Australian Sussex Squaders are getting a special treat next month! It has now been confirmed that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex plan to visit Australia in mid-April for an unspecified amount of time. They’re going as private citizens and my guess is that they’ll simply have their private security with them, possibly supplemented by local police if they do any events in public. I’m actually surprised they’re confirming the trip so far in advance, but I think the cat was out of the bag earlier than they anticipated:

The last time Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stepped foot Down Under was almost seven years ago, when the couple were working royals on a tour of Australia and the South Pacific.

However, the former Suits star and her husband will return to the Land of Oz with big plans centred around their businesses and philanthropic work.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are set to land in Sydney and Melbourne in mid-April and will spend time catching up with some old connections and dipping back into previous ventures.

A spokesperson for the couple said: “Prince Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex, will visit Australia in mid-April to take part in a number of private, business, and philanthropic engagements. Further details will be shared in due course.”

While no exact details about their trip’s itinerary have been released yet, it is understood that the 44-year-old mother-of-two has plans to return to the world of podcasting following the ending of her own show with Spotify, Archetypes, in November 2022.

Meghan will appear as a guest star on the Besties company podcast, Her Best Life, which was initially launched and co-hosted by Jackie ‘O’ Henderson and Gemma O’Neill, according to News.com.au. Following in the footsteps of Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow, the outlet also claimed the actress will make a special speaking appearance at a Besties event.

[From Hello Magazine]

Meghan’s podcast interview and appearance at Besties is likely why they had to confirm the trip more than a month in advance. But I bet they wanted their plans to be widely known in advance of King Charles’s state visit to the US, which is already proving to be quite controversial in the UK. Many British politicians are making noise about how Charles and Camilla shouldn’t even go to the US. The Sussexes didn’t want a month full of speculation about “will Charles visit Montecito” and/or “Charles will obviously snub the Sussexes, Harry is devastated!” This nips that whole storyline in the bud and it hurts the palace’s attempts to use Harry and Meghan as a distraction from the terrible optics of Charles cozying up to yet another associate of Jeffrey Epstein. The Sussexes will be visiting Australia while Charles tries to breathe through his mouth around Donald Trump’s overflowing diaper. Perfection.

There’s an added bonus to all of this as well – this will make Prince William incandescent with rage. William has been throwing huge, loud, messy tantrums every time the Sussexes go anywhere and do anything, but it will be even worse this time because the Sussexes are visiting a Commonwealth realm. It will also highlight William and Kate’s laziness – they haven’t visited Australia in well over a decade. William had the perfect opportunity to make a last-minute visit to Oz in 2023 when England’s women’s football team made it to the World Cup final. He didn’t want to interrupt his summer vacation! That incident was made so much worse when Spain’s Queen Letizia made the journey to Oz to watch the Spanish women beat the English team. Back then, William was still Football Association president too (he has since been kicked out of that position). Back in 2023, people were already openly pointing out that the only way to get William off his lazy bum is to tell him that Harry did it or plans to do it. Which means we’ll probably get an announcement any day now that William plans to visit Australia too!

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.