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 organizing 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.
