Six months following their nuptials at Windsor Castle’s St. George’s Chapel, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle set out on a sixteen-day journey around Australasia.
In October 2018, the couple embarked on a tour that took them through Australia, Fiji, Tonga, and New Zealand. The tour coincided with the Invictus Games, which were hosted in Sydney during that year.
Photo: © Getty Images
The news of Meghan’s pregnancy on the eve of their first day of tour was just one of the many memorable aspects of the royal couple’s trip.
However, a few memorable moments from the trip stick in the memories of all the accredited media, and they’re not all positive ones.
The former royal correspondent and author Valentine Low recounted a very awkward moment he and his press colleagues had with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex as they started their journey back to the UK after being away from their families for over 16 days covering the royal tour in the most recent episode of A Right Royal Podcast.
“We were flying from Tonga back to Sydney,” Valentine revealed to hosts Andrea Caamano, Emmy Griffiths and Emily Nash. Towards the end of these tours, there’s usually a moment when the royal might return to the rear of the aircraft and speak with us informally—not for publication, but just to establish a rapport. It helps to maintain our sweetness. It’s a method of casual communication. Additionally, we were given the assurance that he or they would board the plane from the back, but they never did. “When is this going to happen?” was my thought after the four or five-hour flight that didn’t materialize.
Photo: © Getty Images
“After that, we were strapping in for the descent and we touched down,” he said. And it had not taken place. They returned to the rear of the aircraft only after we had touched down. Meghan was slightly behind Harry and he was slightly ahead of her. She also didn’t say anything. She did say something odd about how we should return for our Sunday lunch. And it was just weird as hell. What stood out, though, was what he said. ‘Thank you very much for coming, even though you were not invited,’ he said. And we pondered, “What?”
Valentine continued by describing his and the other royal correspondents’ reactions, as well as Prince Harry’s explanation to his private secretary that his remark had been deemed “rude.”
