193: Duchess Meghan and Prince Harry's wildly successful trip to Australia

Introduction: Minutes (0) to 8:15 I just got back from a trip to Florida. I saw a bunch of herons eating fish out of a pond. We think bird watchers are cool. I watched The Housemaid and enjoyed it. Chandra didn't finish that. She watched the French Jodie Foster movie, A Private Life. She also read Belle Burden's Strangers and recommends it. Royals: Minutes (8:15) to 28:00 Harry and Meghan went to Australia for a four day trip from April 14th to the 18th. On Friday April 10th Prince Harry's former charity Sentable announced it was suing Prince Harry and one of the other trustees, Mark Dyer, for defamation and libel. Sophie Chandauka made a hostile takeover of Sentebale last year aided by Prince William's ally Ian Rawlinson. This lawsuit seems to be based on Harry's resignation from Sentebale as a patron. The timing was meant to steal headlines from Harry and Meghan's Australian tour and it only worked briefly. Harry and Meghan's trip to Australia was a massive success and they had huge crowds wherever they went. They went to Melbourne, where they visited a children's hospital and veteran's museum and went on the Scar Tree Walk, and to Sydney, where they had multiple events on Sydney Harbour and Bondi Beach and attended a rugby match. Harry gave a speech at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra and spoke at the InterEdge summit while Meghan taped a guest judge segment on Masterchef Australia and did a Q&A at the Her Best Life retreat. There were conflicting reports about what Harry and Meghan were paid, with some reports that they were taking nominal fees to cover their costs. During the Australian trip Meghan announced that she invested in a fashion discovery platform called OneOff and premiered an account with them. During this trip she kept her clothing on OneOff updated, with affiliate links. She wore a lot of Australian designers and of course they got a huge boost in sales. Women's Wear Daily estimates that Meghan's fashion in Australia drove over $51 million in media impact! They had quotes from some of the labels who said Meghan wearing their clothing drove hundreds of thousands in sales! The British press used Meghan's OneOff account to attack her. Chandra didn't even report on Tom Sykes' despicable take on it. I play a clip of Meghan talking to students at Swinburne University of Technology about how she's been attacked for 10 years and how she gets through it. The way Meghan was attacked for saying that proves her point. There was a story that Robert Irwin, who works with Prince William on EarthShot, declined to meet with the Sussexes. Irwin is an ally of Prince William and that story was very pro-William. We don't believe it but it turns out he was in the US during the Sussexes' visit anyway. We remember when William tried to claim that Jose Andres was his friend after Andres joined Earthshot's board. Andres posed with Harry in New York and appeared on With Love, Meghan after that. There was a clip of Meghan smiling at a staffer when the staffer put her hand on Harry's back. Someone edited it with AI to make it look like Meghan was glaring at the lady. Tom Sykes used it to recycle all the old lies about Meghan being a bad boss. The reason why there was so much outsized criticism of the Australian tour is because it's a Commonwealth realm. During this trip the Sussexes called out a few outlets, including the Australian Daily Mail, for publishing their itinerary during the embargo and putting their safety at risk. Harry made a surprise trip to Ukraine this week and made sure to limit press availability for his safety. This week was the late Queen Elizabeth's 100th birthday. The royals marked the occasion with a memorial and a dry reception. They released a photo of the left behinds and they it looked out of date, old and stale. The contrast between this photo and the optics of Harry and Meghan's trip were stark. Comments of the Week: Minutes (28:00) to end Chandra's comment of the week is from Badgerette on the post about Virginia passing a redistricting plan. My comment of the week is from 1stTimer on the story about Catlyn Jenner begging Trump to change the gender on her passport back. Thanks for listening bitches!