Someone Finally Revealed What Happened Inside Meghan Markle’s Interview in Australia

meghan markle her best life podcast — (Image credit: Her Best Life / Instagram)

It feels like one of the most highly-kept secrets of the last decade is what went on inside the Her Best Life Retreat, where Meghan Markle was intimately interviewed in front of a pre-vetted audience. The conversation has largely been kept a secret, with social media seemingly clean of photos from the event. Members of the media were not invited—to the point where suspected journalists had their tickets refunded—so Meghan’s presence at the retreat became a feverishly dissected mystery.

Until now.

Meghan Markle Girls Weekend Retreat — Meghan Markle at the Her Best Life retreat.

Meghan markle her best life retreat — Meghan Markle was a featured guest in an intimate conversation with the duchess.

Podcasters Bruna Papandrea and Cath Mahoney, from the Unleashed podcast, attended the intimate conversation with Meghan Markle as guests at the Her Best Life retreat, and shared all the details. “Cath and I were lucky enough to be invited to Her Best Life retreat,” film and TV producer Bruno Papandrea told the podcast panel. “It was a beautiful night, it was really fun.”

Article continues below

Papandrea and her plus-one, Mahoney, revealed that the group of women were asked to wear “cocktail chic” attire, and the event “was not a lot of people, so it felt very intimate.” At the conversation with Meghan Markle, guests were seated at round tables, where Meghan would later go around to take a group photo with VIP guests. “There were two seats next to us that were empty, so their people sat there, and then Harry sat there [next to them]. When [Meghan] went to take the stage, he basically grabbed her hand and helped her up there,” they shared. “It was very sweet."

Meghan Markle headlines the Her Best Life retreat — The poster for the retreat advertised Meghan's presence.

During what was billed as an intimate conversation with Meghan, “it got pretty real about what it is to live in the spotlight and, you know, post Megxit,” the podcast's hosts revealed. “I just felt profoundly like, oh, she's the real thing,” one woman said, sharing that the duchess is “really warm and she's really sweet and funny.”

“She's just a woman who is so polarising it's ridiculous,” said another podcast voice. “She's not caused famine and wars and, you know, murders and you just go, wow, that's a lot on someone,” they said, weighing in on Meghan Markle’s public persona and the trolling she faces. “I just came away feeling like she's just human.”

“So yeah, I mean, we had a great time, didn't we, Cath?" They did, indeed.

TOPICS

Christine Ross is a freelancer writer, royal expert, broadcaster and podcaster. She's worked with news outlets including the BBC, Glamour, Talk TV, ET, PBS, CNN and 20/20 to cover the foremost royal events of the last decade, from Prince George’s birth to the coronation of King Charles III.

She previously served as co-host of Royally Us, a weekly royal podcast by Us Weekly. As a freelance writer and royal commentator she provides expert commentary, historical context and fashion analysis about royal families worldwide, with an emphasis on the British Royal Family.