Prince Harry and Meghan Markle being welcomed in Fiji by a hail of flashbulbs went viral on TikTok as fans praised “their warmth, goodness, kindness and honesty.”
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex went on a tour of Australia and the South Pacific, including Fiji, in October 2018, as they announced they were expecting their first child.
It was their first official overseas visit as a married royal couple and came five months after their wedding at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, that May.
A clip of the moment went viral on TikTok after it was viewed more than 515,000 times and liked 12,300 times, having been posted with the caption: “They’re The Truth.”
One reply read: “I love this! Seeing them on the balcony at the end was awesome. The royal family truly lost a couple who would have made the Monarchy stronger.”
Another read, “#service is universal! love these two beautiful souls” while a third read: “Most Loved Couple everywhere they go because people see the warmth, goodness, kindness & honesty in them.”
The clip showed Harry and Meghan arriving at the University of the South Pacific, in Suva, Fiji, on October 24, 2018.
It was their second day in the country and part of a 16-day tour of the region which also took in Australia and New Zealand.
At the time, the couple were on a PR high having announced Meghan was pregnant with her first child, Prince Archie, and remaining in the afterglow of their celebrated wedding.
However, behind the scenes, royal relations were already strained and Harry wrote in his book Spare how staff in the private office they shared with Prince William and Princess Kate at Kensington Palace had formed into rival camps.
The visit to the university came on the same day as a trip to a marketplace in the Fijian capital which became perhaps the most famous part of the whole tour for a bizarre moment in which Meghan was rushed out by her security.
Valentine Low, who was covering the tour for The Times, wrote in his book Courtiers: “Meghan was due to spend fifteen minutes there talking to female vendors. However, after just eight minutes, the duchess was rushed out.
“The Kensington Palace press office was immediately sent into a panic, with sources initially claiming that the decision for her to leave early was because of ‘security’ fears. That was later changed to concerns about ‘crowd management issues.’”
He suggested though that in reality Meghan had been concerned about the presence of the organization UN Women, with which she had worked before her marriage to the prince.
Low wrote: “The duchess had told her staff earlier that she would only go if there was no UN Women branding, a source said. Before Meghan arrived at the market,staff did their best to reduce the visibility of UN Women.
“However, footage of the visit shows Meghan surrounded by women in blue tops bearing the UN Women logo.
“At one point the duchess, with a fixed smile, can be seen whispering to a member of staff, who grimaces. Meghan told an aide: ‘I can’t believe I’ve been put in this situation.’”
Jack Royston is Newsweek‘s chief royal correspondent based in London. You can find him on X, formerly Twitter, at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek‘s The Royals Facebook page.
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