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In Aussie parlance, Meghan and Prince Harry’s whirlwind visit down under was the very definition of a “Claytons” tour.

Claytons in Australia is primarily known as a cultural phrase for a substitute, fake or ersatz version of something, the saying evolving from a 1970s/80s non-alcoholic beverage marketed as “the drink you have when you’re not having a drink”.

Yes, Harry and Meghan are royals. But this was not a royal tour. It was something very different.

No one seems sure exactly why they were here. Were there meant to be streets lined with adoring royalists, throwing posies and waving flags? Or was it really all about publicity and profit?

In the salt air of Sydney harbour, the world’s most famous spare, Harry, joined by his wife, Meghan, wrapped up their four-day tour on Friday.

Between discussing mental health and appearing on the cooking competition MasterChef Australia, the Sussexes celebrated Australia’s social media ban for children, served frittata to homeless women, disappointed gathered crowds by not appearing, wooed others, and had the local media in an absolute frenzy.

Where they went, the eyes of the press followed. And while their events were tightly controlled, with no questions allowed, people still asked: how much were tickets to the commercial dinners (about $3,000), what is Harry like in person, what was Meghan wearing, how much was she earning from putting her looks on OneOff, a “fashion discovery platform” she has investment in – and how much did the taxpayer fork out for this, and why exactly are they here again?

Were they really just here to use Australia as an ATM?

Associate Prof Lauren Rosewarne from the school of social and political sciences at the University of Melbourne says that at the end of the day Meghan and Harry were in Australia to boost their personal brand, which has two arms: charity work and commercial endeavours. Just two people making money for themselves and the things they care about.

“The primary way to measure the success of the visit is whether it helped their brand,” Rosewarne says. “They are, after all, no longer ‘working royals’, so they are visiting Australia in service of their brand as individuals and as a couple.”

While taxpayers footed an unknown cost for some of the extra policing needed for the trip, it was reported that large public gatherings were avoided to prevent higher costs.

“Ultimately, Australia, like the world, has mixed feelings about them,” Rosewarne says.

“The absence of open-to-the-public events means we don’t have great insight into how enthusiastic support is – beyond those who paid several thousand dollars to see them speak at various events.”

It has not gone unnoticed that the pair are reportedly struggling to fund their lifestyle, despite Harry reportedly inheriting roughly £10m (US$13m) from his late mother, Diana, and another £7-8m (US$10.5m) from the queen mother.

Things were very different back in 2018, when the pair first visited Australia.

Newly married and newly pregnant, Australia ate the royals up. They were welcomed by rapturous crowds and met the then prime minister, Scott Morrison. Throngs of people attended their public outings, lavish receptions were thrown and flowers were presented.

Harry himself has noted that the 2018 tour caused waves in Buckingham Palace because of Meghan’s ability to charm the public.

“It was also the first time that the family got to see how incredible [she] is at the job,” he said in a 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey.

He compared it to a 1983 trip by his parents, Charles and Diana.

The Flinders University associate professor and royals researcher Giselle Bastin says the glamour and newness of the couple then left Australia besotted.

“We were very, very excited,” Bastin says. “They had a glamour attached to them … they felt like a new beginning, like the future of the Windsors.

“[But] there’s been so much fracture and unhappiness around the couple and their relationship with the royals … the celebrity shine has rather worn off.”

During this tour, Meghan headlined the three-day “Her Best Life” retreat in Sydney, including participating in a Q&A. Pitched as a “girls’ weekend like no other”, tickets cost A$2,699 including accommodation, or A$3,199 for a more VIP experience including a group table photo with Meghan.

Along with the luxe wellness retreat, Meghan was promoting As Ever, her collection of products that the website describes as “more than a brand”.

“It’s a love language,” it says of its assemblage of jams, spice kits and candles.

But Bastin says: “They’re not reading the room. Having to flog A$3,000 tickets to a wellness retreat looks quite pointless in the current world climate. It’s tin-eared.”

On this trip, things went a little differently. There were no large crowds, and no large feeling of love. There was a kind of ambivalence.

“It’s a faux royal tour. They’re not working royals,” Bastin says. “I think they’re using Australia as an opportunity to get a sense of the mood, about how they’ll be received … to cosplay what it might be like if they once again become working royals.”

If they were trying to do that, it’s easy to say the whole country was not won over. And some members of the public were outraged. One reader, David, wrote in asking why “so many writers and content makers around the world continue to give text space to Harry Sussex and his fatuous wife Markle, surely some of the largest Grifters in the world today.

“… Let’s move on, please.”

This sentiment is common, says Rosewarne, as “the couple are often viewed as grifters who only have fame because of the very same family they are perceived to constantly besmirch”.

Of course, this is complicated. People love Harry because they’ve watched him grow up, because they adored his mother. People love to hate Meghan because she disrupted that, she says.

“There are those who loathe Meghan because she is a woman, because she is black, because she has a career, because she is perceived to have seduced Harry away from the bosom of his family,” she says.

But not everyone is as sceptical.

Rose Dennis, a diehard supporter of the Western Bulldogs AFL team, does not consider herself a royal enthusiast, but was delighted the prince chose to visit her football club in Melbourne’s inner west.

“I was coming here for training anyway, so having Harry here is an extra bonus,” she says.

She pushes back against critics of the duke and duchess, claiming they are using their profiles for the right reasons.

“I heard someone say it’s just a publicity thing, but it’s not, he’s really interested in men’s mental health,” Dennis says.

Most of the reporting from that day concentrated on what Harry did – he kicked a football, talked about seeing a therapist – and not what he was actually there to talk about: the launch of a report on how much new Australian fathers are struggling and what needs to be done to help them.

“The charities will need to decide whether having them gave them good press,” Rosewarne says. “This is always a complicated question: celebrities can bring attention to causes – can get people to buy tickets to events they otherwise would never have attended – but divisive figures like Harry and Meghan can also work against them.”

Some charities, such as Lifeline, got a decent bang for no buck. Harry volunteered his time and people in the packed-out room forked out more than $2,000 for a ticket to the two-day event.

And some just want to run with the show.

The celebrity PR agent Max Markson has previously offered Meghan US$1m and a private jet to visit Australia to do two events. She declined. But he did organise for her estranged half-brother to appear on Big Brother and her father to appear on 60 Minutes in 2021, when he pleaded for reconciliation with his daughter after the birth of Lilibet.

“They’ve done a lot of good things. They’ve obviously done charity stuff, visited hospitals,” Markson says about the tour.

It’s unclear if the tour resonated with the broader public. Perhaps, only the Sussexes’ bank balances, and those of the charities they help, can ever know. But one thing is clear: the tumultuous marriage between fame and the media prevailed. They at least had the attention of the press.

“The media has written about it a lot,” says Markson. “And that’s good.

“Whether it’s been negative or positive, it doesn’t matter; they’ve made a noise.”