Prince Harry, Meghan Markle’s Australian tour was a ‘turning point’ with the Royal Family

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have revealed how their Australian royal tour was the moment everything went downhill for them.

Prince Harry declared the wild popularity he and Meghan Markle enjoyed on their Australian tour sparked exactly the same treatment dished out by Palace insiders to his mother Princess Diana after she upstaged the Prince of Wales on their first visit in 1983.

The pair had 76 engagements on their tour of Australia, New Zealand and Fiji “which was a really rigorous tour to do pregnant,” Ms Markle said in the latest installment of the couple’s Netflix docuseries.

The Prince said they had proven to be too popular, with the pregnancy announcement amping up their status as the rock star Royals.

Britain's Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex and his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex are seen during the closing ceremony of the Invictus Games in Sydney, Australia, Saturday, October 27, 2018. Picture: AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts

“The issue is when someone who should be a supporting act is stealing the limelight or is doing the job better than the person who was born to do this, that upsets people, it shifts the balance,” he said.

“(Because) you’ve been led to believe that the only way that your charities can succeed and the only way that your reputation can be grown or improved is if you’re on the front page of the newspapers.

“But the media are the ones who choose who to put on the front page.”

Meghan Markle shakes hands with Mr Paul Singer MVO, Acting official Secretary to t he Governor General before she and Prince Harry board their plane to leave Australia for New Zealand in October 2018. Photo: Jessica Hromas/Fairfax Media

Prince Harry said everything changed when they returned to the UK to join the entire Royal family at a Remembrance Day event and Ms Markle ended up being the front page photo in the British tabloids instead of Queen Elizabeth.

“The first time the penny dropped was M and I spent the night in a room at Buckingham Palace after an event where every single member of the family, the senior members including the Queen were there. And on the front page of the (UK) Telegraph...Meghan,” he said.

Ms Markle exclaimed “Oh my God”.

Britain's Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex and his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex are seen during the medal presentation following the Wheelchair Basketball Final at the Invictus Games in Sydney, Australia, Saturday, October 27, 2018. Picture: AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts

Then Harry said “But that‘s my fault. And my mum felt the same way.”

Ms Markle’s friend Lucy Fraser said the Australian tour was “a real turning point because they were so popular with the public that internals (correct) at the Palace were incredibly threatened by that”.

The couple started a journal when they discovered they were pregnant. Ms Markle said they both had “always wanted” to be parents.

MEGHAN REVEALS CATALYST FOR MEGXIT

The fallout from Ms Markle‘s candid comment she was struggling to cope with being a Royal as a newlywed and new mum during their South African tour would be the catalyst for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to begin their Megxit plans.

Ms Markle said she hadn’t expected the interview with Tom Bradby would be used in the Palace-sanctioned documentary Harry & Meghan: An African Journey nor that her comments about not being OK would reverberate around the world.

“Because I was so exhausted I was just really grateful that someone seemed to ask something like I was a human being,” she said.

“I guess I just never thought that they would use it in the documentary - it was like ‘Bye, see you on the flight’.”

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle say when they needed support, they got the opposite. Picture: Getty Images

Her husband again drew a comparison between his mother and wife for their candour about suffering depression, with the Netflix documentary sharing footage from Princess Diana‘s controversial interview with Martin Bashir for the BBC’s Panorama program.

“No one in the family speaks that openly, no one had done apart from one person, my mum,” he said.

“From an institutional perspective, there was something wrong with her as opposed to the environment or the system we were part of.

“The fall-out was bonkers...when you expect support from the people closest, we got the opposite.”

Ms Markle said the media backlash against her candid revelation she was struggling and lack of support from Palace insiders was “a huge turning point.”

“That was when we started having harder conversations about what needs to happen for us to be able to continue to make this work.”

Originally published as Prince Harry, Meghan Markle’s Australian tour was a ‘turning point’ with the Royal Family