{"id":2326053,"date":"2026-03-13T07:11:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T07:11:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2326053"},"modified":"2026-03-13T07:11:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T07:11:23","slug":"meghan-markle-branded-sarah-ferguson-2-0-for-faux-royal-trip-source","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/meghan-markle-branded-sarah-ferguson-2-0-for-faux-royal-trip-source\/","title":{"rendered":"Meghan Markle Branded &#8216;Sarah Ferguson 2.0&#8217; for &#8216;Faux Royal&#8217; Trip \u2014 Source"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Meghan Markle <\/strong>is facing fresh criticism ahead of her April <strong>Australia <\/strong>visit, with some critics already calling her \u201c<strong>Sarah Ferguson 2.0<\/strong>.\u201d The Duchess of Sussex is set to return to Australia with Prince Harry for the first time since their 2018 royal tour. Their spokesperson told an outlet the couple will take part in \u201cprivate, business and philanthropic engagements.\u201d Still, Meghan\u2019s Australia trip is already drawing scrutiny. The reason is a one-stop, involving a paid, women-only event in Sydney.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-meghan-markle-criticized-for-faux-royal-trip-to-australia-per-source\">Meghan Markle criticized for \u2018faux royal\u2019 trip to Australia, per source<\/h2>\n<p>As per <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/radaronline.com\/p\/meghan-markle-sarah-ferguson-comparison-royal-trip\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">RadarOnline<\/a>, Meghan Markle will appear as the headline dinner speaker during a three-day Sydney retreat scheduled for April 17. While people reported the event runs from April 17 to April 19 at the InterContinental Sydney Coogee Beach. It includes a gala conversation with the former \u201cSuits\u201d alum. Organizer Gemma O\u2019Neill defended the appearance, saying, \u201cI have admired this woman and what she has endured.\u201d She also said Meghan joined because \u201cshe really loves what our community is about.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, the backlash is centered on optics. RadarOnline quoted one insider as saying Meghan is being nicknamed \u201cSarah 2.0\u201d because critics believe she is trading on royal-style visibility. The report said the comparison to <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.realitytea.com\/2026\/03\/12\/sarah-ferguson-memoir-nothing-like-prince-harry-royal-editor\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Sarah Ferguson<\/a> comes from the nature of the engagement rather than any palace role. Another source argued the event \u201cblurs the line between private business ventures and the kind of engagements royals used to perform in an official capacity.\u201d So, the criticism is less about the speech itself and more about how Meghan\u2019s Australia trip may be perceived.<\/p>\n<p>That context matters because of Harry and Meghan\u2019s last visit to Australia. In October 2018, they were there for an official royal tour. Then, in 2020, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.realitytea.com\/2026\/03\/12\/king-charles-prince-harry-meghan-markle-australia-trip\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the Sussexes<\/a> agreed to step back from royal duties and stop carrying out representative work for the monarch. Buckingham Palace later confirmed in February 2021 that they would not return as working members of the Royal Family. In that light, even private overseas appearances can attract royal-style debate. That is why Meghan, Sarah, and \u201cfaux royal\u201d comparisons are now being folded into the same conversation around this trip.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.realitytea.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Meghan Markle is facing fresh criticism ahead of her April Australia visit, with some critics already calling her \u201cSarah Ferguson 2.0.\u201d The Duchess of Sussex is set to return to Australia with Prince Harry for the first time since their 2018 royal tour. Their spokesperson told an outlet the couple will take part in \u201cprivate, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2326054,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[21818,310803,23067,445845,22946],"class_list":["post-2326053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-lifestyle","tag-lifestyle-news","tag-meghan-markle","tag-prince-harrry","tag-sarah-ferguson"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Meghan-Markle-Branded-Sarah-Ferguson-20-for-Faux-Royal-Trip.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2326053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2326053"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2326053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2326055,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2326053\/revisions\/2326055"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2326054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2326053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2326053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2326053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}