess Diana and King Charles, with hundreds of staff, families and sick young patients gathered in the hospital foyer to welcome Harry and Meghan, People reported.
Depending on your perspective, the young patients either got a morale-boosting thrill by meeting a real-life prince and princess, or they were being used as props in photos to bolster the couple’s brand as global do-gooders – and to help Meghan sell luxury clothes through an AI-powered fashion website.
The possibly self-serving motive behind the visit was highlighted by podcaster and former royal journalist Dan Wootton, who reported what Meghan allegedly said before entering the hospital.
“Let’s make this quick,” a source at the hospital quoted her as saying. Once the couple entered the foyer, “the acting started,” said Wootton, who is a well-known critic of the Sussexes.
Meghan, “in a sleek navy Karen Gee dress spotlighting the Australian designer, paired with Dior pumps,” held Harry’s hand as they moved through the crowd, People reported.
The Daily Mail noted that Meghan’s US$1,250 (RM4,942) dress, US$780 (RM3,083) stud earrings and US$120 (RM474) Christian Dior pumps were immediately made available for sale on OneOff.
The duchess recently become an investor in the website, which markets celebrity fashion and which has made all outfits and accessories she is wearing on the trip available for purchase. She reportedly gets a 15% cut of the sale price.
CNN reported that this four-day trip – part-celebrity, part-charity – was always expected to be controversial, given the couple’s “deliberate attempt to distance themselves from the royal family yet retain some vestiges of royal status.”
Even before they arrived, some complained about the cost to taxpayers of police security, and their attempt to cash in on their titles, with one newspaper column accusing them of using Australians “as an ATM.”
Following the Melbourne hospital visit, Harry and Meghan, their team and the hospital were criticised in some quarters for the way their interactions with the children were handled.
In the hospital foyer, the couple paused for selfies and crouched to speak with children in wheelchairs.
Novalie Morris, 12, a patient at the hospital, was delighted to meet them, she told People.
"I gave Harry flowers, and he said, ‘Thank you,’ and he told me to ‘keep on being brave,'” she said. “It cheered me up a lot, and I’ll keep thinking about that.”
But other reports, as well as people online, voiced concerns about the children being “exploited” to serve Harry and Meghan.
NewsNation correspondent Paula Froelich said that the children were apparently removed from their hospital beds and “wheeled out” to be lined up in the foyer for the Sussexes.
“Many of the children who were undergoing chemotherapy, radiation and other cancer treatments were unmasked,” Froelich also said.
An Australian nurse told Froelich: “Who does that? These children are extremely susceptible to germs, and they don’t mask up? After an international flight? And no one even saw them wash their hands before they cuddled those kids.”
The nurse also pointed out that Meghan visited young patients at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles last month and wore a mask.
“So why not here? This is outrageous!”
People online also shared photos of the children at the Melbourne hospital wearing masks before they were seen in photographs with Harry and Meghan, leading people to wonder if they were told to remove their masks if they wanted the chance to interact with the couple.
The Sussexes also are facing criticism because of the way the young patients’ images were beamed out to the world, even as the couple continue to bill themselves as advocates for protecting children online, according to CafeMom.
They have refused to allow the faces of their children, Archie and Lilibet, to be seen in photos and videos that Meghan posts online to promote her As Ever lifestyle brand.
“They talk about privacy online and won’t show their children’s (full) faces, but our sick children are fair game?” another anonymous Australian told Froelich. “They are using these kids as PR but also hypocritically putting them online.”
“They are turning someone else’s pain into their PR,” Froelich also said on Tom Sykes The Royalist YouTube channel.
Along those lines, Sykes reported that the couple’s final day in Australia included a visit to meet survivors and first responders connected to the Dec 14 Bondi Beach shooting. During the antisemitic terrorist attack at a Hanukkah event in Sydney, 15 people were killed.
Minutes after Meghan and Harry appeared at the event, the clothes that she wore were made available for purchase on OneOff, Sykes reported.
“Selling the clothes off her own back at the site of a massacre where 15 people died might come easily to Meghan, but, like any right-minded person, I find this sickening,” Sykes wrote.
Sykes reminded his readers that this is the sort of commercial activity – built around royal-style engagements – that the late Queen Elizabeth wanted to avoid with her grandson and his entrepreneurial wife.
When Harry and Meghan stepped away from royal duties in early 2020, they wanted to continue to enjoy the status of being senior working royals, but they also wanted to pursue commercial ventures on their own.
Following the infamous Sandringham Summit, the queen said they couldn’t be “half-in, half-out,” explaining that “in stepping away from the work of the royal family it is not possible to continue with the responsibilities and duties that come with a life of public service.”
To that, Harry and Meghan responded that they could still live a life of service, while moving to California to pursue wealth and fame on their own terms.
CNN said it’s not clear how much the couple will earn on their Australia trip, particularly from two private engagements with hefty entry costs.
One was Harry’s speech at the InterEdge Summit, where he made headlines by saying that he didn’t want to be a working royal because the royal “role” killed his mother.
The other was Meghan’s appearance at the “Her Best Life” women’s retreat. The Daily Mail reported that she was expected to earn around US$175,000 (RM691,940) for turning up for about two hours at the event.
During the event, she “bemoaned public life,” according to an Australian newspaper, and posed for photos with fans, who paid about US$2,300 (RM9,093) to attend. – The Mercury News/Tribune News Service
