A British former paparazzo who recently made a documentary about OnlyFans stars is involved in Meghan Markle’s upcoming private women’s retreat in Sydney.

The Daily Mail pictured Joshua Fox at the InterContinental Hotel in Coogee, Sydney, last Friday at the same time Gemma O’Neill – the organiser of Meghan’s 'Her Best Life’ retreat – was meeting there with representatives of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

Ms O’Neill is hosting a three-day women's retreat for 300 people at the hotel starting this Friday, with 44-year-old Meghan slated to be a guest speaker – despite recent controversy over an anti-Kate Middleton troll claiming to be on the VIP guest list. 

Women have paid more than $3,000 to attend the three-day event, with the price tag including a group selfie with the Montecito-based royal. 

Fox’s involvement in the event – which the Daily Mail understands is limited to helping O’Neill with social media content – has raised eyebrows among media insiders given he has the sort of résumé that would presumably make the high-minded, press-averse Meghan recoil in horror.

Beginning as a pap in London, Fox has worked as a celebrity reporter and a producer for Australia’s most notorious breakfast radio show, Kyle And Jackie O.

He also recently helmed the YouTube series Spicy Summer, about a group of 'four adult content creators who move to Sydney’s Bondi Beach to enrol in The XX Academy, Australia's first OnlyFans school'.

A Daily Mail journalist, who was coincidentally at the InterContinental last Friday, witnessed Fox very briefly join O’Neill as she showed the Sussexes' communications director Liam Maguire and PR lieutenant Miranda Barbot around the hotel. 

Meghan and Harry’s team, which included private security, touched down in Australia last week and has been discreetly visiting sites in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra to put the finishing touches on the couple’s pseudo-royal tour, which begins in Melbourne on Tuesday.

Maguire, Barbot and other members of Team Sussex sat down for a two-hour lunch meeting with O’Neill behind a privacy partition at the InterContinental’s Shutters restaurant.

The group could be heard loudly talking and laughing throughout the meal. Fox did not join them and instead remained at a nearby table with three women.

The Daily Mail understands Fox was at the InterContinental to inspect the conference area and make social media content for O’Neill, and did not join any official briefings.

When contacted for comment this week, Maguire said he did not know who Fox was and directed us to O’Neill.

Responding via email on Monday afternoon, O’Neill said that Fox was not an employee of her business, Besties, or the Her Best Life event.

She stressed that he was not present for her meeting with the Sussex team, adding that Fox was at the hotel to meet with her and another friend 'as an acquaintance'.

A day after the InterContinental sighting, Fox appeared on the podcast The Briefing, during which he discussed his unique way of selling his latest book: by pairing chapters with racy selfies.

'Everyone knows OnlyFans, it doesn't have to be just porn,' he told host of The Briefing Chris Spyrou. 

'I did my writing on OnlyFans – some chapters are horny some are sad.'

Fox admitted he considered moving into full-blown adult content 'because you get an influx of money', but ultimately decided 'it's not worth it'. 

Fox, who hails from the north of England and is well-liked within the media industry, has had a meteoric rise in recent years, thanks to his association with the reality show Married At First Sight (MAFS).

He is the owner of the popular Instagram meme page MAFS Funny, which has 151,000 followers and has since become a podcast.

Initially, MAFS Funny amounted to a kind of double life for Fox, who ran the fast-growing meme account without disclosing his day job as a journalist.

He later revealed himself as the page's creator and now appears prominently in its content.

Previously, he was a radio producer for Nova FM's Fitzy & Wippa, before jumping ship to The Kyle And Jackie O Show on KIIS 106.5.

It's believed his time on Kyle And Jackie O brought him into the orbit of Her Best Life organiser O'Neill, who manages the show's former co-host, Jackie 'O' Henderson.

As a teenager, he worked as a paparazzo in the UK – a detail that probably wouldn't go down well with Meghan or her husband Prince Harry.

During his days as a young snapper, Fox captured lucrative photos of Paris Hilton and Big Brother star Jade Goody, who died from cervical cancer in 2009, aged 27.

He later worked on magazines in London before moving to Australia, where he was briefly married and established his reputation as a media mover and shaker.

Meghan's appearance at the Her Best Life event in Coogee – which has been promoted by organisers as 'raw and vulnerable' – has been besieged by controversy, including online trolls bragging they have infiltrated the event.

An American anti-Sussex X user, @MeghansMole, claimed to their 110,000 followers that they had placed a Sydney-based friend as a 'spy' among the ticketholders. This supposed intruder, they alleged, plans to surreptitiously record the Duchess.

On the other side, pro-Sussex Australian social media influencer @ZandiSussex – who routinely shares vile, untrue posts alleging Kate Middleton faked her cancer – also claims she is attending.

The retreat is strictly off limits to media, and the Daily Mail is aware of at least two reporters who have had their tickets revoked when it was discovered they were journalists. 

When the Daily Mail visited the InterContinental Coogee Beach on Friday, vast areas of the building remained under construction. Formerly the Crowne Plaza, the hotel was reopened after extensive renovations in December.

Last Saturday, O'Neill revealed she had a 'woman-to-woman chat' with Meghan via Zoom.

'It couldn't have been any more kind of real. I just immediately loved chatting to her,' she said.

The Her Best Life event is expected to be Meghan's grand finale after a whirlwind four-day tour that also includes Harry's scheduled appearance as a keynote speaker on mental health at the InterEdge Psychosocial Safety Summit in Melbourne.

The couple will conclude their trip in Sydney, where they will appear on the harbour together with officials from Invictus Australia, before attending a rugby union match. 

The Daily Mail also understands the Sussexes may privately pay tribute to victims and heroes of the Bondi massacre, during which 15 people were killed when two gunmen opened fire on a Hanukkah festival in December. 

Harry and Meghan's children, Prince Archie, six, and Princess Lilibet, four, will remain at the family home in Montecito, California. 

Despite Team Sussex insisting it is a privately-funded trip, on Friday it was revealed that Australian taxpayers will meet some of their security costs. 

Police forces in Victoria and New South Wales confirmed they would be running public safety operations this month.

'The New South Wales Police Force will conduct an operation to ensure public safety is maintained during the visit by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex,' a spokesperson said.

'The operation will require some additional security measures throughout their stay in New South Wales, while minimising any disruption to the community.'

Victoria Police would not comment on the tour but did acknowledge awareness of a major public event occurring this month when contacted by the Daily Mail.

'Police are aware two high-profile people are visiting Melbourne in a private capacity in April,' a spokesperson said.

The Daily Mail can confirm at least two Australian plainclothes police officers flanked the Sussexes' publicity team when they attended meetings in Sydney on Friday.