It’s been two weeks since the first presidential debate, where President Biden looked and sounded old and out of sorts. I absolutely believe he had a bad night. Donald Trump had a bad night too, but that was overshadowed by the past two weeks of hysterical meltdowns by the media and by some (but not all) Democrats and political commentators. From a strategic perspective, President Biden’s reelection campaign should have held emergency meetings, sent out talking points and made sure that high profile surrogates were all visible and acting in lockstep. I think the Biden campaign did some of that, but it wasn’t enough to stop what has become a two-week tornado of bullsh-t.

What has really bothered me throughout this ordeal is that it all boils down to two fundamental things: “we’re worried that Biden is too old/he might die” and “we don’t want Kamala Harris to be president.” Those two “concerns” are connected, because from where I sit, concerns about Biden’s age are already baked into his support. People are voting for the Biden/Harris ticket knowing that President Biden is old as hell, but that Kamala Harris is younger and capable if she needs to take over. In all of these conversations about “Joe Biden must step aside because he’s old,” why are all of these people acting like Vice President Harris doesn’t exist, or that everyone agrees she should be passed over, or that what they’re suggesting isn’t some logistical nightmare which would see Donald Trump crowning himself emperor of the Confederacy of Trumplandia? I bring this up because George Clooney has some thoughts, and he wrote down those thoughts in a NYT op-ed:

I’m a lifelong Democrat; I make no apologies for that. I’m proud of what my party represents and what it stands for. As part of my participation in the democratic process and in support of my chosen candidate, I have led some of the biggest fund-raisers in my party’s history…. Last month I co-hosted the single largest fund-raiser supporting any Democratic candidate ever, for President Biden’s re-election. I say all of this only to express how much I believe in this process and how profound I think this moment is.

I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him. Believe in his character. Believe in his morals. In the last four years, he’s won many of the battles he’s faced. But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can. It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe “big F-ing deal” Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.

Was he tired? Yes. A cold? Maybe. But our party leaders need to stop telling us that 51 million people didn’t see what we just saw. We’re all so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that we’ve opted to ignore every warning sign. The George Stephanopoulos interview only reinforced what we saw the week before. As Democrats, we collectively hold our breath or turn down the volume whenever we see the president, whom we respect, walk off Air Force One or walk back to a mic to answer an unscripted question.

Is it fair to point these things out? It has to be. This is about age. Nothing more. But also nothing that can be reversed. We are not going to win in November with this president. On top of that, we won’t win the House, and we’re going to lose the Senate. This isn’t only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and Congress member and governor who I’ve spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly.

…It is disingenuous, at best, to argue that Democrats have already spoken with their vote and therefore the nomination is settled and done, when we just received new and upsetting information. We all think Republicans should abandon their nominee now that he’s been convicted of 34 felonies. That’s new and upsetting information as well. Top Democrats — Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Nancy Pelosi — and senators, representatives and other candidates who face losing in November need to ask this president to voluntarily step aside.

All of the scary stories that we’re being told about what would happen next are simply not true. In all likelihood, the money in the Biden-Harris coffers could go to help elect the presidential ticket and other Democrats. The new nominee wouldn’t be left off ballots in Ohio. We Democrats have a very exciting bench. We don’t anoint leaders or fall sway to a cult of personality; we vote for a president. We can easily foresee a group of several strong Democrats stepping forward to stand and tell us why they’re best qualified to lead this country and take on some of the deeply concerning trends we’re seeing from the revenge tour that Donald Trump calls a presidential campaign.

Let’s hear from Wes Moore and Kamala Harris and Gretchen Whitmer and Gavin Newsom and Andy Beshear and J.B. Pritzker and others. Let’s agree that the candidates not attack one another but, in the short time we have, focus on what will make this country soar. Then we could go into the Democratic convention next month and figure it out.

Would it be messy? Yes. Democracy is messy. But would it enliven our party and wake up voters who, long before the June debate, had already checked out? It sure would. The short ramp to Election Day would be a benefit for us, not a danger. It would give us the chance to showcase the future without so much opposition research and negative campaigning that comes with these ridiculously long and expensive election seasons. This can be an exciting time for democracy, as we’ve just seen with the 200 or so French candidates who stepped aside and put their personal ambitions on hold to save their democracy from the far right.

Joe Biden is a hero; he saved democracy in 2020. We need him to do it again in 2024.

[From The NY Times]

George Clooney can f–k all the way off. Refer to Vice President Harris by her title, George. She earned it. 81.2 million Americans voted for the Biden/Harris ticket in 2020, and millions of Democrats have already cast their ballots in the 2024 primaries. President Joe Biden is the Democratic nominee and the sitting president and this coordinated Democratic bedwetting is unseemly. Especially since Trump has basically been sitting in his soiled diaper in Mar-a-Lago since the debate as every Republican supplicates themselves to their orange fascist god. Be for real.

The Biden camp clapped back:

Biden is fighting back on Clooney.

From a source familiar with event planning: “The President stayed for over 3 hours, while Clooney took a photo quickly and left.”

— Annie Karni (@anniekarni) July 10, 2024

I thought this was a good summary:

Let me be real clear: this same,
High-level coordination to push Biden out will then target Kamala Harris. What the Dems are doing now is dumb. They are spending more time on internal drama as opposed to focusing on Donald Trump. This is political malpractice.

— rolandsmartin (@rolandsmartin) July 10, 2024

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

I was late to the Severance fandom but I have to know what happened to those characters after Season 1’s big cliffhanger. Well, we’re not going to find out until January! AppleTV gave us a teaser trailer and a premiere date. [Just Jared]
Eric Roberts’ daughter & sister don’t want anything to do with him. [OMG Blog]
Is Carrie Bradshaw getting a cat? (I’m still not watching.) [Socialite Life]
Shaboozey is getting so much love from Virginia radio stations because he’s from Virginia! He’s also reached #1 on the Billboard country charts. [LaineyGossip]
Review/criticism of The Perfect Wife (true crime docuseries). [Pajiba]
Jodie Turner Smith’s Wimbledon ensemble is fun. [Go Fug Yourself]
Maika Monroe’s very bad premiere look. [RCFA]
Seann William Scott, before he was famous. [Seriously OMG]
A Love After Lockup person was arrested for murder. [Starcasm]
Anne Hathaway & Jessica Chastain are having another mother-off. [Hollywood Life]
When public proposals go wrong. [Buzzfeed]

The ESPYs are still scheduled for Thursday evening. I’m expecting both Prince Harry and Meghan to turn up at the event. I also expect Prince Harry’s acceptance speech for the Pat Tillman Award for Service to be well-received in the room and well-received overall. That’s what the Derangers expect too, which is why they’ve been throwing a huge tantrum about it for two weeks. It reminds me a bit of when everyone knew the release date for Prince Harry’s memoir and so the same deranged individuals all tried to get their hits in before Spare so they could create wall-to-wall negativity. They ended up giving the book millions in free publicity. So it is with the ESPYs – I guarantee that there were will be added interest and added international attention to the ESPYs because of Harry.

As for people getting their hits in… they come across as especially desperate. There’s that Lee Cohen guy who gets paid to write unhinged columns in the British media, all about how much he hates the Sussexes and the Obamas. Well, he’s got some thoughts on the Pat Tillman Award too, but I’m not going to excerpt anything from it. There was this piece in the Guardian which irritated me, written by Arwa Mahdawi: “Harry is the divisive duke – and Meghan is making jam. Can the Sussexes escape their ‘flop era’?” Some lowlights:

When life gives you lemons, make luxury lemon marmalade and sell it to your celebrity friends. That’s what Meghan Markle seems to be doing anyway. Ever since their break with the royal family, the Sussexes have been struggling to find their feet – so much so that last year, Rolling Stone declared they were in their “flop era”. Still, despite setbacks, the pair are steadfastly trying to build their brands. Meghan, in particular, has been busy with her new lifestyle company, American Riviera Orchard. The brand hasn’t launched yet, but she’s been teasing its offerings by sending influencers gift baskets with fruit preserves in them.

While Meghan has had her hands full with homemade jam, her husband seems to have found himself in something of a sticky situation. The Duke of Sussex is now facing a backlash after being nominated for the Pat Tillman award for service at the 2024 ESPYs, a sports-themed awards show hosted by the cable network ESPN. The award is named after a former American football player who turned down a $3.6m contract in order to join the US army after 9/11 and was then killed by friendly fire. It’s given to “a person with a strong connection to sports who has served others in a way that echoes the legacy of [Tillman]”. Last year the award went to the training staff of the NFL team the Buffalo Bills, after they saved the life of Damar Hamlin, a player who suffered a cardiac episode on the field. This year it is due to go to Prince Harry for his work on the Invictus Games, a sports competition for wounded soldiers he is credited for founding in 2014.

Mary Tillman’s criticism of the “divisive” duke has set off a flurry of bad press on both sides of the Atlantic. Lord West, a former bigwig in the Royal Navy, has said that it is bad publicity for the duke and he should turn down the award. Pat McAfee, an American sports pundit, complained on his radio show that ESPN was “obviously trying to piss people off” by selecting Prince Harry.

Harry has no end of haters in the UK; almost anything he does is bound to be criticised by sections of the British press. But the fact his award nomination is getting so much backlash from Americans speaks volumes about how badly his brand is faring in his new home. The novelty of the newlyfleds, it seems, has worn off; America is growing tired of the Sussexes. And while Harry and Meghan are used to bad press by now, sources told the Telegraph that the fact this bout of criticism relates to Harry’s military record, of which he is very proud, is “a particularly bitter pill to swallow”. Still, rumour has it Meghan might be releasing a rosé wine soon. Perhaps Harry can wash it down with that.

[From The Guardian]

The British press has been trying to make “America is growing tired of the Sussexes” happen since 2020. It’s a line British commentators feed to their domestic audience, because they’re too lazy to explain the nuances of American culture to their readers – the overwhelming majority of Americans view the Sussexes as just another celebrity family living privately and doing their own thing. The Sussexes do not live or die on their public support here in America, so stop spending money on dumb polling of “what do Americans think of the Sussexes?” ESPN is also telling Britain pretty clearly what THEY think of Prince Harry. And that really upsets this forced narrative of a “flop era.” Speaking of flop eras, where’s Kate?

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

It really was the royal-gossip Wild West in the first six months of the year. A missing princess, an unsteady and drunk heir, the death of Thomas Kingston, and the renewed interest in Rose Hanbury. The rumors of a much-alleged affair between Rose and Prince William have circulated for years. We picked up on the story in March 2019, which is when the “rural rival” gossip began in the British tabloids. That was the story about the then-Duchess of Cambridge “phasing out” Rose because of some kind of falling out. There were enough breadcrumbs left out by the tabloids to lead us straight to an unfaithful egg. In the years that followed, the Rose rumors have been more of a persistent hum and an open secret. Then everything exploded this year for obvious reasons. Certainly, when Stephen Colbert name-checked Rose and the affair, it suddenly felt like everything went super-mainstream.

What happened after the Colbert segment was even weirder – Rose’s lawyers threatened to sue CBS and they were sending out formal denials of the affair. Even weirder was the fact that suddenly Rose was much more visible, showing up at the Badminton Horse Trials and chatting with Queen Camilla, then attending the OBE service with her husband. It felt… pointed. Well, adding to the years of shenanigans is the fact that so many of the shenanigans have been deleted from the digital record. Ellie Hall at Vulture did a HUGE breakdown of the years-long affair rumors and everything else, and Hall points out which rumors have been subsequently removed, mostly from the Mail, Express and the Sun. There are so many links to our coverage over the years too – we’ve got a lot of the good Rose Hanbury stuff archived here. You can read the full Vulture piece here.

Since 2019, rumors have circulated on gossip blogs and royal social-media spaces of a supposed affair between the Marchioness of Cholmondeley and Prince William despite lawyers for both parties strongly denying that there’s any truth to them…

As far as royal scandals go, the Rose-William story barely registers on a list that includes the far more sordid (and substantiated) stories of the previous generation of Windsors, such as Squidgygate, the now-King Charles’s infamous tampon comments, and the whole Fergie toe-sucking thing. But if you start to dig a little more into the history of these recent royal-affair rumors — if you go looking for information about the Marchioness of Cholmondeley’s connections to the House of Windsor — you quickly encounter a problem. Years of U.K. media coverage about Rose have now vanished. And, to be clear, we’re not talking about just allegations of “aristocratic extramarital romance” but also allusions to an apparent tension between friends Rose and Catherine. Foundational stories about Rose and the future king and queen now lead to unavailable pages or redirect to the host website’s homepage.

Other stories remain online but were updated post-publication to remove details about the “feud” or other unspecified “rumors” about Rose, William, and Catherine, as seen via the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine or archive.today. Vulture is unable to share links to the deleted stories for legal reasons. However, the mysterious individuals in charge of removing stories didn’t do a great job cleaning up after themselves. Broken links to these vanished stories still exist in each publication’s royal coverage from this timeframe and, in many cases, on these outlets’ official social-media accounts.

In total, this investigation found 21 deleted stories and six stories that were edited post-publication to remove information, published from 2019 to 2024. All of the media outlets in question are based in the U.K.: Tatler, the Daily Mail/MailOnline/Mail on Sunday, the Evening Standard, the Mirror, the Sun, the Daily Express, the Guardian. Vulture sent several requests for comments to these outlets over a period of three months; the Guardian was the only news company to respond.

So where did they go? The gossipmongers’ assumption has always been that the Palace is pulling strings behind the scenes, leaning on media outlets to suppress news of or speculation about the alleged affair in order to protect the future king. (There have even been — wholly unsubstantiated, for the record — rumors on social media about a “media blackout” or “super injunction” on stories about William and Rose.) According to a Daily Beast story from April 2019, royal lawyers sent strongly worded letters to at least one media outlet warning them off reporting on the affair rumors, not just because they were “false and highly damaging,” but because they apparently violated Article 8 of the European Convention to Human Rights, they claimed.

But there have been no reports of the Palace asking media organizations to remove stories or parts of stories, and certainly no statements from the U.K. media outlets in question — or notices to readers — explaining why they’ve chosen to delete paragraphs and even entire posts. Legal representatives for both the royal family and the Marchioness of Cholmondeley strongly denied all rumors of an alleged affair between William and Rose but declined to provide any specific on-the-record statements about the deletion of or removal of information from the stories referenced above.

[From Vulture]

Vulture does one of the most substantial breakdowns I’ve ever seen of the chronology of the rumors and which articles have been since deleted or edited. We’ve covered that extensively over the years too, and Ellie Hall cites our stories throughout. One of the funniest censorship attempts was with Tatler’s Kate the Great cover story in 2020. Kensington Palace absolutely threw a sh-tfit and threatened to sue Tatler and KP made Tatler remove almost all of the story… months after the fact, months after the damage had been done. I absolutely feel like that’s why so many of the Rose stories have been edited, changed or removed too – Rose is not the one trying to censor the rumors. It’s almost always Kensington Palace. I’m including those infamous James Palmer tweets. When the editor of Foreign Policy is stating something as obvious…

Embed from Getty Images

Photos courtesy of Getty, Avalon Red, Cover Images.

I’m kind of enjoying how the British press has turned this story into a huge crisis. The Princess of Wales is the “royal patron” of Wimbledon and for several years now, she’s handed out the trophies and runners-up plates to the singles finalists. When Kate became royal patron, she honestly stopped attending matches as regularly as she once did. In recent years, she will maybe show up for one Centre Court session during the fortnight before coming to the finals. Well, Kate has not turned out for Wimbledon yet – today is the second day of quarterfinals, and the semifinal matches will be on Thursday and Friday. It feels like everyone was fine with Kate missing the bulk of the tournament, but “who will present the trophies if Kate doesn’t show up” has become a five-alarm fire in the British tabloids. Nevermind that Wimbledon’s tournament director has already indicated that they’ll probably ask the Duchess of Gloucester to do it. But now we’re being inundated with Kate-as-tradwife content:

Princess Kate has stepped back from royal duties in January and is focusing on her health following her cancer diagnosis. But with Wimbledon in full swing, royal fans have been wondering if she will make an appearance at the championship.

Former royal butler Paul Burrell shared how Kate “knows the world will want to see her”, but “fiercely protective” Prince William “will decide whether she’s fit enough” to attend Wimbledon. Paul told Closer that it is “highly likely” that Kate, who is patron of the All England Lawn Tennis Club, will attend Wimbledon as she is a “huge tennis fan.”

However, he claims the decision will ultimately be down to Prince William. Paul explained: “William controls this household and William will decide whether she’s well enough to do this because he’s the one that protects the family – fiercely. There’s no way he’s going to subject Kate to intrusion that she can’t handle. He’s so fiercely protective.”

He added that this “absolutely” stems from losing his mother when he was 15 years old.

Paul continued: “With William by her side, Kate’s safe because he will take care of her and would never let anyone harm her. I think she trusts William implicitly and he has the final say.”

[From The Sun]

There’s been a streak of this “William is controlling” narrative throughout the year. We heard that William “won’t allow” Prince Harry “anywhere near” Kate too, and there’s been consistent reporting that William is blocking access to Kate and that few people in the Waleses’ orbit have even spoken to her this year. Now, does William actually order Kate around and would he order her to skip Wimbledon? I don’t know. But it’s a weird story.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

Do you guys follow Derek Guy, the men’s fashion guy? He’s occasionally covered royal fashion – he’s a big fan of King Felipe’s style, and not a fan of Prince William’s style. I feel like Derek Guy should really dissect what’s wrong with William’s style these days, especially now that Huevo has a valet taking care of his clothes and putting together outfits for him. The valet has actually made things worse, right? It feels like William is stuck between two worlds – the bottom half is faux-trendy skinny-cut trousers and suede booties, while the top half is “Midwest banker in the 1980s.” The lack of structure, the rumpled sportscoats, the ugly striped ties, the moose knuckle… the valet needs to throw most of this sh-t into a cleansing fire and start anew.

Anyway, these are photos from Tuesday, where William did a rare public appearance not involving football. In fact, I’m sure he was told that he couldn’t *just* fly to football matches for weeks and nothing else. So he stopped by the Royal Air Force station in Wales, a familiar place because he used to be stationed there back in 2010 through 2013. Being stationed in Anglesey was actually why he proposed to Kate in the first place, I always thought – reportedly, QEII gave him an ultimatum that if he wanted Kate to stay with him in Wales, he had to propose. I think the RAF laid down the law too.

William was actually named the Royal Honorary Air Commodore last year, when all of the military patronages were shifted around by the new king. William got the patronage last August… and this is his first stop by an RAF base since then? I think so. The RAF got William a personalized coffee mug with his title, HRH The Prince of Wales. Back when he worked at the base, his personalized mug read “Big Willy.” Gross. Anyway, I genuinely believe this was some last-minute, thrown-together appearance so he could say that he did other “work” besides attending football matches.

Oh, he got to ride in a firetruck, I sh-t you not. Did he say “vroom vroom” in the big-boy truck?

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

I’ve wondered about this too – do you think Tom Cruise is mad about Brad Pitt’s dumb-looking F1 movie? Tom also avoided the British Grand Prix this weekend, even though he lives in England. Was it because Brad Pitt was filming there? [LaineyGossip]
This election is about abortion, ignore all the other noise. [Jezebel]
This story about Alice Munro & her daughter is awful. [Pajiba]
Divorce lawyers reveal their pettiest-client stories. [Buzzfeed]
Machine Gun Kelly & Megan Fox went to the Blink-182 concert. [JustJared]
Yes, Sean Combs is the subject of a federal criminal investigation. [Socialite Life]
Learn more about Jenn Tran, the new Bachelorette. [Hollywood Life]
Martha Stewart really has lived so many lives. [Seriously OMG]
Serena Williams looked amazing at the Essence dinner. [RCFA]
You can watch the first episode of The Last American Gay Bar. [OMG Blog]

The Sun does a weekly talk show about royals, hosted by their royal correspondent Matt Wilkinson. I’ve covered stuff from the talk show before, just because the Sun generates and runs so many stories off of the crazy sh-t said by “royal experts” on the show. It’s basically mainstreaming Deranger storylines and I feel like we should keep our eye on it, because that sh-t has a way of becoming even more mainstream and problematic. Speaking of, this past weekend, the guest on the show was Hugo Vickers and he said something WILD. As we’ve seen for close to five years now, they are still in shambles and spinning all kinds of projections and fantasies about how Prince Harry will eventually come back to them. Well, here’s their latest:

Prince Harry will return home, an expert has claimed, but without Meghan Markle. Speaking on The Sun’s Royal Exclusive show, historian and biographer Hugo Vickers suggested Prince Harry will return to the Royal Family – but alone and in 10 years time. During an exclusive conversation with The Sun’s Royal Editor, Matt Wilkinson, Hugo was asked where he thinks the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will be in a decade’s time.

Hugo replied: “I think he’ll come home. If he comes home, it will be very nice for him, because he won’t particularly want to, he’s quite angry I think.”

Matt clarified: “Do you think he’ll come home alone?”

The expert confirmed: “Yes I do. The King, as I have mentioned before, has left the door wide open for him to do that. And he was doing such a good job before…he looked so happy. Usually you’re happy when you’re doing your duty, and you’re doing it for other people, and you’re putting things into life. I personally think he’s [Harry] petrified of losing her [Meghan] and looks slightly petrified of her to be honest. That’s kind of a tricky one to say. It’s a horrible syndrome to get into.”

Matt continued: “We were told last year, that he [Harry] was feeling a little homesick. And I do worry, when they were here, they were apparently so full of ideas – waking up at 5am in the morning coming up with all these ideas. I am disappointed they have gone to America, after turning on the Royal Family with all their shows…. I don’t know Harry, but I don’t think that is the life he maybe wanted.”

Hugo said: “What is terribly sad is the late Queen gave them the whole of the Commonwealth to explore. William and Catherine would do the home things and the Commonwealth – to which they were both committed [would be Harry and Meghan’s]…[But] that wasnt enough for them – which is very sad. It could’ve all been so wonderful and it’s turned out not to be.”

Matt jokingly suggested: “I’ve got an idea – if Harry comes home alone in 10 years like you suggest, he could live in Royal Lodge.” But Hugo wasn’t convinced: “Well, yes, I don’t know.”

[From The Sun]

While this is genuinely harmful and awful, it also feels close to an admission that Harry can’t be forced to come back to the UK and that he would never choose to come back to live there any time soon. The rest of it is crap though, including the dog whistles about Harry being “petrified” of Meghan and calling the Sussexes’ marriage a “syndrome.” The fact that these terrible men are basically suggesting that Harry will abandon his wife and children in the next decade… well, they’re saying the quiet part out loud. This has been their plan since 2020, to separate the Sussexes and force Harry to abandon his wife and children. The sh-t about “the late Queen gave them the whole of the Commonwealth to explore” is pretty ridiculous too. William wanted them “sent to Africa” and he didn’t want the Sussexes to move to Canada or Australia, less they overshadow him from abroad.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

When ESPN announced that Prince Harry would receive the Pat Tillman Award for Service, everyone who follows royal gossip knew that walls were being punched over at Kensington Palace. While I have zero evidence of this, I absolutely believe that Prince William is behind some of the contrived “backlash” to the award, especially in the British media. I wondered if we would get anything more directly from Camp Huevo. Well, wouldn’t you know, a “friend of the royal family” ran to the Daily Beast’s Royalist columnist Tom Sykes for yet another bitchfest. This “friend” sounds like the same one who rage-shrieked about how William “f–king hates” Harry and Meghan and that the next time William would speak to Harry, it would be at their father’s funeral.

Friends of the British royals and military sources have described Prince Harry’s decision to accept a “retail” award at a glitzy ceremony as “a clear symbol of his desperate need for attention,” “pathetic,” and “sad.”

One friend of the royal family told The Daily Beast: “I’m afraid it’s just a clear symbol of his desperate need for attention. The irony of the whole of the last four years is that Harry and Meghan said they were leaving the royal family so the media would leave them alone. And now, here Harry is, literally picking up retail awards on live TV. It’s pathetic.”

The harsh comments came after a source in Harry’s camp reportedly said that a backlash to Harry being awarded the Pat Tillman award, spearheaded by the mother of the late NFL star-turned war hero, had left Harry upset. Harry’s office declined to comment to The Daily Beast. However, his camp are understood to have been left gratified by former winners of the award, such as U.S. Marine Jake Wood, praising the presentation of the award to Harry.

A military source who worked with Harry in the army said, “If you get a medal in the army, you don’t brag about it, so the idea of turning up at a televised awards ceremony to be honored would be utterly embarrassing to most military people. It’s really sad to see Harry, who was an amazing guy who everyone respected, doing this kind of stuff.”

Earlier this year Harry, who completed two tours of Afghanistan as an Apache helicopter pilot, was given an award for being a “Living Legend of Aviation” at a glitzy ceremony in Beverly Hills, California. The military source said, “That was arguably worse. If other people want to compare him to Buzz Aldrin that is their business, but Harry shouldn’t be endorsing that kind of crap being said about him by turning up at the ceremonies in his dinner jacket.”

[From The Daily Beast]

“I’m afraid it’s just a clear symbol of his desperate need for attention.” We haven’t seen Harry in more than a month, right? Harry and Meghan regularly disappear for months at a time. I think this tantrum is also about the Invictus service in London two months ago – that was a celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Invictus Games, and it was celebrated by Invictus competitors, the Spencer family, NATO and Britain’s military community and veteran community. The Windsors made a point of snubbing the Invictus service and they threw a tantrum about Harry’s visit, but they never stooped so low as to say that Harry was attention-seeking for attending the service. What’s the difference here? Don’t tell me, I know. The problem for the Windsors is that every award Harry picks up in America shows that Harry was right to leave the UK, and that their completely unhinged hate campaign against him has not worked.

“Picking up retail awards on live TV.” An award honoring the sacrifice and legacy of Pat Tillman is a “retail award” to William and the left-behinds. Meanwhile, King Charles spent decades passing out knighthoods to anyone who gave him a suitcase full of cash. Talk about a retail award.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

I hoped that the long Independence Day weekend would dampen the British tantrum over Prince Harry receiving the Pat Tillman Award for Service at the ESPYs. The ESPYs will happen on Thursday, and no one has confirmed Prince Harry and Meghan’s attendance, but I hope they will both come out. Given Mary Tillman’s exclusive statement to the Daily Mail and the subsequent narrative around the statement, this whole thing absolutely has the energy of a British-media operation. They’re currently trying to argue that Harry should “refuse” the honor. Well, the Telegraph claims to have insider information from the Sussex camp about Harry’s reaction to Mary Tillman and the completely idiotic and forced “backlash” to the award.

Since moving abroad and being forced to give up his various military honours and associations, the Duke of Sussex has instead resorted to collecting American awards. But in doing so, it has become increasingly clear that he is now as divisive a figure in the US as he is in the UK. The backlash last week over the decision to give the Duke an award named after Pat Tillman, the American war hero killed in Afghanistan, is understood to have stunned Prince Harry.

It also presents a pressing problem as he seeks to build a career upon the foundations of his past military endeavours. For while the Duchess of Sussex is busy establishing a commercial empire promoting a domestic idyll, her husband has struggled to find his niche since moving abroad.

He is understood to be keen to focus on his experience in the military and working with veterans, hence the acceptance of a Legends of Aviation Award in January and the Pat Tillman Award at the ESPY ceremony next week. Such glitzy award ceremonies serve to boost the Duke’s public profile at a time when he is otherwise rarely in the public eye. However, when the publicity is largely negative, it points to a deeper reputational issue which it may prove difficult to overcome, as the Duke seeks another project to command his focus as the Invictus Games has done.

The controversy whipped up over the decision to award the Duke the Pat Tillman Award – for his work with Invictus – certainly took the wind out of his sails.

Team Sussex is resigned to criticism, fully aware of the polarising sentiments towards both Harry and Meghan. But when it concerns anything relating to his military record and work with veterans, it is a particularly bitter pill to swallow, one source admitted.

“Harry’s legacy on Invictus, the things he has achieved, that’s his real passion,” they said. “This is the space in which he truly feels at home, it is something he deeply cares about. The reaction certainly took the shine off the award.”

The source acknowledged that it was much the same in January when Harry, who completed two tours of Afghanistan as an Apache helicopter pilot, joined the likes of astronauts Buzz Aldrin and James Lovell to be recognised as a Living Legend of Aviation at a star-studded ceremony in Beverly Hills, California. Defence chiefs lashed out at the decision to recognise the Duke ahead of others such as Tim Peake, the first British astronaut to walk in space. Admiral Lord West, former head of the Royal Navy, did not mince his words, saying: “He is not a living legend.”

[From The Telegraph]

LMAO, they’re still so mad about the Living Legends of Aviation thing. Living Legends of Aviation is not some super-prestigious or exclusive award – it’s given to pilots and people who are involved with aviation in any way, and it was just some minor, cool thing given to Harry. The Pat Tillman Award is a much bigger deal because the ESPYs are a much bigger deal and because people don’t f–k around with Pat Tillman’s legacy. Which is why the people stoking this ridiculous controversy should be ashamed of their very noticeable erasure of Harry’s military service and his decade-long work as the founder of the Invictus Games, two biographical details which were ignored by Mary Tillman, Pat McAfee and the Deranger cult.

“The controversy whipped up over the decision…” So you’re admitting that the British media stoked the controversy, as they do over every single thing related to the Sussexes? Before the Pat Tillman Award, these same people were losing their minds at the Sussexes’ Nigerian tour and they were having panic attacks over JAM. Maybe the British media should worry about their own deeper reputational issues.

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