In the days before the Princess of Wales made her big cancer-announcement (a video which dropped on March 22), one of the biggest stories in the British media was about the investigation into which hospital staffers accessed Kate’s medical records. There was a lot of back-and-forth about who accessed what and when (and where), and reportedly, three staffers were under investigation as of March 20th or thereabouts. What was meant as a sympathetic story for Kate took some weird twists and turns, because I absolutely believe that if someone accessed Kate’s records, they were doing it to sell that information to one of the British tabloids… the same tabloids which were falling all over themselves to lie and scam on Kate’s behalf. Well, Kate’s video changed the narrative on that whole story. Now the Daily Mail reports exclusively that Kate’s cancer-announcement video happened because someone accessed her records. As opposed to a sudden need, after months of deception and dissembling, to come clean.

The Princess of Wales’s video announcement detailing her cancer treatment was rushed out by Kensington Palace aides after her diagnosis had been leaked, the Mail can reveal. Kate Middleton confirmed she had been diagnosed with cancer and is undergoing ‘preventative chemotherapy’ for the disease in a video message on March 22.

However, a well-placed source has revealed the timing of the video nothing to do with the speculation that would have come from her missing church on Easter morning, but instead because someone had knowledge of her health condition.

Kensington Palace had been contacted about Kate’s diagnosis, leaving no option but to hurry to get ahead of the story, the insider told the Daily Mail’s Ephraim Hardcastle column.

It is unclear as to whether the leak came from within The London Clinic, where the Princess underwent abdominal surgery in January, or from elsewhere.

[From The Daily Mail]

It’s really odd/funny that the Mail is reporting this exclusively, given there was a persistent rumor two weeks ago that the Mail was the outlet set to break the “Kate has cancer” story. My guess is that if the Mail did have some or all of the information, they went to Kensington Palace and gave them a heads up/deadline to get ahead of it, or else the Mail would break the story.

That’s not the only weird thing though – “a well-placed source has revealed the timing of the video nothing to do with the speculation that would have come from her missing church on Easter morning…” Let’s be clear: senior sources within Kensington Palace were briefing the media – for a full week before Kate’s video – that Kate would be resurrected on Easter Sunday, that she would be back at work after her kids’ Easter holiday, etc. Again, Kensington Palace destroyed their own credibility over and over again for three months and this was the most bizarre crisis management/comms strategy I’ve ever seen in my life.

Photos courtesy of Kensington Palace’s video, Cover Images.

Shakira covers the latest issue of Allure, all to promote her new album, Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran. This is her first studio album since 2017, and obviously, there’s a lot in this album about her split from Gerard Pique and her newfound independence. She moved from Spain to Miami with her two sons and she’s moving on in every way. This Allure piece is mostly good, mostly rah-rah-feminist, up until the point when Shakira complains that the Barbie movie emasculated men. Whoops. So close and yet so far. Some highlights from Allure:

Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran: “I want this music to build bridges, to empower people, to help women discover their own strengths. I was in the mud,” she says, referring to her very public and messy breakup with Piqué, “I had to reconstruct myself, to reunite all the pieces that had fallen apart. Making this music has shown me that my pain can be transformed into creativity.” (She is crying diamonds on the cover.) “The songs are full of anecdotes and some very intense emotions I have experienced in these two years. But creating this album has been a transformation in which I have been reborn as a woman. I have rebuilt myself in the ways I believe are appropriate. No one tells me how to cry or when to cry, no one tells me how to raise my children, no one tells me how I become a better version of myself. I decide that.”

No one will control women: “In the past, when women went through a difficult situation, they were expected to mind their manners, to hide the pain, to cry in silence. That’s over. Now, no one will control us. No one will tell us how to heal, how to clean our wounds.”

The story of Adam and Eve. “Eve was a story created by misogynists to put women in the little box where we have to remain silent, not speak our minds, and not be a catalyst for change. To keep things as they are. I think there’s something refreshing about women when they get to be themselves and be unapologetic. Because we’ve had to apologize so many damn times in the past.”

Growing up in Colombia: “My idol was Wonder Woman. I think I was drawn to her because she had black hair like mine, but also because she was a symbol of empowerment and strength in a decade where women were not playing the most important roles. I remember my mom stopped working at some point. She stopped wearing miniskirts, and the length of her skirts got longer because my dad said so.”

Her thoughts on ‘Barbie’: “My sons absolutely hated it. They felt that it was emasculating. And I agree, to a certain extent. I’m raising two boys. I want ’em to feel powerful too [while] respecting women. I like pop culture when it attempts to empower women without robbing men of their possibility to be men, to also protect and provide. I believe in giving women all the tools and the trust that we can do it all without losing our essence, without losing our femininity. I think that men have a purpose in society and women have another purpose as well. We complement each other, and that complement should not be lost… Why not share the load with people who deserve to carry it, who have a duty to carry it as well?”

[From Allure]

“I like pop culture when it attempts to empower women without robbing men of their possibility to be men, to also protect and provide. I believe in giving women all the tools and the trust that we can do it all without losing our essence, without losing our femininity.” All of this about a film where the heroine wears cute pink outfits, is traditionally beautiful, gets so frustrated with patriarchy that she briefly gives up, then works with other women/Barbies to reclaim their power within a female-centric fantasy Barbieland. Like… what movie did Shakira think she was watching? Who goes into Barbie and thinks “I wish there were better roles for men?” Or: “I wish the Kens were more three-dimensional?” And even then, everyone feel all over themselves to PRAISE RYAN GOSLING for his bold “take” on Ken, all while minimizing what Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie did! Anyway, I’m not going to write another treatise about Barbie again.

The rest of the interview is meh… Shakira says so much about female empowerment, but really, she’s all about heteronormative gender roles and she has absolutely said sh-t like “Not All Men” in her life.

Cover courtesy of Allure, additional photos courtesy of IMAGO/Regina Wagner / Avalon

Tori Spelling has finally filed for divorce from Dean McDermott. [Hollywood Life]
Churro-flavored Oreos? Yes, I will try them. [Seriously OMG]
Bradley Cooper & Gigi Hadid: still happening. [LaineyGossip]
The creepiest Easter bunny-costume photos. [OMG Blog]
Any excuse to look at Lee Pace. [Socialite Life]
Ramy Youssef was good on SNL? [Pajiba]
Zoe Saldana has been out & about with her husband. [Go Fug Yourself]
Wait, Lisa Vanderpump has a Hulu reality show? [Just Jared]
Lewis Hamilton really uses F1 as a runway. [RCFA]
Rest in peace, Lee Siegfried. [Starcasm]
More creepy/paranormal stories. [Buzzfeed]

About a month ago, the Times did a lengthy report about Buckingham Palace looking through the calendar and trying to figure out which events to cancel for King Charles. They obviously canceled Charles’s appearances for Commonwealth Day and Maundy Thursday, but Charles did attend Easter Sunday and even did a short walkabout among well-wishers. Currently, BP is now saying that they’re making tentative plans for Charles to possibly return to a semi-public schedule by June. But there are concerns that Charles’s doctors will advise him not to travel, which is why courtiers have been eyeing the 80th anniversary of D-Day commemoration events with a lot of angst. A month ago, the courtiers soft-launched the idea that Charles would not be able to travel to Normandy in June. They also made it sound like Camilla would step in… and Prince William would not.

Well, now we’ve got some conflicting reports. The Telegraph reports that the Windsors plan to “reassemble for a full show of support for Britain’s veterans at the 80th anniversary of D-Day.” Charles and William “will honour the sacrifices of the Second World War generation on the June 6 anniversary, with plans for senior members of the family to travel to Normandy.” Charles’s diary is focused solely on trying to be out for D-Day and Trooping the Colour, but the Telegraph stops short of saying that Charles will move heaven and earth to go to Normandy. The Telegraph is also being pretty squirrelly with William’s schedule, noting only that William “also plans to take part in events to honour D-Day veterans, with the recognition of their service said to be ‘very important’ to him.” At no point has anyone said that William would step in for his father in Normandy though. Which is probably why the Mail ran this as an exclusive:

Queen Camilla may step in for King Charles at the D-Day 80th anniversary ceremony in France if he is too ill to attend, the Mail on Sunday can reveal. Aides have not yet ruled out the possibility that the King, who has cancer, may be well enough to travel to Normandy on June 6. But preparations are being made for the Queen to go in his place.

It would see the Queen front and centre with US President Joe Biden, Canadian Premier Justin Trudeau and French President Emmanuel Macron, who are likely to attend the official international ceremony on Omaha Beach in Normandy, which was targeted by Allied forces in the invasion of Nazi-occupied France.

The King is understood to be keen to attend the D-Day 80th anniversary, which will be one of the last with living veterans, but he may have to concede he is not well enough to make the trip.
And his doctors may advise against it.

The occasion is also of personal significance to Camilla, whose father, the late Major Bruce Shand was a decorated war hero who served in the Second World War.

Prince William, who holds several forces roles and completed seven-and-a-half years of full-time military service, will likely also participate in the commemorations, but no specific plans have been confirmed.

The Queen has stood in for several events since the King revealed his cancer diagnosis earlier this year. Sources said the monarch was ‘very proud of her’ and believes she has been doing ‘a wonderful job’.

[From The Daily Mail]

Again, “Prince William…will likely also participate in the commemorations, but no specific plans have been confirmed” means that William refuses to say that he will step in for his father in Normandy if Charles isn’t ready to travel in June. Again, when Charles was the Prince of Wales, these were always the kinds of events he was sent to, to represent his mother and the crown. They can’t even get William to commit to something two months away because he’s so skittish about traveling or doing much of anything. So, just FYI – Camilla will be glad-handing world leaders in Normandy this year.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

The British media is practically salivating at the thought of “forcing” the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to spend two weeks in the UK in 2027. Birmingham has made a major bid to host the 2027 Invictus Games, and Washington DC is also bidding for the same games. I sincerely hope that DC wins, because if Birmingham gets it, we’re going to spend the next three years doing this sh-t. Take this new Telegraph piece as a preview of coming attractions: “How Britain’s bid for Invictus Games could raise some tantalising questions for the Royal family.” Subhead: “Would the Duke and Duchess of Sussex both come and bring their children, and how would King Charles and Prince William react?” They’re practically giddy with anticipation at the thought of all of the pain and trauma they could inflict on the Sussexes. They’re desperate for any semblance of “control” over the Sussexes AND the Invictus Games. Some highlights from the Telegraph piece:

Tantalizing questions: The prospect of Prince Harry’s Invictus Games returning to the UK for the first time since its inception raises some tantalising questions. Chief among them is whether it would draw both the Duke and Duchess of Sussex back to their former home, potentially with their two children. Then, crucially, would senior members of the Royal family support the event, as they did in 2014, when the then Prince Charles, the Duchess of Cornwall and Prince William all joined Prince Harry for the opening ceremony. Things were different then. The Duke was a fully paid-up, full-time working member of the team and any family tensions were dealt with behind closed doors.

The Windsors refuse to support Invictus nowadays: Despite its growing stature on the world stage, the Royal family has not commented publicly on the event for a number of years, a fact not lost on Team Sussex.

The UK’s bid for the games: The Government has thrown its weight behind the plan, pledging £26 million in the recent budget to get the bid off the ground. There will be no financial input from Birmingham City Council, which went bust last year, meaning much of the funding must be Government-sourced and offset by private sector sponsors. As such, Johnny Mercer, the veterans minister, co-hosted a symposium in the city in March to drum up the much-needed cash. The event was held two days before the Princess of Wales released her video message revealing that she was undergoing cancer treatment. Mr Mercer is initially looking to attract up to 10 founding partners who will each contribute £350,000 a year for the next three years, in the run-up to the Games. It is hoped that other partners will later join the bid as official supporters, associates and suppliers. Revenue will also be raised from broadcasting rights, benefactors, ticket sales and merchandise.

JJ Chalmers is also sort of backing the British bid: Former Marine Commando JJ Chalmers, a close friend of Prince Harry and an Invictus gold medalist who suffered life-changing injuries in a bomb blast in Afghanistan, joined the call for private sector support. “There are so many things that you could be investing in, so many assets, but most importantly you’re investing in people,” he said. “The Invictus community is made up of those who served and wish to continue to serve.”

How the Sussexes would react if Birmingham wins the bid: For the Duke and Duchess, the prospect of the Games’ making a triumphant return to the UK will undoubtedly prove conflicting. The annual event has become one of their most high profile joint outings on the world stage, an opportunity to demonstrate what their lives are all about: helping others. For Harry, it is a hugely important personal project – one of the sole remaining legacies from his time as a working royal and one of which he is incredibly proud….But in the UK, the issue of security has become a hot potato. The Duke recently lost a legal battle with the Home Office over the withdrawal of his state-funded police protection.

How the royals would react: As for whether other members of the family would publicly support a Games on UK soil, the jury is out. As it stands, senior royals have much more pressing concerns. With both the King and the Princess of Wales undergoing cancer treatment, there is understandable reluctance to address anything but current priorities. Palace sources have previously insisted that senior members of the Royal family never involve themselves in each others’ professional endeavours. But if the week-long celebration of triumph over all odds is hosted in the UK, a lack of support for the competitors from senior royals would look churlish. The Prince and Princess were integrally involved in the early success of the Invictus Games, with their Royal Foundation – then shared with the Duke – pumping significant injections of cash into the event.

Who would go to the Birmingham games? At the time, a courtier was quoted as saying: “Prince William and Catherine always supported Harry’s efforts to establish Invictus. They are delighted that it has been a success.” A lot could happen over the next three years but given current tensions, it appears unlikely either would join Harry and Meghan in the stands. A middle ground might be found in the form of sporty royals such as Zara and Mike Tindall – who got involved in the inaugural games in London 2014 when they joined Harry to take part in a wheelchair rugby match.

[From The Telegraph]

Again, I hope DC wins. I have no idea what DC’s bid looks like and what kind of funding they’re promising, but I guarantee that the Invictus competitors and the Sussexes will have much more fun in DC. It will just be easier to stage in DC and the veteran community in the DC/metro area would love the boost. The fact that we’re talking about an event three years away through the prism of “would the royal family support it” shows exactly why the UK doesn’t deserve to win the bid. The Windsors have gone radio silent about the past two games and they already look “churlish.” They already look immature, petty and like they don’t actually give a f–k about veterans or the military community. They already look like they’re supremely jealous of all of the attention Invictus gets, all while simultaneously trying to take credit for being part of it.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images, Instar.

So far, the Duchess of Sussex has only given us an Instagram account, a tiny little video and the name of her new lifestyle brand, American Riviera Orchard. We have not seen any products, nor have we even gotten a confirmation that Meghan plans to launch a Netflix food/cooking show. As I’ve said before, Meghan’s trademark-binge isn’t indicative of ARO being some massive brand which sells everything from dog food to makeup. She’s just trademarking everything so that dumbf–k haters don’t snap up rival ARO trademarks/products. I actually believe that Meghan is probably going to start relatively small – jams, soaps, cookbooks, cookware, stuff like that. Obviously, we still haven’t gotten much information from Meghan, which is driving people crazy. Speaking of, Page Six had a long-winded piece about how Meghan’s ARO is the talk of California society.

Questions about ARO: There still remain vital questions surrounding the brand: Just who is investing in it, who is working on it — and who is manufacturing the goods, which will range from jams and jellies to candles, skincare and pet food? Well-placed sources at other lifestyle brands told Page Six that American Riviera Orchard is all the gossip on industry What’sApp groups around Los Angeles. Tellingly, however, they have not yet heard anything about Markle hiring buyers or a sourcing team. One insider who knows the Sussexes told Page Six that it’s looking like a typical Markle project: plenty of glamour, little substance. “They [Harry and Meghan] consistently make announcements and roll things out really early … to what point?” the insider said. Sources close to Markle point out that no timeframe for an actual product launch has been given yet.

Who is Meghan working with? However, Page Six can confirm that the finance types Markle and Prince Harry have been seen networking with — including Wall Street billionaire Ken Griffin and cosmetics mogul Victoria Jackson and her husband, marketing multi-millionaire guru Bill Guthy, both close pals of the Sussexes —are not investing. Neither is Ari Emanuel, head of WME, the talent mega agency which signed up Markle nearly a year ago. Markle is believed to have worked on the project with Hollywood money man Adam Lilling. The project will tie in with Markle’s new Netflix show, which she is said to be filming now, in a bid to follow in the footsteps of Martha Stewart and Joanna Gaines.

Lili Bunny Garden!! When she was interviewed for The Cut in 2022, Markle gifted the writer a basket of homegrown fruits and vegetables, as well as a jar of jam with a customized label from Etsy. It read Lili Bunny Garden + Larder, after her daughter Princess Lilibet — could that be a clue about her pantry products? Whatever the case, she’s already raising her neighbors’ hackles. Kerry Clasby, an organic farmer who runs the Malibu Fig Ranch and supplies to top chiefs including Tom Collichio and Jean George Vongirechten, said that Markle also needs to be diligent about using the name America Riviera — a nickname for the posh Santa Barbara region, which includes Montecito. “If you’re calling it American Riviera, you really ought to be [sourcing ingredients] grown in Santa Barbara,” Clasby told Page Six. “Otherwise, you’re going into the wholesale dump in downtown LA, where all the produce comes up from Mexico or Chile. The kitchen should be there also [in the Santa Barbara area], unless they are just putting their name on it and getting it made wherever, or getting it pre-made. And then it’s hype.”

Local farmers haven’t been contacted?? Although Markle has been spotted at the Montecito farmers market, Sam Edelman, general manager at The Santa Barbara Certified Farmers Market Association, told us that, to his knowledge, the duchess is not working with any of the farmers in the group. If Markle wants to sell anything at her local farmers market, though, she’ll need to get her hands dirty. “California is strict about us putting on our sign that we grow what we sell,” said Maureen Claffey, who owns Red Hen Cannery in Carpinteria, California, with her husband. “In order to sell strawberry jam at the farmer’s market, you have to have grown the strawberries.” Claffrey is a fan of Markle’s after meeting her: “My daughter had set up a little cotton-candy stand and [Markle and Prince Harry] bought cotton candy from her. Having met them and seen how they reacted to my daughter and how positive they were on a windy day, that speaks volumes. How people treat children with no one around says a lot.”

Meghan admires Gwyneth’s Goop: “Everyone is speculating about American Riviera Orchard,” said the lifestyle figure. “But someone like Gwyneth started out by sending out a newsletter once a week and it was very personal, kind of like Substack now. But it was a very novel idea at the time, but she didn’t monetize the business for about seven years. The goal was creating a community and something of value, rather than it being a business. She didn’t take any outside funding until 2015. With Goop, everything that happened all came from a very gradual, authentic place … Gwyneth did not set out to create what it is today.”

[From Page Six]

Re: Goop… I’ve been here since the start of Goop and it’s true that Gwyneth moved very slowly when it came to monetizing it. It really was just a weird rich-lady newsletter about dieting and juice cleansing back in the day. Now it’s a makeup line, a skincare line, fashion collabs, brick-and-mortar stores and more. It took Gwyneth a good seven-to-eight years before she really figured out how to monetize Goop. But… Meghan’s The Tig was the start of ARO as well. She ran a successful lifestyle blog too, so in a sense, ARO is just picking up where she left off. Besides, as I said in the intro, I actually believe that Meghan is going to start out with a relatively small product line and she’ll likely grow ARO from there. Also: now I’m curious about how she’s sourcing for a potential jam line as well.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

Even if you believe that the Princess of Wales’s cancer-announcement video was above-board, surely you also believe that Kensington Palace and the BBC should be doing more to establish the video’s credibility? That was the whole point of KP bringing in BBC Studios to film the video – BBC Studios was clearly lending authenticity to a credibility-challenged palace, a palace which was deeply mired in controversy after several deeply questionable manipulated photos, not to mention the weirdness of all of those “Kate sightings.” Last week, the Washington Post finally got KP on the record about the deepfake allegations, specifically with regards to the cancer announcement video. KP’s response was that the accusations of AI tampering are “factually inaccurate.” The BBC remains squirrelly, refusing to say anything more than yes, they filmed it. One AI expert contacted by WaPo, Deep Media, said that they feel that there’s a “high likelihood” that Kate’s face and voice were AI-manipulated in the video, but other AI experts shrugged off the AI accusations. Well, now Getty Images has added an editor’s note to their screencaps from the video:

(EDITOR’S NOTE: This Handout image was provided by a third-party organization and may not adhere to Getty Images’ editorial policy.) In this handout provided by Kensington Palace, Catherine, The Princess of Wales is seen in a recorded, personal video message, providing an update on her health, recorded on March 20, 2024 in Windsor and aired on March 22, 2024 in London, England. The Princess of Wales had abdominal surgery earlier this year and has revealed that cancer has subsequently been found. She said she has been receiving chemotherapy and asked for privacy for her and her family. (Photo by BBC Studios/Kensington Palace via Getty Images)

[From Getty Images]

I’ll admit that I didn’t think to check Getty Images before now, so I don’t know if the Editor’s Note has always been there (since Friday March 22) or whether it was added later. While it’s a straight acknowledgement that the pic is just a screencap from a palace-released video, this is the same kind of disclaimer Getty has added to other manipulated palace-released photos, like the KP-released photo of Queen Elizabeth II with her white grandchildren, allegedly “taken by Kate.”

Heavy.com did a deeper dive into Getty’s editorial policy and when and how they might add these kinds of disclaimers. I did a simple search on Getty Images for “This Handout image was provided by a third-party organization and may not adhere to Getty Images’ editorial policy” and the only other photos with that note are from NASA handouts. Again… KP wants to continue to behave as if they weren’t caught manipulating photos, and they’re doing next to nothing to re-establish credibility with a general public looking for conspiracies.

Getty Images have placed an editor’s note on the video of Kate Middleton where she reveals she has cancer.
The note states the footage ‘might not adhere to its editorial policy’ .
Why on earth have they done this? https://t.co/5RHZ1epVOr pic.twitter.com/Dhi95GL8EQ

— Lorraine King (@lorrainemking) April 1, 2024

Screencaps courtesy of Kensington Palace’s video.

Buckingham Palace made a very big deal about this weekend as “Easter Lite,” meaning there were special arrangements made to limit King Charles’s exposure to crowds and to scale back the guest list to only a handful of family members. In Easters past, the whole Windsor clan – including royal cousins and royal-adjacents – were all invited to the Easter service in Windsor, and after church, there would be a lunch at Windsor Castle. Not so much this year – Charles kept the guest list right, just his siblings and their spouses, and there was no lunch, apparently. Since Prince William and Kate weren’t there, Charles didn’t want any of his nieces or nephews there either (only one nephew came). He apparently sat somewhat isolated from the rest of his family in church too.

You would think with this lean and mean guest list, it would have been the perfect opportunity to NOT invite Prince Andrew. You would be wrong. Prince Andrew was there, as was Sarah Ferguson. Their daughters were not there. I hope Eugenie and Beatrice spent Easter far away from their parents, honestly. Princess Anne was there with her husband Tim. Prince Edward and the Duchess of Edinburgh were also there and they brought their son James (the new Earl of Wessex). James is the youngest of all the king’s nieces and nephews – I guess they didn’t want the optics of purposefully excluding a 16-year-old.

Yeah, again… this would have been the perfect moment to say “Andrew is not welcome.” I’m sure Charles’s rationale is the same as always, which is that Andrew is welcome at family events but not state events (except the coronation, whoopsie). But when the family is making such a major, visible effort to include a credibly accused rapist and trafficker in their exclusive-guest-list events, it speaks volumes.

Also: the dress code for women seemed to be “dress in shades of green.” So it’s weird that Sophie was the only one in purple. She also looked like a 1970s stewardess.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Avalon Red.

As previewed endlessly last week, King Charles made a public appearance on Easter Sunday. He hath risen! He and Queen Camilla went to the Easter service at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor, and they were joined by some of the royal family, although not Prince William or Kate or their kids. You know what? I think Charles looks pretty good, all things considered. If you told me that his doctors gave him some kind of “vitamin shot” and the palace makeup artists were called in, I would believe you. But the man looks spry!

It was clear that Buckingham Palace was trying to tamp down expectations overall for this appearance, briefing that the plan was “Easter Lite.” As in, Charles was still trying to avoid crowds and that he would not host an Easter lunch for the family. So I was surprised that Charles actually went over to the well-wishers and shook hands and chatted with people – I thought this would be a much more conservatively stage-managed appearance, with Charles basically just waving at people as he went into the chapel. But no, he mingled with the crowd, and there really was a nice-sized crowd there. The palace is also telling everyone that they hope this will be the first event of a slowly increased public schedule for Charles, and that he might start doing investitures again as well.

I have a question: why are so many outlets – including British outlets – running stand-alone stories about how the Wales family didn’t go to church in Windsor? We knew they wouldn’t, they said it outright two Fridays ago and no one was expecting William and Kate to show up for Easter. Why are so many outlets underlining that??

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Embed from Getty Images
About a month ago, I was driving my kids to school when my older son suddenly asked me, “Mommy, how do you feel about your little baby turning 10-years-old this year?” I was a little bit taken aback by the randomness of the question, so I gave some generic response about how he’s always going to be my little baby no matter how old he gets. It hadn’t really registered with me yet that he was entering that “double digits” era, so I hadn’t really thought to mourn that leaving behind those single digit years means he’d be embracing more of his autonomy and independence.

Edie Falco’s kids are a bit older than mine are. She has a 19-year-old son named Anderson and a 16-year-old daughter named Macy. Edie is the guest on this week’s episode of Christina Applegate and Jamie-Lynn Sigler’s podcast, MeSsy. During her appearance, they started talking about how quickly time really does fly once you become a parent, and Edie shared how much she misses when her kids were little.

“Nobody talks about when those little kids disappear – it’s like a death,” says Falco, 60, whose son, Anderson, is 19 and whose daughter, Macy, is 16.

Falco swaps parenting stories and more alongside her Sopranos star Jamie-Lynn Sigler, on the second episode of MeSsy, Sigler’s new podcast with Christina Applegate, PEOPLE has an exclusive preview of the podcast episode before it comes out March 26.

Sigler, 42, whose two boys Jack and Beau are 5 and 10, is still navigating the younger years, but she says on the podcast that she’s “holding on to all the little baby things” like the fact that her son Jack has just lost his first teeth and that his hand “still doesn’t have knuckles.”

Adds Applegate, whose daughter Sadie is 13, “To know we’re not going to get that back freaks me out.’”

Falco says she treasures memories of those early days. “Early parenting stuff is madness but it’s some of the most divine, precious hours of my life,” the Nurse Jackie star says on the podcast. “When they both fall asleep on you when you’re watching TV and it’s quiet and you realize, ‘Oh my God I didn’t know I could feel this love.’ And then they’re just gone forever and ever, and they’re just memories and are all over your iPhone!”

Applegate, who’s admitted that living with multiple sclerosis has changed how she can parent, jokes that she wants to keep her daughter as close as possible, as long as possible: “I told Sadie when she goes to college, wherever it is, I’ll be moving in with her. I highly encourage Los Angeles-based universities. I’m like, ‘Why would you live in a dorm when we have our nice house?’ I’m doing everything I can to make her stay here.”

[From People]

I understand what Edie means. It is sad when you realize your kids have grown out of their previous stage and that era is over. I try not to let myself get into that headspace, though. I hadn’t thought about my kid turning 10 this year because that means we’re practically a year away from –ugh– middle school, which basically means he’s practically a high schooler and just about ready to leave for college, which means…you get the point, lol. You know the saying, “Getting old is a blessing?” Well, I try to look at my kids getting older and seeing them through new phases and stages of life as a blessing as well. I guess to use Edie’s own terminology, if the little kid stage ending is like a death, then seeing each new milestone as they grow into their own little people is like starting a new life.

Oh, and that conversation in which my older son asked me how I felt about him turning 10 this year? It finished with him saying this: “When I’m 10, that means I’m going to have to get my next rust [tetanus] shot. I don’t want to get a shot, but I know it’ll be best for my health, so I’ll do it without crying.” Being old enough to march into the pediatrician’s office while knowing about and being okay with having to get a shot? There are definitely some perks to the “little kid” phase disappearing.

2009:

2013:

Embed from Getty Images

Photos credit: Hector Vallenilla, PacificCoastNews.com / Avalon, Robin Platzer/Twin Images / Twin Images / Avalon and Getty