Meghan’s return to Oz: what has Australia done to deserve her?
, The Times
My first instinct on hearing the news that the Duchess of Sussex has been asked to give a speech at a women’s wellness retreat in Australia was to say, “Ye gods, have they heard her speak?” My second was to wonder, “Has it come to this?” Happily, the woman who’s organising it, a podcast host called Gemma O’Neill, inadvertently said that for me.
“Meghan, Duchess of Sussex,” she announced breathlessly, has “gone from Oprah to talking on stage with just little old me, Gemma, in Sydney.” Quite so, Gemma, although possibly not a sentence on which Meghan will reflect with satisfaction. If we drill down a little further into what has quickly been dubbed Megstock, we will find that the actress formerly known as HRH has gone from the balcony of Buckingham Palace to the ballroom of the InterContinental Sydney Coogee Beach.
There’s a lot to unpack here, so we’ll start with the basics. The Meghan business model, such as it is, aspired to be Gwyneth Paltrow with jam, a dash of Amal Clooney and a faint suggestion of Mother Teresa. Instead, she’s flying to Australia for a “fireside chat” with a podcaster who is filled with admiration for what she has “endured”, a business model more Fergie than Gwyneth. Tickets for the three-day women-only event, billed as the “ultimate girls’ weekend”, cost from £1,400 to £1,700 and the line-up is so exciting that O’Neill only gets round to Meghan four minutes into her 15-minute announcement — after promising us manifestation, meditation and women’s psychology, a DJ, a disco and drinks by the pool, and explaining quite how stunning the brand-new InterContinental Sydney Coogee Beach is, conveniently located, as it is, on Coogee Beach. Still, Meghan’s used to being sixth on the call sheet.
The InterContinental Sydney Coogee Beach
In case you heard any rumours that working for H&M was not exactly like napping in a hammock on a warm day, which is seemingly why so many of their staff resigned in such short order, O’Neill sets the record straight: “Meghan’s team were just so divine and all of my dealings with Meghan’s team have been so lovely, they’re so delightful.” The same could possibly be said of the Sussex Survivors’ Club but the clue is in the name.
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Anyway, back to the retreat announcement, in which O’Neill refers to Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, so many times that we will for sanity’s sake shorten it to MDoS. Their mutual friend Markus Anderson, a Soho House executive, texted to say, and I paraphrase, that he was chez MDoS and she felt a speech coming on. O’Neill always felt “slightly protective” of Meghan, because Markus is amazing and lovely, ergo Meghan is too. “I always found it really hard when I was reading negative things about Meghan. I guess I felt it didn’t seem fair… she has had to endure an awful lot.” Her clinching argument in favour of the MDoS project is that Meghan has “dedicated herself to doing good deeds in the world” and that she’s never hurt anyone. Perhaps one day the Palace may publish its report into all the people who apparently alleged that she did, allegations firmly denied etc.
Gemma O’Neill, a podcast host who has organised the retreat
HANNA LASSEN/GETTY IMAGES
“She’s risen above everything,” O’Neill concluded, “and I have so much respect for that.” Anderson tells her that Meghan “was wondering if you want her to do anything” if she were ever in Australia and now, lo and behold, she is. Next month, H&M are heading to the very country where she once allegedly complained, on a pre-Megxit walkabout, “I can’t believe I’m not getting paid for this.”
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The retreat promises yoga and sound healing, and a gala dinner at which MDoS will give a speech, a prospect for which sound healing could have been invented. You will get to be in a group photo with her, and listen to a “raw, honest fireside chat” in which they will “share stories, have fun, find the joy we always talk about and create meaningful connection”. From memory, those were all promised in Meghan’s podcast and TV series. Maybe it’ll be third time lucky. Again, from memory, when Meghan was “interviewed” by Fortune 500 magazine she talked about how it felt to be a humanitarian and reminisced about the day she said, “Great, let’s ten-times the inventory for the next seasonal drop, we’ll get all the metrics we need.”
Finally, O’Neill admits that she nearly turned MDoS down. “I felt,” she said, “like I didn’t deserve her.”
Gemma, Gemma, what can I say? Hello from England! And so say all of us.