August 30, 2026 — 5:00am
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Jo Elvin, a former magazine editor in Australia and the UK, is working as the co-host of the The Royals Uncensored podcast on the Piers Morgan digital media network Uncensored.
Fitz: Jo! Great to chat. I remember 10 years ago at lunch on Sydney’s Insular Peninsula, having a strong conversation about the Australian republic with you. So if I hate myself for my level of interest in Harry and Meghan’s return to the UK, you must positively despise yourself for being host of a weekly podcast dedicated to the royals and for whom this story is manna from heaven? How did that happen?
Royal correspondent Katie Nicholl (left) and Jo Elvin, do the podcast Royals Uncensored.
JE: [Explosive laughter.] I was working at the Mail on Sunday, and I was identified as somebody who could speak with a camera in their face, and they said, “we’re going to do a regular show on the royals, and we want you to host it”. And I said, “But I don’t have any f…s to give about the royals”. And they said, “That’s why we want you. A fresh look”. I took it on in a curious, dispassionate, Aussie way. ”Why do they have to be so rich?“ “Why do we have to bow and scrape?” But tell me, Peter, ’cos I want to know: why are you so interested in them?
Fitz: Because on a long drive back to Sydney from the Hunter Valley a few years ago, my wife wanted to listen to the audiobook of Harry’s book Spare and, against my will, I had to listen. And though I did hate myself for it, I found myself liking Harry, and thought he made some bloody brilliant points, starting with the fact he found himself in a family where every member had their own press office, and they were all briefing against each other, including senior royals handing out, “Here’s why Meghan’s a bitch” cards with dot-points to curry favour and get better stories for their own Royal Highnesses-es-es-es. Talk about dysfunctional! Why wouldn’t Harry want to do a runner out of Dodge to protect his wife and family in the face of that? Which begs the question, why on earth are they coming back?
JE: Well, that’s the question on every royal expert’s lips at the moment. But before we get to that, there’s not one iota of contrition in Harry’s book. Everything is everybody else’s fault, and I’ve got a real issue with that. I was speaking to a journalist at the Daily Mail once, and he said there were never trade-offs like that. He said, “If we were given both those stories, we’d run them both”.
Fitz: From the Daily Mail, I’d believe it.
Prince Harry’s candid memoir, Spare, was published in January 2023 and quickly became a record-breaking success.AP
JE: But the royals are very much, “Don’t complain, don’t explain”. And Harry’s the one who’s put himself right in the firing line with complaining and explaining, and changing his story so often that people are really confused about what is it that you want, Harry. Do you actually know what you want?
Fitz: You’re a journalistic royal heavyweight for the Piers Morgan group and far more genuinely knowledgeable about the inner workings of the royal family than 99.9 per cent of the population. So how do you know this stuff? Is Harry right? Does each member of the royal family have a person briefing you? Are you getting tip-offs?
JE: I personally don’t talk to any people inside the palace. My job is as the moderator of the podcast, the ringmaster for all the people who do have those contacts. So I speak to people like royal correspondent Robert Jobson; Grant Harold, who used to be a butler for the royal family; Katie Nicholl, who’s been plugged in for years and is my co-host. There’s definitely official spokespeople, and then there’s valuable contacts. These are friends who – particularly in the case of the Sussexes, Pete – are very much encouraged to speak to the press for them. This is how outlets like People magazine, can quote “somebody very close to the Sussexes” more often than not.
Fitz: That, and People magazine making it up, but moving on. Is part of the job of the royal spokespeople to stir the pot?
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JE: It’s not about stirring the pot. The journalists stir the pot and the spokespeople try to set the record straight at every possible turn when a journalist writes something they say is wrong. Right now, most of the pot-stirring is coming from Camp Sussex. Nobody actually asked for the big fanfare and the big announcement about their return, and that didn’t need to happen. But they’re always trumpeting what they’re doing. There’s a piece in the Mail filled with imperious briefings from the Sussexes: saying you will not photograph Prince Archie on his first day of school, etc. The press is like, “we were never going to do that. Why do you even need to say it?”
Fitz: So for you, this return to Britain is just the latest stop on what South Park called the “Harry and Meghan Worldwide Privacy Tour”. Is that it? “Have grift, will grift. Happy to come to you to grift some more”?
JE: Sort of, yes, even if I wouldn’t put it quite so cynically, but definitely all the signs are there that the American Dream hasn’t really worked out. Nothing has been as fruitful financially as the initial documentary where they talked about how dreadful it was to be part of the royal family. And now that the money in America seems to have dried up, they need that royal association in a country that still cares, to cash in that currency. But Harry seems to spend a lot of time acting like a royal, demanding what comes with being a frontline working royal, without wanting to work like one. I’m not the only one who’s confused.
Fitz: Might Australia be the next stop on the Worldwide Royal Grifting Tour?
JE: I don’t know what they’d do there. And I can’t see Meghan living in Australia. I love Australia, but it’s a long way from where the action is in terms of showbiz or proximity to the royal family and the glamour that comes with that.
Fitz: Do you think Harry is miserable? And what do you think he does at 9am on a Monday when the working week begins?
JE: I have asked many royal experts that very question myself. I think at the moment he’ll be very busy with the Invictus Games, with the countdown already on for that taking place next year. I think he’s probably spending a lot of time with the children, and I think he spends many hours reading the acres of press on them, and briefing his own press team on what to whinge about.
Fitz: Which brings us to Meghan. I remember being mesmerised by the 2018 wedding and the Most Reverend Michael Curry, the first black American presiding bishop of the US Episcopalian Church, giving some wonderfully down-home holy gospel in Westminster Abbey – as the Queen sat frozen and the English aristocracy looked at each other, gobsmacked. Was that the moment where the British establishment looked at Meghan, looked at Harry, and said, “We are done here. We’ll play nice for a bit, but seriously, we are done.”
Harry and Meghan kiss after their wedding at Windsor Castle on May 19, 2018.AP
JE: I don’t think that’s a fair reading. And it wasn’t a race thing – it was a culture thing. The British royal family is so proper and buttoned up, and as I said, they “never complain, never explain, barely speak”. I barely knew what the Queen’s voice sounded like, and here we have an American doing his emotive, demonstrative, loud thing. That was the divide. I think the split started when the Wales and the Sussexes were on stage, suddenly dubbed “The Fab Four” for a mental health charity event, and you could see Meghan’s outspokenness on display, and her wanting to have a borderline political voice. I think that’s where the discomfort grew in the press because there’s been such a history of the royal family staying out of politics, staying out of being strongly opinionated, and that was when the cracks started appearing.
Fitz: I remember it being whispered to me by a London magazine editor – it might have been you? – that Meghan fancied herself as “the female Mandela”?
JE: It was not me, and I’ve never heard that, but it would not surprise me. She did want to change the world. But for her, the biggest problems started when rumours emerged of her treating staff badly at the palace. And I think she took the American idea of what celebrity means and thought it would apply to being a part of the British royal family – and it’s not. Yes, there’s a lot of money and tiaras, with armed security and fawning crowds, but it’s also a lot of charity events and cutting ribbons, followed by cucumber sandwiches, and I think she just thought, “Jesus Christ, what is this!?!?”
Fitz: There was a piece we ran in the Herald on Tuesday, originating from the London Daily Telegraph, and the woman who wrote it basically said, “Oi, Sussexes, just naff off. Britain doesn’t want you!” In your experience, is that a fair representation of the public’s view?
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JE: It is. The only royal less popular at the moment is the former Prince Andrew. But you will remember what a pariah Camilla was 30 years ago? I don’t think it’s out of the realms of possibility for Harry and Meghan to turn it around. But the way that will happen is for them to stop shouting at the press every five seconds. And you know, even in all the time they’ve been in California, there hasn’t been a lot of just going out there and performing acts of public service. It’s all been about being on MasterChef and making jam on Instagram. What the British public would like is a bit of: “We feel like we have been badly treated, but maybe we shouldn’t have slagged off the entire royal family in an Oprah interview just as Prince Philip was dying in hospital.” Something like that would be quite nice.
Fitz: OK, but I think I should tell you that, in an admittedly surprising development, I have just become Harry’s press officer, and I’m briefing you on the QT, and …
JE: [Laughing] That’d be right!
Fitz: Well, he’s done some fine work. We’re going to have to make him a lifetime member of the Australian Republic Movement. But as his press officer, how can my HRH be asked to be the one to apologise when the royal family has so many appalling things on their own record? Things like Camilla happily breaking bread with that horrible fellow Jeremy Clarkson on the very day Clarkson was quoted as saying in the British press, that he was “dreaming of the day when [Meghan] is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant, ‘Shame!’ and throw lumps of excrement at her.” But Harry’s the one that’s meant to apologise? What about when William, in a fit of pique, belted him? What about his allegation that Charles leaked to the press that he had arranged to have him admitted to drug rehab, just so Charles could look like an empathetic father?? My client is not the villain in your royal pantomime!
JE: I will stand by my original assertion. I’m an interested observer. I’m not a cheerleader for anyone in this. But I agree the Jeremy Clarkson thing was shameful. And yet by that point, Harry had already been writing about what a monster Camilla was, so there’s probably no love lost there. But I do think that William needs to find a way to contain the Harry and Meghan situation and have them inside the tent peeing out rather than outside the tent peeing in, for the sake of keeping that institution on the rails.
Fitz: No, we of the Australian Republic Movement want Harry to start early, go hard and finish late. It would be very good for our business. Meantime, we know Charles has cancer. Long live the king, etc, but what if he doesn’t? Say he shuffles off both this mortal coil, and William ascends the throne before the decade is out? Would Harry attend the coronation, or is it that the two brothers simply cannot be in the same room as each other even when the room is as big as Westminster Abbey?
JE: Pete, this is the kind of thing that makes me hate myself for how invested I’ve become. I hope Harry will be at that coronation, but William’s got a lot of anger to work through until we get to that point. There’s some people who think that the minute he’s king, Harry will be stripped of his royal titles.
Fitz: So there’s plenty more still to play out. Meantime, how are you going with Piers Morgan? Is he a nice man or a dipshit?
JE: [Laughing.] I have known Piers for about 20 years. I think he is a nice man. He’s got a great company that’s growing, and it’s really exciting to be part of something new.
Fitz. OK, and finally, let me hear you say, “Pete, long live the Australian republic!”
JE: Who are we putting in as head of state?
Fitz: Some great Australian, not unlike current Governor-General Sam Mostyn.
JE: Maybe, but I’ve come to like the continuity of the monarchy.
Fitz: OK, thanks, Jo. After the revolution, I’ll step in and save you, but you’re making it hard. Meanwhile, go, Prince Harry!
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Peter FitzSimons is a journalist and columnist with The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X.From our partners