Queen Elizabeth II was not a big fan of the then-Duchess of Cambridge. I’m not saying QEII had beef with Kate, but QEII did have some subtle ways of showing that Kate was far from her favorite married-in. QEII waited six and a half years to give Kate the Royal Family Order of Queen Elizabeth II, which is usually something given to royal wives after three or four years. QEII also waited until April 2019 to give Kate the Royal Victorian Order, and it felt like Kate was given GCRVO specifically because Kate was (at the time) weathering a lot of rumors about her husband’s alleged affair with their Norfolk neighbor, Rose Hanbury. Five years later, and Kate is once again in the middle of another sh-tstorm, likely of her husband’s making. So King Charles has dusted off a new shiny medal to give her for sticking with an unmoisturized Huevo.

Kate Middleton and Prince William are taking on new royal appointments. On April 23, which happens to be the sixth birthday of the Prince and Princess of Wales’ son Prince Louis, King Charles announced several new appointments, including for members of the royal family.

The King, 75, appointed his daughter-in-law Princess Kate, 42, as the Royal Companion of the Order of the Companions of Honour. In a history-making twist, she is the first Royal Companion named to this order. The Order of the Companions of Honour was founded by King George V in 1917 to recognize outstanding achievements in the arts, sciences, medicine and public service. Members are limited to 65 at a time (although people from outside Commonwealth countries can be counted as additional honorary members) and currently include David Attenborough, Elton John, Anna Wintour, Judi Dench and Maggie Smith.

Prince William, 41, was appointed by his father to be Great Master of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath. The role had been vacant since 2022 after King Charles, who held the role from 1974 to 2022, acceded to the throne.

The Most Honourable Order of the Bath was established by King George I in 1725 but is believed to originally date back as far as the eighth century. It is awarded to members of the military or civil service for exemplary service.

Queen Camilla also received a new appointment from her husband as the Grand Master and First or Principal Dame Grand Cross of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. The Order of the British Empire was established by King George V in 1917 to honor a broader cross-section of society, both military and civilian. It comprises five classes, the two most senior of which makes the recipient a knight or dame.

The title of Grand Master has twice before been held by the monarch’s spouse with Prince Philip (1953 to 2021) and Queen Mary (1936 to 1953). King Edward VIII, who was known as the Duke of Windsor following his abdication, held the role from 1917 to 1936 as the Prince of Wales.

Keeping with the tradition of appointing new Companions to the Order of the Garter on April 23, the feast day of England’s patron saint St. George, King Charles named four members. This included a member of the royal family: the Duchess of Gloucester. The Duchess, 77, is the wife of the late Queen Elizabeth’s cousin the Duke of Gloucester and a full-time working member of the royal family. Her appointment marks the first time a non-blood royal who wasn’t a spouse of the monarch or heir received the Order of Garter honor. The other three new Order of the Garter members include Air Chief Marshal Lord Peach, the Right Honourable Lord Kakkar and Lord Lloyd-Webber.

[From People]

It’s insane to me that the Duchess of Gloucester is getting the Order of the Garter honor and she’s the first married-in royal to get it. Like… I’m sure it’s about seniority, but damn, you know both Sophie and Kate would love to get the Garter robes or even the Order of the Thistle robes (I love the Thistle robes, they’re emerald green velvet and I would wear that cape everywhere). Kate will probably be pleased with the Royal Companion of the Order of the Companions of Honour, although it does feel like a “lesser” honor, something given to placate Kate. Will she accept the honor in person?? LOL. I don’t think that’s how it works – it’s just some fancy doodad which will appear with her sash and her few other medals for state dinners and state occasions. As for William’s new position… again, he should have been taking over ALL of Charles’s former positions right from the start. It’s shocking how long it’s taking to hand off everything.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

More than a week ago, Samantha Cohen gave a couple of interviews to the Sydney Morning Herald. Cohen was a long-time aide to Queen Elizabeth II, then right as Cohen was about to leave Buckingham Palace to move into the private sector, QEII asked Cohen to stay on and work for a six-month transition period as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s private secretary. Cohen ended up staying with the Sussexes for about a year and a half. She left the Sussexes just a few months before THEY left for Canada and eventually Sussexited out of the UK. In Cohen’s April interviews, she basically left the impression that she was interviewed as part of the “bullying investigation” into Meghan’s conduct, and that the Sussexes had high staff turnover. I also got the impression that she didn’t enjoy her time working with the Sussexes but she wasn’t part of the palace-driven campaign to destroy them.

Given everything we’ve seen over the years, no one has ever provided one single piece of evidence or even an anecdotal, unverifiable story of Meghan “bullying” anyone. It’s always just vibes, racist innuendo and “she made me feel bullied” claims. No one has ever explained exactly what Meghan allegedly did or said which had posh white women sobbing hysterically or on the verge of nervous breakdowns. “She wanted a specific kind of flower at her wedding!” That’s not bullying. “She looked at me in a meeting!” Also not bullying. “She sent a 5am text to Jason Knauf while she was traveling internationally!” No mas!! Well, trust Tom Bower to try to make a meal out of Cohen’s interviews. He wrote a new screed in the Mail about how, five years after the fakakta bullying claims were created, Cohen’s interviews could breathe new life into the smear campaign:

The Duchess of Sussex’s senior royal official, Samantha Cohen, has finally broken cover on the explosive bullying claims that first rocked Kensington Palace in 2021 and still reverberate today. Ms Cohen, a loyal and longstanding former palace aide, has confirmed to an Australian newspaper that she was, indeed, among those interviewed by the Palace in the wake of complaints about the duchess’s alleged aggressive behaviour.

A small step forward, you might think, but a significant one when it comes to an episode which officials have so far swept under the carpet. Samantha Cohen is not just any courtier, after all. An intelligent, charming Australian, she had been working with the late Queen for 20 years when she was asked to undertake a challenging new assignment. In 2017, Ms Cohen agreed to help the newly engaged Meghan acclimatise to the Royal Family and life in Kensington Palace.

Her task was to persuade an ambitious, career-minded and outspoken Californian actress to embrace the Royal Family’s immutable hierarchy and rigid protocols. Perhaps it was a tall order. Certainly, I believe that Ms Cohen was soon exasperated, within six months or so, and that Meghan either disagreed with, or failed to understand, the non-negotiable elements of royalty. I also believe that members of Samantha Cohen’s team viewed this as an irresponsible self-indulgence. Both sides would blame a clash of cultures.

Could a 36-year-old with a profile adopt the British propensity for understatement? Could she ditch Hollywood’s hyperbole in favour of the Palace’s low-key, repetitive ‘no comment’? It seems not.

She doesn’t go quite so far in her conversation with the Herald Sun, but Ms Cohen does say that she stayed in her role three times as long as she had planned – because officials struggled to find a replacement for her. And that, intriguingly, when a new private secretary was eventually found, that person quit during Harry and Meghan’s tour of Africa in 2019. The Sun Herald quotes Ms Cohen as saying: ‘I was only supposed to stay for six months but stayed for 18 – we couldn’t find a replacement for me and when we did, we took them on tour to Africa with Harry and Meghan to show them the ropes but they left as well while in Africa.’

Ms Cohen also appeared to confirm that she was one of a number of courtiers who had been interviewed following a bullying complaint raised by Harry and Meghan’s communications secretary, Jason Knauf, in 2018 – and first revealed by The Times in 2020.

As I record in my book, Revenge, William told Harry that Meghan’s behaviour was unacceptable and that Ms Cohen and others had become suspicious that Meghan had never intended to give up her career and become a loyal member of the family. Did Meghan want to return to America, William wondered? As their conversation became heated, William mentioned staff complaints about being bullied by Meghan. Harry was outraged – but the accusations, whether justified or not, were a matter of fact. So was a certain level of staff turnover.

[From The Daily Mail]

“So was a certain level of staff turnover.” So if we’re using “staff turnover” as evidence of the bad behavior of royals, surely that rationale should be extended to Prince William and Kate? Their senior staff come and go rapidly, and part of the reason why Kensington Palace has been such a clownshow this year is because Kate didn’t have a private secretary for more than eighteen months, and William’s private secretary left because he didn’t want to answer to as-yet-undiscovered Kensington Palace CEO. All of the major KP staffers from 2018-2019 left in the coming years after the Sussexes exited the country. The king basically assigned a Tory handler and an ex-military guy to staff Huevo and Buttons mid-crisis this year because William is too stupid and inept to keep senior staff. The past four years have been evidence enough that Kensington Palace’s staffers are incompetent fools, and that was before Simon Case tried to run “the Meghan Special” on government staffers in Downing Street. You reap what you sow, and William and Kate have been reaping for years.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.

Kensington Palace is really daring the British media and the international media to call them out over Prince Louis’s sixth birthday portrait. KP released the photos after noon on Tuesday, Prince Louis’s birthday. Usually, KP releases photos for the kids’ birthdays a day or two in advance, and I completely believe that the British papers exerted pressure on KP to release something. The palace couldn’t help but brief that the photo was taken by the Princess of Wales in Windsor in “the last few days.” Which no one really believes, especially since Louis is wearing the same shirt he wore in the Mother’s Day frankenphoto, and magically his missing-tooth gap has basically been unchanged for months? Even if you believe that the photo is unedited and unmanipulated, it’s very likely to be a months-old photo.

The Associated Press was one of several media agencies to “kill” the Mother’s Day photo hours after it was released by KP. The AP published the Louis b-day photo, but they added a disclaimer and made sure to reference who was saying what about the photo. This was AP’s disclaimer:

“Undated handout photo issued on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, by Kensington Palace of Prince Louis, taken by his mother Britain’s Kate, Princess of Wales, earlier this week in Windsor, to mark his 6th birthday. Kensington Palace released the photograph of Prince Louis to celebrate his 6th birthday, the first image by the Princess of Wales it has distributed since news organizations, including The Associated Press, withdrew a photo edited by Kate over concerns about digital manipulation. (The Prince and Princess of Wales, Kensington Palace via AP)”

LOL. In their coverage, AP noted that this is the first palace-issued photo since the Mother’s Day frankenphoto fiasco and they note that the palace is the one telling outlets that the Louis photo “was taken by the princess in the last few days, the palace said in a statement. British media reported that the image, which showed the beaming prince in a plaid shirt, had not been edited.”

Rebecca English at the Mail also claims that the photo has not been edited, information which she’s gotten from Kensington Palace… a source which has huge credibility issues. I mean, just last month, AFP compared KP to North Korea, but Becky English is all about that propaganda. She noted in her coverage: “The picture is understood to have been unedited, deliberately, following the furore that resulted over the princess’s Photoshopped Mother’s Day picture, which saw it withdrawn by international picture agencies.” English is truly giving Kensington Palace a cookie for swearing up and down that they released an unedited photo of a child.

The Mail also conducted an interview with a London photographer, Glenn Gratton, who studied the Louis photo and declares it “not retouched.” He told the Mail: “If she has done any photoshop, it’s very subtle. She’s clearly more advanced with her photography. Her pictures have improved year by year on….He’s only six. She’s not tried to make him look like a wax work. Some parents over-filter their children’s pictures.”

Richard Palmer was especially active yesterday over Louis’s photo. Such jobless behavior. “Almost every major news organisation has reported that this photo is unedited…” They’re reporting that Kensington Palace SAID it was unedited.

Almost every major news organisation has reported that this photo is unedited because it’s a pertinent fact after the controversy over the Photoshopped Mother’s Day picture. So the apparently coordinated attacks on some social media accounts, including this one, are interesting. https://t.co/fV0i86bUYH

— Richard Palmer (@RoyalReporter) April 24, 2024

Photos courtesy of Kensington Palace.

In The Tortured Poets Department, Taylor Swift devoted two songs to her eight-years-long beef with Kim Kardashian. It’s particularly telling, to me at least, that Taylor is still so mad at Kim specifically. I don’t doubt that Taylor still has a lot of smoke for Kanye West, but she’s not devoting whole-ass songs about how much she despises Ye. Is he too “easy” a target for Taylor? Kanye destroyed his own life and brand already – he’s a Nazi pariah, and he’s now unwelcome in the elite spaces he craves. If Taylor went after Ye, it would likely be seen as punching down. Plus, he would love the attention. So… she goes after Kim. Kim hasn’t said one word about Taylor on the record since 2019, when she appeared on Watch What Happens Live and said that everyone involved had “moved on.” Taylor was mad about that too, and she’s spent the past five years referencing Kim in interviews and music. In any case, Kim still isn’t saying anything on the record, but a “source” has something to say about it:

The release of Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department has reignited interest in the feud between the singer and Kim Kardashian. On “thanK you aIMee,” Swift sings about facing bullying, and the lyrics, coupled with the capitalization of the three letters in the title (KIM), led fans to think that the song is a dig at the SKIMS founder.

A source tells PEOPLE of Kardashian’s response to the track: “She’s over it and thinks Taylor should move on.”

Kardashian “doesn’t get why [Swift] keeps harping on it,” the source says. “It’s been literally years.”

In the chorus of “thanK you aIMee,” Swift sings, “All that time you were throwin’ punches, I was buildin’ somethin’ / And I can’t forgive the way you made me feel / Screamed ‘F— you, Aimee’ to the night sky, as the blood was gushin’/ But I can’t forget the way you made me heal.”

Later, she changes the chorus to sing: “All that time you were throwin’ punches, it was all for nothin’ / An our town, it look so small from way up here / Screamed ‘Thank you, Aimee’ to the night sky and the stars are stunnin’ / ‘Cause I can’t forget the way you made me heal.”

The song also references Swift removing “any real defining clues” about who the song is about, along with her admitting, “I changed your name,” which fans believed to be a reference to the song exploring her rift with Kardashian.

[From People]

Don’t get me wrong, I am also a champion grudge-holder. I’m still holding on to grudges from decades ago. I have a memory like a steel trap for people who have wronged me. But my seething hatred for my enemies is contained, because I would never, ever give my enemies (especially Laura F–king Dern) the satisfaction of knowing that I carry these grudges with me. That’s what I don’t get about Taylor, honestly. Maybe it’s a Sagittarius thing for her versus a Virgo thing for me. Taylor is always so eager to paint herself as the heroine-victim, she has to let everyone know that she’s still thinking about that one person who “wronged” her eight years ago. Why give Kim the satisfaction of knowing that? That Taylor is still haunted by it, still writing songs about it, still torn up about it? In a very limited sense about this one siloed situation, I genuinely think Kim has handled this whole thing correctly for years, by refusing to apologize and largely ignoring Taylor. And Taylor hasn’t handled it correctly.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.

Donald Trump was in a New York courtroom all of last week. He’ll be in the same courtroom for weeks to come, as he stands trial for all of the crimes he committed related to paying hush money to Stormy Daniels. Donald Trump is trying to make the courtroom his own, squeezing his lardass into those government seats and dozing off for low-energy catnaps whenever he can. I imagine that, by the end of the trial, his table will be littered with Big Mac wrappers and Diet Coke cans. Unfortunately, the situation will grow ever more dire. You see, Donald Trump is hellbent on cropdusting his lawyers, the jury and the prosecution. That’s right. Donald Trump is farting up a storm. He’s hot-boxing the courtroom with his rancid cheeseburger gas.

There’s something in the air in New York, and it’s coming from Donald Trump’s courtroom.

Ben Meiselas, co-founder of MeidasTouch and owner of Los Angeles Magazine, reported today that “Donald Trump is actually farting in the courtroom and that it’s very stinky around him.”

“Trump’s lawyers are repulsed by the scent and the smell,” he said, noting that these observations are from credible sources in the courtroom.

[From LA Magazine]

I’m including the clip below – Ben Meiselas actually says “it’s a putrid odor in the courtroom.” For sh-ts and giggles, I’m also including the vintage video of Rudy Giuliani angry-farting during his unhinged ratf–king campaign in late 2020. While I would never suggest that farting is a Republican-only activity, it does feel like Republicans are all about public farting these days. They simply don’t have the integrity to hold it in. And their diets are horrendous as well, especially in Trump’s case. You know those are some BAD fast-food farts. You know he’s sh-tting himself quite literally too.

I heard this too. I’m not kidding. The court’s going to have to issue more than a gag order here. https://t.co/hqFneiSwib

— George Conway (@gtconway3d) April 19, 2024

This week we learned Trump farts in court and wants the judge to turn off the air in court. His final strategy here is clear.

— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) April 20, 2024

This is the most coherent argument Giuliani has made for weeks pic.twitter.com/H7o0P2jRnp

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 3, 2020

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.

As we learned this week, Prince Harry changed his residency on company filings for Travalyst, the environmental-tourism non-profit he launched in 2019. Travalyst used to be filed with Harry’s British address, and now he’s changed it to reflect that he lives in America, especially after his father evicted him from Frogmore Cottage. Again, this was not a statement issued by Harry or his spokesperson, nor is a line on a company filing indicative of citizenship either way. That hasn’t stopped the usual suspects from making a meal out of this news. The Mail even got that evil old goat Tom Bower to chime in – the same Bower who has spent the past four years demanding that Harry divorce Meghan at once and come back to be his brother’s scapegoat.

Prince Harry’s decision to pinpoint the day he and Meghan were ‘evicted’ from Frogmore Cottage by King Charles as the date his US residency began points to ‘irritation’ with his father and that he won’t return to the UK, royal experts told MailOnline today.

Filings published by Companies House yesterday for ‘Prince Henry Charles Albert David Duke of Sussex’ record that his ‘New Country/State Usually Resident’ is now the U.S. It was previously recorded as the United Kingdom. And despite being updated officially this week, Prince Harry chose the day he and Meghan officially moved out of Frogmore Cottage – June 29, 2023, as the date his formal US residency began – not when they emigrated in early 2020.

Royal biographer Tom Bower told MailOnline that Harry’s decision to use the date of leaving Frogmore as the start of his US residency reveals his annoyance with his father. It is also a sure sign that Harry has no intention of living in Britain again for some time.

‘King Charles was quite right to evict Harry from Frogmore, and not surprisingly Harry was irritated. He and Meghan thought they could have their cake and eat it’, he said. ‘Unfortunately, the King did not go further and strip the Sussexes of their titles. That might have stopped their recent promotional splurge, exploiting their royal titles to earn money. Hopefully, when the King recovers he will reconsider his attitude towards the Sussexes and distance them further from the royal family’.

Mr Bower says the Companies House document unearthed by the Mail shows Harry has ‘decided to remain in America for the foreseeable future. He should now be firmly told by the King to stop exploiting his royal titles for commercial profit’.

Royal author Angela Levin said the change in residence means that Harry should no longer be ‘a Counsellor of State to stand in for the monarch should it be needed’.

Royal experts have said Harry was ‘deeply wounded’ by his father’s order for him and Meghan to leave Frogmore, which had been a wedding gift from Queen Elizabeth, with suggestions that he was making a point by choosing the date. Royal author Phil Dampier told The Sun: ‘Charles and William knew it had to be done to emphasise Harry and Meghan were outside The Firm but he probably still thought he could keep a base here. Now he’s shown he accepts his life is in the US.’

[From The Daily Mail]

For years, I’ve tried to translate this melodramatic Derangerspeak, but I guess I just don’t get why any of this is such a big f–king deal either way? I guess you could argue that when QEII was alive, Harry still harbored a fantasy of being able to return to the UK whenever he wanted to visit friends and family. That fantasy came crashing down over the course of the past eighteen months and it wasn’t just about the Frogmore eviction. It was about how Charles treated Harry and Meghan during QEII’s funeral, it was about the security issues and all of the lies. It was about Charles refusing to even allow Harry to have a room in Windsor Castle for one night last September. At this point, I genuinely hope that Harry simply doesn’t care. Just cut all of these people out and never f–king return.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Billie Eilish has a lot of credibility as an artist who is actively trying to find solutions to environmental issues. She’s not calling herself an environmentalist and just leaving it to other people to do the heavy lifting – Billie has made big changes to how an artist can tour and what can be done industry-wide to reduce waste. She’s also done smaller-scale things, like using her celebrity to get designers to focus more on not using fur or leather, and creating more “vegan fashion” for all of her red carpets. Billboard did an interview with Billie and her mom, and you can read the long list of initiatives pioneered by Billie as a touring artist. Interestingly, Billie took some well-deserved swipes at other artists who do “wasteful” album-drops:

Billie on being very particular about her merch: “It’s about how it feels and how it looks and how it’s made. And so the problem is to make sure that my clothing is being made well and ethically and with good materials and it’s very sustainable and that it feels good and is durable. It’s going to be more expensive and that’s the thing: People can be upset by that. But I’m trying to pick one of two evils.

She’s reduced the number of merch drops too: “Sometimes people have the idea of when things are more ethical, they’re more expensive, and so it’s harder to be plant-based or environmentally conscious if you don’t have as much money. That’s the whole system we live in, of like, if you have less money then you have less resources [for] healthier food… And so what we’re trying to do is make it more universally accessible.

She’s working to make vinyl more sustainable. Happier Than Ever came in eight vinyl variants, using 100% recycled black vinyl — plus recycled scraps for colored variants — and shrink-wrap made from sugar cane. “We live in this day and age where, for some reason, it’s very important to some artists to make all sorts of different vinyl and packaging … which ups the sales and ups the numbers and gets them more money and gets them more… I can’t even express to you how wasteful it is. It is right in front of our faces and people are just getting away with it left and right, and I find it really frustrating as somebody who really goes out of my way to be sustainable and do the best that I can and try to involve everybody in my team in being sustainable — and then it’s some of the biggest artists in the world making f–king 40 different vinyl packages that have a different unique thing just to get you to keep buying more. It’s so wasteful, and it’s irritating to me that we’re still at a point where you care that much about your numbers and you care that much about making money — and it’s all your favorite artists doing that sh-t.

[From Billboard]

“It’s some of the biggest artists in the world making f–king 40 different vinyl packages that have a different unique thing just to get you to keep buying more. It’s so wasteful, and it’s irritating to me that we’re still at a point where you care that much about your numbers and you care that much about making money — and it’s all your favorite artists doing that sh-t.” Page Six has already described this as Billie taking a very specific swipe at Taylor Swift, and I’ll admit, Taylor is who I thought of first. Other artists do multiple vinyl packages as well, but Taylor has become infamous for squeezing every dollar she can from her fans through multiple drops of the same f–king album. I always came at that issue as “a sucker born every minute, Taylor really doesn’t respect her fans,” but Billie is coming at the issue as: that’s so wasteful, why are you creating forty unique vinyl packages for your fans to buy when you could just do one or two packages?

Update: After this Billboard piece was published, Billie later said that she wasn’t calling out one specific person and especially not Taylor. It’s true that she didn’t name names and she was speaking in the broader sense that many artists do it. Artists like Taylor.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

Ashanti & Nelly got back together last year, and now they’re engaged and expecting a baby! Wow, this story is sort of crazy. [Buzzfeed]
I don’t even know how to describe Cate Blanchett’s Louis Vuitton ensemble. She looks like a chic pirate, and I’m kind of into it? [RCFA]
This male model has a very “Jersey Shore” look. [Socialite Life]
On Suri Cruise’s 18th birthday, a reflection of the TomKat mess. [LaineyGossip]
A defense of the apolitical nature of Alex Garland’s Civil War. [Pajiba]
Salma Hayek wore a cute dress & atrocious platforms. [Go Fug Yourself]
I thought Justin Bieber & Jaden Smith’s affectionate greeting was genuinely sweet. They seem to really be close friends. [OMG Blog]
More analysis of how Taylor Swift’s TTPD seems to be about Matt Healy. [Just Jared]
Rita Moreno is so cool. [Seriously OMG]
Bravo’s NYC Prep is finally available on streaming. [Starcasm]
Simone Biles thought America hated her when she got the twisties. [Hollywood Life]

Oh, J.Lo. All she wanted was to spread joy to the world with her love of LOVE in her triple project extravaganza: This Is Me… Now the album, the musical film, and the making of documentary The Greatest Love Story Never Told. Well, spread joy and make back the $20 million she personally funded. And what have we given her in return? A fairly “meh” reaction, along with the lowest Billboard 200 debut of her career (38). But hey, we’re talking about scrappy Jennifer Lopez here. So she moved full steam ahead into announcing her tour… only to cancel several city stops (which haven’t been rescheduled) after a month of lackluster ticket sales. Now “sources” have spoken to Us Weekly to say that yeah, of course Jen is disappointed, but really she doesn’t care what other people think.

“Jennifer’s very focused on her latest project and doesn’t want bad press to get in her head,” the insider says, referring to Lopez’s recent rough patch involving her This Is Me… Now Tour and record of the same name.

The source explains that Lopez, 54, has been through “plenty of problems like this before and has gotten over them,” adding, “She moves on when things like this happen.”

Last month, Lopez raised eyebrows when she canceled several shows for her upcoming This Is Me… Now Tour after weak ticket sales. The stops included Nashville, Raleigh, Atlanta, Tampa and New Orleans and were supposed to take place between August 22-30.

The musician didn’t give any explanation at the time, and according to Ticketmaster dates in the southern part of the U.S. were not rescheduled.

Days later, Lopez posted an updated tour schedule with a revised lineup of dates. The shows will begin in June in Orlando and conclude in August with two New York City performances. None of the canceled shows are listed on the schedule.

Lopez’s This Is Me… Now album dropped in February and didn’t live up to the singer’s standards when it came to the charts. The record debuted at No. 38 on the Billboard 200, which is the lowest any of Lopez’s albums have ranked. (This Is Me… Now is the follow-up to Lopez’s 2002 LP, This Is Me… Then. The new record is her ninth studio album.)

While a second source tells Us that Lopez is “disappointed” over the underwhelming response to her tour and album, a third insider says she’s not letting it derail her next ventures.

“Jennifer is extremely proud of all the hard work she puts into her projects, and Ben [Affleck] has been a huge support through it all,” the third source shares.

Lopez and Affleck, 51, are currently house hunting for a fresh New York City pad, sources tell Us. Plus, Lopez has decided to focus on her next movie, Kiss of the Spider Women, which she’s already filming in New Jersey.

“She really doesn’t care what others think,” the third insider says of Lopez’s reaction to her recent criticism, adding that Affleck, whom she wed in 2022, has been keeping “Jen grounded” through all the highs and lows.

Lopez, meanwhile, is already on to the next big thing. “She’s looking for a fresh start,” the first source tells Us.

[From Us Weekly]

In J.Lo’s defense regarding poor ticket sales: what Machiavellian tour planner scheduled five concerts over eight days across the American South in AUGUST?? I love New Orleans, but I still wouldn’t be caught dead there in the summer. Or actually I would — because the humidity had killed me! But humidity + dancing in the audience? I’d rather watch Gigli. As for these sources, I don’t know. Is professing that “she really doesn’t care what others think” the most effective strategy? Personally I would’ve advised staying quiet and out of sight (see what I did there!) in New Jersey working on Kiss of the Spider Woman (she’s playing the role originated by the late great Chita Rivera, those are some big jazz shoes to fill). And then BAM! Emerge on May 6 to make a stunning entrance as Met Gala co-chair. But yet again, no one consulted me. At least one concern seems to have been lifted for Lopez: she just sold her Manhattan penthouse, last listed at $25 million. This Is Me… Recouped!

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Photos credit: Janet Mayer/INSTARimages.com, Diamond/Backgrid and via Instagram

At some point, Prince Harry changed his residency status on Travalyst’s British company filings. He changed his residency, obviously enough, from Britain to America. The filings were just revealed this week, but this was likely done by Harry months ago, and he even backdated the change to reflect the June 2023 eviction from Frogmore Cottage. The eviction was a petty, disgusting move by Harry’s dogsh-t father, which we’ve already covered extensively. All of this is a story about sadism. It’s a story about an institution (the monarchy) and a national press working together to punish, to harm, to inflict pain on one family, the Sussexes. The thing is, the only power they actually have at this point is “taking away” the last vestiges of Harry’s royal position. Four years after Harry left, I hope he’s made his peace with all of that. Which brings me to Richard Eden’s latest column in the Mail, where he argues – for the millionth time – that more things must be taken away from Harry.

Queen Elizabeth was a wise woman. And when she needed to take decisive action, she did. That is why she decided the Duke and Duchess of Sussex could not be allowed to combine royal duties with seeking their fortune overseas. And why she ignored Prince Harry’s efforts to persuade her otherwise.

In his best-selling memoir, Spare, Harry tries to convince readers that his grandmother was bamboozled into taking a tough line against him and Meghan by scheming courtiers. In my opinion, however, Her Late Majesty knew exactly what she was doing and why.

Now, King Charles needs to take a leaf out of his mother’s book – and be decisive when it comes to his younger son and his role as a Counsellor of State. As things stand, California-based Prince Harry could still be called on to stand in for his father in some circumstances because he remains a Counsellor of State – which is surely now intolerable.

In today’s Daily Mail, in my social diary Eden Confidential, I reveal that Harry has updated his records in this country to make it crystal clear that he no longer lives in Britain. Filings published by Companies House for ‘Prince Henry Charles Albert David Duke of Sussex’ record that his ‘New Country/State Usually Resident’ is now the United States of America. It was previously recorded as the United Kingdom. It represents a sharp about-turn for Harry, who declared soon after announcing his decision to quit royal duties in 2020: ‘The UK is my home and a place that I love. That will never change.’

…If America really is his home, how can he remain as a Counsellor of State, one of seven members of the Royal Family who can deputise for the Monarch if he is abroad or unwell? By law, Counsellors of State are required to have a UK domicile, but Harry has no home here after King Charles asked the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to vacate Frogmore Cottage, a gift from the late Queen.

The situation has since become even more urgent because of the King’s cancer treatment. Now, the King needs to take decisive action and remove Harry as a Counsellor of State. How on earth can someone who has officially left Britain be allowed to stand in for our country’s head of state? Even the prospect of such an intolerable situation is putting the Monarchy in danger.

[From The Daily Mail]

While Eden is a piece of sh-t nutjob, I actually think he’s right in a narrow sense – Harry should be removed as Counsellor of State. He should have been removed years ago. The sad, pathetic reason why he wasn’t removed is because Charles probably believed that he could successfully ruin Harry’s life to the point where Harry would come crawling back, divorced and broke, and assume his “constitutional position” as counsellor. I think Charles was also reticent to remove Harry because Charles was already running out of things to “take away” from Harry in this sadistic circus. He took away Harry’s security, his home, his royal styling, and *someone* has definitely authorized this high-level right-wing attempt to have Harry deported from America. Counsellor of State is one of the only things left. And who cares at this point? Harry would never actually be called back to do anything in case of emergency, and even if he was “called back,” would he even go? Let’s just put this whole twisted exercise to bed.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Buckingham Palace, Cover Images.