How a Television Panel’s Hate Speech Collided with Reality in Melbourne

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On the same day that hundreds of families, patients, and staff packed the walkways of Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital to greet the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, a GB News panel was broadcasting a very different version of events to British viewers. One panelist called the couple “nauseating.” Another suggested they should be sent to the Falkland Islands to “talk to the penguins.” And then came the statement that should have triggered editorial intervention but did not: “I think they are despised. Yeah, I think on the human level.”

https://www.gbnews.com/opinion/prince-harry-meghan-markle-australia

Speaker 1 (00:03)

Destroying them from the inside. Look is still part of them. Isn’t it? 

Speaker 1 (00:05)

I mean, it’s a moneymaking tourism. 

Speaker 2 (00:07)

They’re making a tax payer pick up the bill. There is a big Republican movement in Australia which I suspect is about to get a little bit bigger. We talked a fantastic sky presenter, who said, oh, there’s a regular phone here the other day, what do you want to do with them?

Send them back to the airport. 

Speaker 3 (00:19)

Yeah, well, I mean, the thing is, they’ve had to visit a country as far away from Britain as possible because they’re certainly not welcome by most people here.

And there they are, again doing this nauseating, pretending to be deeply interested in various causes just for the sake of it, promoting their own brand and this rather nauseating weekend in the Sydney hotel, where people are paying 1600 to go and hear her speak more absolute rubbish. It is, I’m sorry, but I think Harry and Meghan really. 

Speaker 3 (00:52)

I think their time has come and enough is enough, and I think the next place they’ll go is the Falklands because that is as far away from the UK and they can talk to the penguins there. 

Speaker 1 (01:05)

I’ve got a little, tiny number, but 2 is credit. He did serve in the enforcement twice. And I got to understand fantastic, I think he does believe it, and she believes in the causes, but where does a crossover to enriching themselves like the late Queen said.

Speaker 2 (01:17)

You can’t be half in and you can’t be half out. This is essentially that’s the Australian presenter said that making a lot of money out of this tool. Yeah, the taxpayers are pretty fed up that the government’s because elevating a single government representative they’re not making the high commissioner is the Queen king’s representative there either. 

Speaker 1 (01:30)

But this is why there’s been a huge dispute here back in the UK over security and they come across and should they automatically get top dollar arm, security and police cars and everything or should it be on a risk assessment?

Speaker 3 (01:43)

For any couple to base their whole career and fortune by attacking their own families, as both of them have done their own ways. I think is disgraceful, despicable and despised actually, by most people. I think they are despised. Yeah, I think on the human level. That sounds like 

That word, “despised,” was not offered as opinion. It was asserted as consensus, as though the speaker had conducted a national survey and was reporting its findings. He had not. What he was doing was something GB News does with practiced efficiency: converting personal hostility into a claim about the public mood, then broadcasting it as though it were self-evident.

The segment aired under the banner “AUSSIE FURY OVER HARRY & MEGHAN TOUR,” with the subheading noting ticket prices of up to £1,675. The framing is instructive. “Fury” implies mass public outrage. The reality in Melbourne told a different story entirely.

What Actually Happened in Melbourne

Prince Harry and Meghan Sussex landed in Melbourne on Tuesday morning and went directly to the Royal Children’s Hospital, a facility with deep royal history. Queen Elizabeth II opened the original building in 1963. She returned in 2011 when it moved to new premises. Harry’s parents, the then-Prince Charles and Princess Diana, visited in 1985.

The couple spent 90 minutes at the hospital, overrunning their scheduled engagement by a significant margin. They met oncology patients. They participated in garden therapy sessions with adolescents. Four-year-old patient Lily presented Meghan with a hand-drawn sign reading “Welcome Harry and Meghan” and a flower. Meghan hugged her. Harry discussed Aussie rules football with 17-year-old Hamish on the oncology ward. Another patient, 17-year-old Maya, told the Press Association that the visit “means a lot. Just to know that they’re worried about us, they love us, just to know that they love Australia and Melbourne, it’s really nice.”

Christina Parkes, a University of Melbourne academic whose 13-year-old daughter Adelaide is a patient at the hospital, said it “means an enormous amount” to have the couple visit. Staff confirmed the atmosphere was warm and relaxed. An aide told hospital workers that formal protocol was unnecessary: “Harry and Meghan is fine. They’re pretty relaxed.”

After the hospital, Meghan visited McAuley Community Services for Women, a shelter supporting women and children experiencing family violence and homelessness. She put on an apron and served frittata. She sat with residents and talked. The centre’s CEO, Jocelyn Bignold, said: “The women are excited to see and meet her.”

This is what “despised” looks like, according to GB News.

The Panel Transcript

The GB News segment, published on the network’s own website under a Bev Turner opinion column dated April 14, 2026, featured a panel discussion that warrants close textual scrutiny. The transcript reveals three distinct rhetorical strategies operating simultaneously.

Speaker 3 carried the segment’s hostility. He opened by asserting that the Sussexes “had to visit a country as far away from Britain as possible because they’re certainly not welcomed by most people.” He described the couple’s engagement with charitable causes as “nauseating, pretending to be deeply interested in various causes just for the sake of it.” He characterised the Sydney retreat as a venue where “people are paying 1600 quid to go and hear her spout more absolute rubbish.” He concluded that the couple is “disgraceful, despicable and despised actually, by most people.”

Three words beginning with D, delivered in rapid succession, designed to land as a verdict rather than an argument. No evidence cited. No polling referenced. No Australian voice consulted. Simply a British man on a British television panel pronouncing a biracial woman and her husband as objects of universal contempt.

Speaker 1 played the moderating role that lends these segments their veneer of balance. He acknowledged that Harry “did serve in the armed forces twice” and suggested “he does believe” in his causes. But then he immediately pivoted to the framing GB News needed: “where does the crossover to enriching themselves” begin? This is the concern-trolling maneuver. Offer a single sentence of qualified praise, then redirect the entire conversation toward suspicion of financial motive.

Speaker 2 supplied the taxpayer grievance, asserting that Australians are “pretty fed up” and that the government is “elevating” the Sussexes inappropriately. This claim circulated despite the Sussexes’ own spokesperson having stated unequivocally: “The trip is being funded privately, so I’m not sure what this petition hopes to achieve.”

What the Retreat Actually Involves

The screenshot from the article about the retreat’s finances provides useful context that the GB News panel either did not have or chose to ignore.

Meghan is reportedly being paid £185,000 for hosting the “Her Best Life” retreat in Sydney, running from April 17 to 19. The event is organised by Australian radio figure Jackie “O” Henderson and podcast host Gemma O’Neill. It is a private, ticketed commercial event at the InterContinental Hotel in Coogee Beach. Standard tickets are priced at £1,400 (A$2,699). VIP tickets cost up to £2,000 (A$3,199). Capacity is capped at approximately 300 guests. The programme includes wellness sessions, yoga, sound healing, a disco evening, a gala dinner, and an in-conversation with Meghan.

Harry, separately, is being paid approximately £36,000 for a keynote address on workplace mental health at the InterEdge Summit in Melbourne. The article noted this represents a significant reduction from the £740,000 he was reportedly paid for a JP Morgan event in February 2020.

None of this is unusual for high-profile public figures who are no longer on the public payroll. Speakers’ fees, commercial appearances, and ticketed events are the standard mechanism through which former heads of state, retired athletes, and public figures of every description sustain themselves financially. What is unusual is the sustained campaign to delegitimise these activities exclusively when the Sussexes are the ones conducting them.

The “Despised” Claim vs. the Data

The assertion that the Sussexes are “despised by most people” is not supported by the evidence visible in Melbourne. Multiple press agencies, including the Press Association, Reuters, and Getty Images, documented hundreds of people gathering to greet the couple. Patients and families described the visit in warm terms. Staff described the atmosphere as positive. The couple spent nearly twice their scheduled time engaging with patients.

The claim is also structurally dishonest because it conflates tabloid and social media hostility with general public sentiment. A petition opposing taxpayer funding of the trip has gathered approximately 45,000 signatures. Australia’s population is over 26 million. Even if every signature represents a unique, genuine Australian resident, that figure represents less than 0.2% of the population.

Meanwhile, a wellness weekend with a £1,400 entry point is attracting paying attendees. Journalists have attempted to buy tickets. Trolls have discussed spending money to infiltrate the event. None of this is consistent with a “despised” public figure.

GB News as an Institutional Actor

What the panel segment reveals is not a rogue commentator going off-script. It is an editorial choice. GB News selected these panelists, framed the discussion with its “AUSSIE FURY” banner, and published the segment alongside Bev Turner’s accompanying opinion column, which accused the couple of “stomach-churning” behavior and described their children as symbols of “the entitled generation.”

Turner’s column extended the dehumanisation beyond Harry and Meghan to their children. She wrote that Archie and Lilibet “risk growing up not knowing who to trust” and will “always feel alone.” She speculated about future conversations in which the children would question their mother’s decisions. She used a psychologist’s quote about “entitled young people” as a framework for discussing a family estrangement she has no personal knowledge of.

This is not commentary. This is a sustained editorial operation that uses opinion columns, panel discussions, and strategic framing to construct a narrative about a specific family, then presents that narrative as though it reflects a natural public consensus. It is the same mechanism that drives coverage across the Daily Mail, the Express, and Sky News Australia. GB News has simply added a television production layer to it.

The Hate Speech Question

There is a meaningful distinction between criticism and hate speech, and the GB News panel’s language pushes against that boundary. Calling a public figure’s charitable engagement “nauseating” is harsh criticism. Describing their professional activities as “absolute rubbish” is dismissive but arguably within bounds. But declaring that a couple is “despised by most people,” when the evidence contradicts that claim, serves a different function. It is not analysis. It is not even opinion in any meaningful sense. It is the deployment of contempt as a social weapon, designed to create the very hostility it claims to describe.

The segment does not exist in isolation. As Feminegra has documented, troll accounts are openly discussing plans to infiltrate Meghan’s retreat with hidden cameras. Racist slurs, including the N-word and “mulatto,” are being directed at Meghan and her children on social media by accounts that simultaneously claim to be defending the monarchy. The Daily Mail has written about the infiltration threat while simultaneously covering the retreat as a spectacle worthy of suspicion.

When a television panel declares a biracial woman “despised” on national television, it does not create the hate ecosystem from scratch, but it provides that ecosystem with institutional validation. It tells the trolls that their contempt is shared by respectable commentators in suits behind a news desk. It tells the racists that their feelings, if not their specific language, are reflected in mainstream discourse. It tells the public that hostility toward this family is not only acceptable but is, in fact, the majority position.

That is not journalism. It is participation.

The Contradiction That Defines the Coverage

The fundamental contradiction remains the same one Celeb Chai has documented across years of Sussex coverage: the people who insist the Sussexes are irrelevant cannot stop talking about them.

GB News has published multiple articles about this single Australian trip. It covered the petition. It covered the ticket prices. It covered the security debate. It ran Bev Turner’s column. It broadcast the panel segment. And the network’s own reporting, buried within the same coverage ecosystem, confirmed that hundreds of people gathered to see the couple in Melbourne, that patients were moved by the visit, and that the Duchess told hospital workers to call her “Meg.”

If the Sussexes were truly despised, the rational editorial response would be indifference. You do not devote this volume of coverage to people nobody cares about. You do not send panels into spirals over a yoga retreat attended by 300 women in Coogee Beach. You do not write 1,500-word columns about what children should be called on their birthday invitations.

The coverage betrays the claim. The obsession disproves the irrelevance. The fury refutes the indifference.

And in Melbourne, while GB News was broadcasting its verdict, a four-year-old named Lily held up a sign that read “Welcome Harry and Meghan” and handed a flower to the woman the panel had just called despised.

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The full Bev Turner column from GB News (published April 14, 2026):

“Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s latest stunt reeks of entitlement. You can’t have it both ways”

By Bev Turner

Call me naïve, but I was genuinely surprised to see the Sussexes referring to their children as “Prince Archie” and “Princess Lilibet” in a very domestic scene engaging in Easter activities on social media. This wasn’t a formal dinner: they were painting eggs for god’s sake.

There’s something deeply unsettling about watching a couple publicly reject an institution, with great moral flourish, only to cling to the very symbols of that same institution when it suits them.

“The Sussexes” have now spent several years distancing themselves from the Royal Family, criticising it, exposing it as outdated and insisting that it caused them harm, so why on earth would they choose to frame their children within that same system?

Why lean into titles that are, by definition, rooted in the very structure you’ve worked so hard to dismantle?

It’s contradictory and speaks of shallowness: style over substance, like a flower on a cake that everyone smiles politely at, but nobody wants to eat.

And remember, it’s not as though these criticisms of The Royals were vague or fleeting. During the Oprah interview, one of the most high-profile moments in recent royal history, Meghan spoke about concerns raised within the Royal Family about how dark her child’s skin might be. It was a serious and deeply damaging allegation that reverberated around the world and fundamentally reshaped public perceptions of the monarchy.

Since then, there have been documentaries, interviews and a steady stream of commentary reinforcing the message that their experience within the institution was painful, isolating and at times intolerable.

Which makes this all the more difficult to reconcile…

Their behaviour taps into something much broader happening culturally right now. We’re living through an era in which “cut-off culture” has taken hold, particularly among Millennials and Gen Z, where estrangement from family has become shockingly common and is even encouraged as a form of empowerment.

Social media is now awash with psychologists such as the brilliant Tania Khazaal, working round-the-clock to help estranged families with reconciliation, communication and rebuilding fractured relationships.

Khazaal speaks of an enormous social problem in which “entitled” young people use ego-laden phrases to justify rejecting their families, such as “I’m protecting my peace”, while onlookers applaud them for “choosing themselves” over parents just doing their best.

“You don’t heal by running away from your family,” says Khazaal, adding: “We live in a cowardly culture where blaming your family is easier than fixing yourself.” Ouch. She might want to reach out to Harry…

Traditionally, families might reach this stage as a last resort. But increasingly it’s become a default response from entitled young adults flouncing off from the people who raised them as a mode of “self-preservation”.

It is much harder to stick around and have difficult conversations with people who love you. Harry and Meghan’s estrangement from The Royals is striking because they have normalised, embodied and amplified this heartbreaking trend. They have done a sterling job of consolidating the pernicious modern belief that family is overrated.

But they have added a layer of hypocrisy to their family schism: on one hand, they have created a narrative of stepping away, of drawing boundaries and of rejecting family structures deemed harmful.

On the other there’s a simultaneous desire to retain the status with which Harry (not Meghan!) was born, identity and benefits that come from those same structures. It’s a paradox to which they are both clearly tone deaf.

You can’t have it both ways. You can’t denounce the monarchy as outdated, oppressive or toxic and then selectively embrace its perks when they offer social cachet.

Titles aren’t just decorative labels; they represent a hierarchy, a history and a set of values. If those values are so objectionable, why pass them on?

And more to the point, why involve your children in that contradiction? Being a Royal is to live within a complex gilded cage: precisely what Harry has been moaning about! But if the structure and expectations are so repressive, why not remove your children altogether from such constraints?

Because it seems increasingly obvious that these two are not driven by values, they’re attracted to material wealth, and they have their fingers crossed beneath the hand-hewn oak table in the Montecito garden that these titles will make their kids rich.

Archie and Lilibet have the worst of both worlds: titles they never earned and will not work for in any traditionally Royal capacity, whilst also growing up believing they must be inherently ‘special’ compared to their peers… Oh lordy, god help any parent who raises children who think they were simply born better than anyone else…

The reason William, Kate, Zara and Peter Phillips have not gone loco-down-in-Acapulco like their lost-in-showbiz relatives is precisely because they have groups of ‘normal’ friends and (in Katherine’s case, especially) non-blue-blooded family who offer immense grounding.

Archie and Lilibet risk growing up not knowing who to trust: are their friends going to be real when the birthday invitation requests attendance at “Prince” Archie’s 16th?

And he won’t be able to pick up the phone to Cousin George and ask: “Bruv, how do you know who a proper mate is and who’s only in it for the prince stuff?”

These titles have guaranteed that the Sussex kids will always feel alone.

And just imagine the conversations which start with, “So, mum, let me get this straight… I was about to live at the centre of the most privileged family in the world, with unimaginable financial and professional security, plus a wide group of loving relatives united by being, er, Royal and you… you… fell out with them?!”

Maybe they will have answers to all of these questions. But Harry and Meghan will never allow any journalist with such enquiries to get close, so we will never know.

And they evidently reject any outsider who might hold up a mirror to such blatant crackpot vanity.

There’s also the growing unease around how this all plays out internationally. The controversy surrounding the Sussexes’ activities in Australia, particularly the perception that they are leveraging their royal association for commercial gain, only adds another layer.

It reinforces the sense that while the ties may be publicly loosened, they are privately and profitably maintained, it is stomach-churning.

Meghan and Harry, before them, and now Archie and Lilibet, are truly symbols of the “entitled” generation, quite literally, no consistency, no authenticity and no effort for the title they believe will bring benefits.

The principles these parents have tried to present to the public appear to bear no resemblance to the choices being made behind the scenes. And people all over the world are increasingly wise to this hypocrisy.