Royal commentator/author Sally Bedell Smith has been making a lot of public statements these days about the Duchess of Sussex and the Princess of Wales. A few weeks ago, Smith went Full Deranger and claimed that Meghan and Wallis Simpson “have similar qualities: very narcissistic, very controlling, very dominating,” and that Prince Harry has the same weaknesses and need for domination as the Duke of Windsor. Bedell Smith was also quoted extensively by Maureen Dowd in a recent NYT column. Dowd asked her if the Sussexes might return to the UK to help out while Kate is receiving chemotherapy and Smith sniped: “Kate doesn’t need Harry and Meghan to console her. She has her parents and a sister, and she’s very close to King Charles.” So, you get the idea. As always, Kate = perfect, Meghan = the devil. Well, Bedell Smith also had some thoughts about Kate’s cancer-announcement video:

Kate Middleton overcame her “inherently shy” nature to deliver some difficult news. In a video released on March 22, the Princess of Wales told the world that she was undergoing treatment for cancer discovered in post-operative tests following her January abdominal surgery. Royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith tells PEOPLE that Princess Kate, 42, was “sincere, dignified, poised, and she was forthright” in her delivery, but the announcement likely wasn’t easy.

“She is inherently shy, and for her to do that took a lot,” Bedell Smith adds. While the health update was extremely personal, Princess Kate acknowledged the many others who are also facing cancer, echoing something the late Queen Elizabeth may have done.

“When she ended with ‘You are not alone,’ it rang a bell with something that Queen Elizabeth would have said,” Bedell Smith explains. “It was very similar to what Queen Elizabeth said during COVID when she said, ‘We are all in this together.’ She was mindful there are very few people who read about that or watched that who doesn’t know someone who has cancer. She was mindful of that,” the journalist and biographer continues. “It was a way of reassuring people not only about her condition but helping them have courage.”

“There was not a trace of self-pity. She projected honesty,” Bedell Smith says. “It was the right balance.”

[From People]

I’ve never believed that Kate is “inherently shy” – she’s too much of an exhibitionist to be “shy.” But I do think Kate is awkward, and an especially awkward public speaker, which is why her video surprised so many people – there were no placeholder “ums” and none of her regular hair-flips or fidgeting. Beyond that, People Magazine once again repeats the claim that Kate wrote her speech all on her own… which I still don’t believe, and I find it to be an incredibly suspicious lie, like “of course Prince William took the Mother’s Day photo.” They keep showing us that they lie constantly about the smaller stuff, which makes you think about the bigger stuff.

Photos courtesy of Kensington Palace, Getty Images.

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As we discussed this week, the Duchess of Sussex visited the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles on March 21. The photos and videos just came out on Tuesday. I saw that the Daily Mail already has a story about how Meghan ordered a delay in the release of the photos because of the Princess of Wales’s cancer-announcement video (which came out on March 22). That might even be true, although we’ve seen before that Meghan and Harry often make undercover or quiet charity visits and the information isn’t released for weeks, sometimes even months.

Predictably, the usual people are mad about Meghan’s hospital visit. They’re mad because it’s a “royal-style” visit, they’re mad that Meghan isn’t hiding away while Kate has disappeared, they’re mad that Meghan exists. The Express is mad because apparently Meghan signed an autograph for a kid, which is yet another (fictional) royal rule. With all of this anger over an American woman visiting sick kids, imagine my surprise that the Telegraph devoted an entire style article to Meghan’s silk Oscar de la Renta dress, and they compared her to Princess Diana?

The late Princess Diana kept a “caring dress” in her wardrobe – a Bellville Sassoon shift in the most uplifting shade of cobalt blue, splattered with bright watercolour carnations. She called it so, according to its designer, David Sassoon, as it was the dress she would reach for when visiting children (particularly those in hospitals around the world) in an attempt to bring some colour and joy to any ward she stepped into.

Fast-forward to March 2024 and the Duchess of Sussex adopted the same style strategy as she joined story time at a children’s hospital in Los Angeles. Her take on the “caring dress” was a £2,776 Oscar de la Renta chiffon style, the hem of which featured a floral landscape with bold stems shooting up towards the waist. If the silk seemed a precious choice for an engagement with children, it didn’t stop Meghan from hugging and posing for photos with patients and staff.

It wasn’t a new addition to her wardrobe; this is a piece that she wears at home with her own children, as we saw in the 2022 Netflix documentary series Harry & Meghan. In those clips, she was barefoot in the family’s Montecito garden, her son Archie’s feet kicking around her waist as she carried him (and arguably adding some authentic mud to the picture).

Diana’s “caring dress” was also a designer number. She rewore hers on several public occasions after it was created for her in 1988: on visits to Lagos in Nigeria, in São Paulo, Brazil, and also while visiting a London Aids hospice. The repetition served to reiterate her point that bright colours and florals appealed to her audience. The press at the time goaded her, apparently telling the Princess to “give the dress a rest”.

For Meghan, some 35 years later, the floral dress feels markedly different to the beige “stealth wealth” outfits we are used to seeing her wear. As she prepares to launch her new lifestyle business, American Riviera Orchard, perhaps we will see a new chapter begin in her fashion playbook; the wholesome floral dress could be linchpin in any “trad wife” look.

[From The Telegraph]

Yeah, the dress is a familiar piece to longtime Meghan-watchers. She also wore it in 2022, when she and Harry brought their children to the UK. There were photos (seen in the Netflix series) of the Sussexes walking outside of Frogmore Cottage, and posing for photos inside the cottage, and Meghan is wearing the dress. I always thought it was a two-piece, blouse and muted silk skirt. Guess not. Anyway, it’s clear that this is just a dress that Meghan likes and one which has been in her closet for several years. I don’t find it particularly trad-wifey either. That being said, I am glad Meghan didn’t wear another f–king beige ensemble! I will buy ten jars of Meghan’s jam if she wears some bright colors this year.

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Photos courtesy of Instagram, Backgrid, Netflix, Getty.

Ingrid Seward is still promoting her latest royal book, My Mother and I. The “my mother” in the title is Queen Elizabeth II and “I” is King Charles. It’s very odd. Even weirder is that, judging solely from Seward’s promotional interviews, the book is more about Charles and his sons, not Charles and his mother. Prince Harry’s Spare really shook up the royalists’ fever-dream books, especially since Harry wrote at length about how much his father means to him. There were so many moments in Spare where Harry’s appreciation and love for Charles just leapt off the page. Charles still apparently refuses to read Spare, and I can only imagine that Seward was authorized to write this pro-Charles drivel and revisionist history. Some highlights from Seward’s interview with Fox News:

Harry & Charles were close: “Prince Harry and King Charles were very, very close. They got on incredibly well. I think Charles probably regrets that he wasn’t strict with Harry and [his older son] William. He went on with [Princess] Diana’s freestyle of bringing up children. Diana allowed them to do, more or less, what they wanted, which was very fashionable in those days. You let children just get on with things. I think Charles probably regrets that he wasn’t a bit stricter, because it might’ve given both boys a few more boundaries.… Children all need boundaries, and I don’t think they had too many.”

On Harry’s escape to California: “I don’t think that the king would worry about Harry living halfway across the world, because it is not that difficult to get from LA to London, as we know. But I think what’s sad for him is that he doesn’t see his grandchildren and that Harry has been such a disruptive force to the whole royal family. That doesn’t stop Charles [from] loving him. But I think he’s very upset by Harry’s behavior and especially upset by Harry’s remarks about his wife, about Camilla … Charles just has to be there with open arms. Otherwise, it’s just going to make things much, much worse. And I’m sure he wishes that William and Harry were on better terms, but there’s nothing he can do about it. It’s between them. But he did say, ‘Please boys, don’t make my last years miserable,’ which is exactly what they have done.”

On Diana’s death: “I think Charles was in shock, in enormous shock, and was probably … trembling himself. So what he did was just sort of patted Harry on the shoulder, which is what you might do when you are in shock. It’s quite hard to suddenly let emotions go and hug someone. . . . You are quite mechanical. So I completely understood why Charles was like that, but obviously Harry held it against him.”

[From Fox News]

“So I completely understood why Charles was like that, but obviously Harry held it against him.” The first fifty pages of Spare are heart-wrenching not because Charles didn’t hug his 12-year-old son when telling him that his mother had died. Spare is heart-wrenching because Harry describes being left alone for hours to process his mother’s death, and describes how no one would just come and sit with him at any point and tell him that it would be okay, or talk about grief or what have you. The profound neglect of this 12-year-old child was the story. Harry had to tell himself that it would be okay and he created a years-long magical-thinking belief system that his mother wasn’t really dead.

As for Charles’s potential regrets… like, one son moved to a different country, and the other son is a 41-year-old man-child who throws violent tantrums. Maybe stricter parenting would have changed some of that, but who even knows. As Harry wrote in Spare, it didn’t seem like Charles had any idea how to be a father. And from what we’ve seen of him for decades, his priority was always Camilla, not his sons.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Avalon Red.

When Party Pieces collapsed last year, I kept thinking about how powerless the Princess of Wales had become rather suddenly. You could argue that there was always a massively lopsided power imbalance between Kate and Prince William, but it was always said that at least Kate has her family, at least she has her momager Carole Middleton and at least the Middletons could “take care” of her if anything when wrong. As it turned out, the Middletons’ business and success was all a lie and the house of cards collapsed. Carole and Michael Middleton are too broke to pay back the over $3 million in debt from Party Pieces, and they’re also too broke to pay their bill from Interpath, the insolvency firm which “restructured” Party Pieces and sold it off for £180,000. Not only are the Middletons completely broke, but they’ve been exposed as liars and frauds and they can barely show their faces at society events. The Middletons have been politically defanged in swift order. So all anyone can do is try to make them sound sympathetic, and not like a family of grifters who lied for years to honey-trap a prince.

Princess Kate Middleton’s mother Carole Middleton is “desperately” trying to shield her from a devastating new blow to the family as she undergoes cancer treatment, Us Weekly can exclusively reveal. Carole, 69, and her husband, Michael Middleton, who are also parents to Pippa and James Middleton, are facing serious debt that they are reportedly unable to pay off.

According to the UK’s The Times newspaper, the pair cannot come up with the “£260,000 (over $329,000) insolvency firm costs” for their embattled business The Party Pieces Company. The firm responsible for handling the insolvency of Carole’s business has acknowledged the couple cannot pay the total fees.

The Party Pieces Company, set up by the Middletons back in 1987, went into administration last June, owing creditors £2.6 million. But as the family deals with their business woes, Us has learned that Carole, who has been by Kate’s side during her cancer battle, is determined to stop her daughter from worrying about their problems.

“Carole is desperately trying to keep Catherine fully focused on her recovery,” a source tells Us. “It’s a very worrying time for the family but they are not looking for any assistance from their children and don’t want them to worry. Catherine and her parents are very close and they always check in with each other, but talk about the business is off limits as she needs to focus on her health.”

Royal commentator Afua Hagan also tells Us, “Carole will be doing all she can right now to stop her daughter from stressing as she undergoes chemotherapy. It’s a stressful time at the moment and she will be pulling out all the stops to shield her daughter from this,” Hagan says. “Party Pieces has collapsed and it’s been devastating for the family, but Carole will be most concerned about Kate’s well-being right now.”

Interpath Advisory was appointed to manage its collapse. According to The Times, it has found itself unable to cover all costs as the rapidly increasing sum surpasses $329,000. It has also meant that Interpath’s team were not able to recoup the total fees for the work by its restructuring professionals, who were charging an “average hourly rate of £566 ($716).” At the time, reports suggested that Carole had been left “upset and deeply disappointed” by the situation.

[From Us Weekly]

“It’s a very worrying time for the family but they are not looking for any assistance from their children…” I don’t believe that. While there’s nothing Kate can do – she’s as penniless as her parents – it’s utterly shocking that Prince William or Terribly Moderately Wealthy James Matthews have not stepped in to at least stop the PR bleed. You’re telling me that Carole would refuse a financial rescue from one of her sons-in-law? Please. That’s a huge part of the story too, the fact that the Middletons are being left to twist in the wind. The Windsors aren’t stepping in, and neither is the wealthy Matthews family. So, is this Carole’s new tack? “Please, don’t help us, we’re just so focused on poor Kate, she’s the bigger priority, not our financial situation!”

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Justin Bieber turned 30 years old on March 1. It’s a big birthday and a lot of people take stock of where they are in their lives and where they’re going. What they have done and what they want to do next. It would not surprise me at all if Justin was taking stock and trying to make his 30s less chaotic than his teens and 20s. Justin married Hailey in 2018 and I’ve been surprised by how stable they are and how little time he gives to naysayers. Now, Hailey gives time to naysayers. She’s always reacting to this or that on social media, although to be fair, she’s the one being targeted more often than not by Justin’s fans or Selena Gomez’s fans. I guess there was another round of divorce rumors and instead of making a TikTok about it, Hailey seemingly went to People Magazine to deny that her marriage is on the rocks.

Justin Bieber and Hailey Baldwin Bieber are paying no mind to naysayers questioning the status of their relationship. The couple, who tied the knot in 2018, are “doing really well,” a source tells PEOPLE.

“There’s no divorce and no truth to that whatsoever,” the insider says. “They are very, very happy.”

The update comes amid a flurry of rumors surrounding Justin, 30, and Hailey, 27 — rumors that the Rhode Skin founder squashed in March with a blunt post to her Instagram Story.

“Just FYI the stories and constant ‘blind items’ I see on TikTok are 100% of the time wrong Made out of thin air… Come from the land of delusion…” wrote Hailey. “So I know it may be fun feeding into these stories but just know they’re always false xx sorry to spoil it.”

While it remains unclear as to which stories Hailey was referring, the rumor mill was sent churning nearly a week earlier when her father Stephen Baldwin publicly shared a post from Victor Marx, the founder of All Things Possible Ministries, that asked for a prayer request for the couple.

Justin and Hailey have long been bonded by their faith, and on Sunday, March 31, celebrated Easter together with two large chocolate eggs that featured their names written on them in white icing, according to Hailey’s Instagram Stories.

[From People]

Stephen Baldwin did ask for prayers for the couple back in February, and no one knows what the hell that was about. From the way Hailey talks about her parents, I doubt she’s confiding much in her father (she would confide in her mother though). Anyway, after all the drama, I kind of like Hailey and Justin and I hope they make it and I hope the rumors aren’t true.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

Get in bitches, we’re doing another paranormal story! As you may remember, I love all of that kind of stuff: ghosts, premonitions, spirits, intuition, aliens, synchronicities, etc. It’s been a hot minute since we’ve talked about this particular topic, but today’s edition of Rosie’s Paranormal Posts involves dreams! More specifically, we have Matt Damon’s dream from the afterlife. Matt’s father, Kent, died a little over five years ago, in December 2017. Earlier this week, Matt was on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and shared a story about a “crazy dream” he had after his dad passed away. The dream was so powerful that it helped him connect with one of the “very first things” he felt when he entered this world.

“After my father passed away in 2017, within that year, I had this crazy dream,” said Damon after being asked about his earliest memory. “He came to me in a dream, and he embraced me. And the feeling that I got was the feeling that I had — which I think is like my first memory — which was the feeling of what it felt like to be held by him.”

Damon said the feeling gave him a sense of “overwhelming protection and love.”

“All I knew was that he was there and that I was feeling that embrace,” continued Matt. “And it reminded me that I must have felt that as one of the very first things that I was aware of as my consciousness came online.”

On the first anniversary of his father’s death, Damon hosted Saturday Night Live and opened up about how it was a special show for him and Kent.

“Week after week, I tried to stay up, and it wasn’t until I was 8 years old that I made it all the way to the end,” recalled Damon. “I probably didn’t get all the jokes, but I laughed at everything that my dad laughed at. And although it was way past our bedtime, my dad knew there was nothing more important in the world than to laugh with the people that you love.”

[From People]

Wow, that’s a pretty powerful experience. It’s so hard after a loved one dies, so to have a dream like that, whether it was really from his father or not, must have been a tremendous comfort. I also have a personal story about a dream from the afterlife. Actually, this story happened to my mom and grandma. About a year or so after my grandfather died, my mom had a dream that he was back at my grandparents’ house, walking around and talking to her. She knew while dreaming that he’d passed away IRL, so she asked him what he was doing there. He replied, “I’m just here for a visit to check on things.” When my mom spoke to my grandma the next day, the very first thing Grandma said to her was, “Your father was here ‘for a visit’ last night. I heard him walking around. He kept me awake.” She said this before my mom even had a chance to tell her about the dream. So yeah, I believe that Matt’s experience was real. It’s nice that he got to have that bit of comfort and closure.

photos credit: PacificCoastNews / Avalon, Best Image/Backgrid, IMAGO/Jennifer Bloc / Avalon

What’s your vibe on Rebel Wilson’s memoir and book promotion? Before this story, the only thing I’ve paid attention to was her big claim that Sacha Baron Cohen is a giant a–hole. Breaking news! While I believe that story, my vibe is that Rebel’s memoir is trying to be a scandalous story where she name-drops various celebrities and acts like everyone treated her poorly? Maybe that’s the truth, but given what we’ve seen of her previous storytelling abilities, Rebel’s attempts at sounding self-deprecating never really land the way she intended. I think that’s what’s happening here. Apparently, Rebel believes Adele hates her.

Rumor has it that Adele didn’t like being compared to Rebel Wilson.

“Some actresses would get offended if I called them plus-size in this book, so I have to be careful with what I say. This is why, I think, Adele hates me,” Wilson, 44, writes in her upcoming memoir, “Rebel Rising,” according to an excerpt obtained by InTouch Weekly.

“There was a moment when she was bigger, and some people would confuse us for one another … I am assuming, because to be fair I’ve never asked her,” Wilson continued. According to the “Bridesmaids” alum, the few times that she and the “Rolling in the Deep” songstress, 35, crossed paths, Adele “always quickly” turned away whenever she saw Wilson heading in her direction.

“As if my fatness might rub off on her if I were near her for more than thirty seconds. That she didn’t like being compared to ‘Fat Amy,’” Wilson penned, referring to her “Pitch Perfect” character. Both entertainers have lost significant weight in recent years.

[From Yahoo]

Does… any of this sound like Adele? I’m really asking. I would never think that Adele and Rebel look anything alike and I’ve never heard anyone compare the two women. This beef sounds like a figment of Rebel’s imagination. I mean, given what Rebel is saying here, if Adele does hate Rebel, she would be completely justified.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

I think we all know that drinking too much causes a lot of health problems, whether it’s physical, mental, or emotional. Now, there’s new evidence which concludes that drinking too much can also cause heart damage in women. A new study from Kaiser Permanente Northern California has found that women who drink more than eight alcoholic drinks per week are at a higher risk for heart disease. The study included more than 430,000 adults and the purpose was to research the effects of alcohol intake on coronary heart disease. Binge drinking (more than three drinks per day) raises the chance of heart disease from 51% to 68%. The study was conducted using data originally collected in 2014 and 2015, in which patients were asked about their alcohol intake. It then followed the subject for four years, finding that binge drinking was the worst culprit.

Coronary heart disease, a definition: According to the Mayo Clinic, coronary heart disease is a common heart condition that occurs when a person’s coronary arteries become filled with cholesterol deposits and plaque. Blood, oxygen and nutrients then can’t flow as freely to the heart, and this reduced blood flow can lead to shortness of breath, chest pain and, in cases of a complete blockage, a heart attack.

Millennial women are drinking more: “There has been an increasing prevalence of alcohol use among young and middle-aged women as women may feel they’re protected against heart disease until they’re older, but this study shows that even in that age group, women who drink more than the recommended amount of one drink per day or tend to binge drink, are at risk for coronary heart disease,” the study’s author and cardiologist Jamal Rana wrote to the Post in an email.

Heart disease is the primary killer of women right now: According to the CDC, heart disease is the No. 1 cause of death for women in the United States, and coronary artery disease takes the top spot within the heart disease category. The organization already recommends that women limit their alcohol intake to one drink per day to reduce the risk of heart disease.

Ways to reduce the risk for heart disease: The CDC also recommends several other ways for women to reduce their risk for heart disease, including getting tested for diabetes, quitting smoking, getting routine blood pressure checks, managing stress, eating healthy and getting 150 minutes of exercise per week.

Contrary to popular belief… “There has long been this idea that alcohol is good for the heart,” Rana added to the Post, “but more and more evidence is challenging that notion.”

[From People]

Honestly, I think these results are quite jarring but not surprising. I (anecdotally) think a large part of why young/middle age women are allegedly drinking more definitely has something to do with America’s “wine mom” culture. It’s basically a carte blanche for women to get their drink on in a destigmatized way, which is a slippery slope for a lot of people. People keep saying that Gen Z drinks less, and they’re clearly onto something. Two new alcohol-free bars just opened up in my area too, which tells me that there must be a market for them. If you are struggling with alcohol or any other type of addiction, please know that you aren’t alone. So many people are struggling with alcohol abuse. Over the years, CB has given a lot of really great resources, including a website called Smart Recovery. If you are worried about heart disease caused by drinking, talk to your doctor about getting a CT scan or similar test to get your cardiac CT calcium score to determine if and how much damage there is.

Photos credit Elevate, Justin Aikin and Alex Voulgaris on Unsplash

Kylie Jenner is not pregnant with Timothee Chalamet’s baby. [Hollywood Life]
Taylor Swift made it onto Forbes’s billionaire list, but I have a question: hasn’t Taylor been a billionaire for a few years now? [LaineyGossip]
Michelle Obama is full of praise for Beyonce & Cowboy Carter. [Just Jared]
Jennifer Lopez rebrands her This Is Me… Now tour after sluggish sales. [Socialite Life]
I’m dying at Cillian Murphy modeling for a Versace campaign. [RCFA]
Krispy Kreme has a special celebration in store for the eclipse. [Seriously OMG]
The people suing Lizzo don’t buy her “I quit” story. [Pajiba]
I loved Elizabeth Taylor’s casual style. [Go Fug Yourself]
Shawn Mendes is shirtless & back in the studio. [OMG Blog]
I’m so happy that Josh Duggar is still in prison. [Starcasm]
Why would anyone bring a 10-month-old baby to a rave?? LOL. [Buzzfeed]

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Since the Princess of Wales’s cancer announcement video on March 22, there’s been some commentary about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, especially regarding Meghan’s American Riviera Orchard. The commentary is basically: Meghan needs to pause her ARO rollout because Kate is sick, and the Sussexes need to be more undercover, lest they come across as uncaring to King Charles and Kate’s cancer battles. Separate Charles and Kate for a moment, because I think Harry showed the world that he still cares a great deal about his father when he made a point of visiting Charles soon after his announcement. Let’s just focus on Kate then – Kensington Palace briefed extensively that the Sussexes did not get a heads up on Kate’s announcement and, as always, that Prince William despises the Sussexes. The Sussexes, in turn, released a simple statement of support for Kate and then just continued to mind their business. Well, Tessa Dunlop has some thoughts about that.

Prince Harry might be looking at his Spare memoir differently amid Princess Kate Middleton‘s cancer battle.

“When you do discover that your sister-in-law has cancer and you’ve written stuff that can’t be retracted, that’s quite a painful place to be in,” royal expert Tessa Dunlop exclusively told Us Weekly while promoting her book Elizabeth & Philip: A Story of Young Love, Marriage and Monarchy. “I’m not saying it isn’t.”

Dunlop pointed out Harry, 39, and wife Meghan Markle‘s past criticism about the royal family.

“They deliberately criticize the monarchy [and then offer] themselves as an alternative to monarchy. So then when the monarchy is in trouble, we do kind of make a comparison. Can Harry and Meghan really hold themselves off as the caring example now?” she asked. “They’re certainly going to have to be careful of their timing with any releases so that it doesn’t look opportunistic.”

According to Dunlop, Harry and Meghan, 42, will have to tread lightly about what they put out in the public eye, adding, “The big C — it’s kind of untouchable. When that comes creeping in the door, that just reframes everything.”

[From Us Weekly]

My hope is that Harry has had enough therapy to understand that there’s lot of water under the bridge and he told his story and that’s that. Someone might even point out that Harry could have included even more true stories about what William and Kate did to him and to Meghan, but he removed those sections. As for Harry and Meghan needing to tread lightly… I have no idea what Meghan’s ARO rollout timeline was supposed to be, but it actually does look like the launch has probably been delayed a bit, perhaps out of respect for her cancer-stricken in-laws who treated her like sh-t and had “concerns” about how dark her children’s skin would be.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Backgrid.