Sunrise's Shirvo left irritated as Nat Barr points out Harry and Meghan 'publicity stunt'

Sunrise host Matt Shirvington couldn’t hide his annoyance at a story on the show on Monday about Harry and Meghan and the Invictus Games after Nat Barr pointed out a potential ‘publicity stunt’ surrounding the royal couple.

Over the weekend, Prince Harry took to the stage to kick off the sixth Invictus Games at the event’s opening ceremony, which is taking place at the moment in Germany.

His wife, Meghan Markle, was due to speak at the closing ceremony of the Games next Saturday, however, over the weekend her name mysteriously vanished from the schedule, leaving many to wonder what had happened.

Speaking to Daily Mirror Royal Editor Russell Myers, Nat Barr asked where Meghan was, with the royal expert claiming the news could all be a ploy to garner more interest in the Games.

“Are they just trying to build a bit of suspense for the Invictus Games?" Russell asked. "She’s been a great ambassador for Harry’s pet project. I reckon Meghan will still be on the ticket and they’re trying to just build a little bit of suspense for the closing ceremony next Saturday.

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Nat understood what Russell was trying to say, saying: “Oh okay, so this is actually a bit of a publicity stunt."

Shirvo looked unimpressed with the former working royals’ alleged move, shaking his head and saying 'oh God'.

“Taking her off the schedule and getting us all to say ‘I wonder whether she’ll still be on it,” Nat said, with the royal editor asking "Who would say that now?”.

“You,” Nat replied

Later in the chat, Shirvo wondered if the publicity surrounding the couple distracted too much from those athletes who have trained for years to get to this stage.

“When you have this publicity it becomes all about them, then the Invictus Games and all those competitors lose out, don’t they?” he said.

Prince Harry drops Meghan reference in Invictus opening ceremony speech

The prince looked in his element as he spoke to the veterans set to take part in the Games, also mentioning the new nations that have joined the games this year - Colombia, Israel and Nigeria — and how the addition of one of those, in particular, has been a talking point in his household.

"Now, I'm not saying we play favourites in our home, but since my wife discovered she's of Nigerian descent, it's likely to get a little bit more competitive this year," he said.

Meghan previously revealed in October 2022 that she is in fact 43% Nigerian, after the star did a genealogy test.

Speaking on her Archetypes podcast at the time, Meghan said: "I'm going to start to dig deeper into all this because anybody that I've told, especially Nigerian women, are like "What!"

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