As soon as the Oscar nominations came out, the PR machine behind Oppenheimer made sure leading man and newly-minted Best Actor nominee Cillian Murphy spoke to the press about what he was doing and how he was feeling when he got the good news. He was in Ireland enjoying his mother’s sponge cake, and the unsaid but apparent emotion he was feeling was dread at having to do more of the non-acting part of his job. Now a couple weeks later, his costar Emily Blunt is sharing her story. Talking to Josh Horowitz in New York this week, Emily deployed every ounce of Englishness she has as she described her whereabouts when she learned she’d gotten the first Oscar nomination of her career:

While [Emily Blunt] is ecstatic over her [Oscar] nod, she was in kind of a stinky position when she heard of the nomination.

The “Devil Wears Prada” actress revealed that she was actually scooping up her dog’s poop when she was notified about the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nomination last month.

“It’s all quite scary, the anticipation of it, and I think you just try not to listen to buzz because buzz can be built on sand sometimes,” she said during a conversation with Josh Horowitz at 92NY on Tuesday.

“And so when it did happen, and when it happened in such a far-reaching way for all of us in the movie and every crew member, it was magical,” Blunt continued.

The film earned a whopping 13 nominations in total, including for Best Picture.

“I did have a brief cry in the middle of Brooklyn, brief weep directly after picking up my dog’s poop,” Blunt went on. “I did pick up her poop and then I heard that I got nominated, so it was perfect.”

The British actress revealed that husband John Krasinski also “had a really good cry as well, after helping me with the poop.”

“I think he went and put it in the trash, and then we both cried,” she recalled.

[From NY Post]

“I did pick up her poop and then I heard that I got nominated, so it was perfect.” I love it. For the rest of her life Emily can enjoy a sense memory connection between her Academy Award nomination and dog sh*t. Imagine it: she could be sitting in the Dolby Theatre on March 10, dazzling in her designer gown, and all of a sudden she picks up wafts of poop odor. And it works the other way around too! Every time she bends down to collect a steaming pile of her pup’s poop, she’ll be reminded, “I’m an Oscar nominee.” All that being said, if her hubby John Krasinski was with her and cried with her as she says… then why didn’t he pick up the poop for her?! They knew a call was coming from a publicist whether the news was good or bad, he could have assumed the morning’s sh*t duties. Next red carpet they do together, the lip readers might want to check if it’s Emily this time talking about wanting to divorce John, just sayin’.

Photo note by CB: These photos of John Krasinski and Emily Blunt walking their dogs are from 2010. The photo agency noted that they picked up their dogs’ poop. Emily is shown alone with her dog in 2012. Credit: PacificCoastNews.com/Avalon. Other photos are from this year. Credit: TheNews2/Cover Images and Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Avalon

In 2022, Piers Morgan’s big return to television was a gigantic flop. The previous year, Piers walked off the set of Good Morning Britain in a huffy tantrum over the Duchess of Sussex. That huffy tantrum would set off a chain reaction of hilarious failures – he was fired from GMB, he went crawling to Rupert Murdoch, who promptly gave him the TalkTV show Uncensored. Uncensored’s ratings have been in the toilet for its entire run, less than two years. Now Piers is throwing another huffy tantrum and leaving TalkTV. I have a theory about this, but here’s how the Times has reported it:

Piers Morgan is leaving the “unnecessary straitjacket” of his TalkTV show to focus on his successful Uncensored YouTube channel. His daily 8pm show was launched nearly two years ago. Morgan, 58, said that no longer having to be a “slave to the schedule” would allow him to improve the Piers Morgan Uncensored channel, which has grown to 2.3 million subscribers since 2022 and regularly attracts a worldwide audience of millions.

“It’s clear there’s a huge global demand for the content we’re making, but the commitment to a daily show at a fixed schedule, with all the editing and time sensitivities that involves, has been an increasingly unnecessary straitjacket,” he said.

Morgan pointed to the way in which his interview with Rishi Sunak, in which the prime minister appeared to accept a bet of £1,000 that his flights to Rwanda would take off before the next general election, was posted on YouTube on Monday afternoon and quickly gained 400,000 views. “Had we waited until 8pm to air it first on TalkTV, it would have been overtaken by the huge breaking news of King Charles’s cancer diagnosis,” he said.

He described Piers Morgan Uncensored, which is also owned by News UK, the owner of TalkTV and The Times, as having a “start-up mentality” and said that the change would free it up to feature longer interviews with bigger guests, supported by more clips. Some of the interviews will be shown on TalkTV as the channel juggles its schedule to replace Morgan’s show.

The American podcast host and presenter Joe Rogan, who has amassed 16 million YouTube subscribers without a traditional TV show, was cited as an inspiration for the change.

[From The Times]

Here’s the thing – Piers is acting like he’s the first person to discover that people prefer to watch YouTube clips rather than a shouty, sweaty ham-faced moron screeching live on television. Literally every broadcaster, network and television personality knows that they need to build their YouTube channel in concert with their network/cable-television profile. It’s why all of the cable news networks are so quick to upload their best clips on YT within an hour of the airing. So, here’s my theory: Piers was fired again. If this was just about building a YouTube profile, he would have done that within the TalkTV/Uncensored universe. Instead, he has to leave TalkTV without the “Uncensored” branding or TalkTV branding. He’s building his own stand-alone thing as a last resort because the dumb bitch got fired again.

As for his YouTube channel… there are a lot of hateful idiots who buy what Piers is selling, so I imagine he will be able to build his own thing. But it will be even more of an echo chamber and, frankly, it will be even easier to ignore him in many ways. He’s being deplatformed in slow motion and it’s glorious.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Annette Bening scored her fifth Oscar nomination this year for playing Diana Nyad, and it’s highly likely that she walks out of this awards season still 0/5. Was Nyad an innovative film? No, except to the extent that it’s still novel in the 21st century to have a film centered on the friendship between two women in their 60s. But I agree that Annette’s performance was better than the film itself (same goes for Jodie Foster, who’s up for supporting actress). Though she’s a long shot compared to her fellow leading actress nominees, Annette is definitely campaigning. Harvard’s Hasty Pudding theater troupe just bestowed her with their Woman of the Year award, and she spoke with them about the quality of women’s roles today, and how her kids voted against her joining social media:

Strong, flawed women: “I do think that our understanding of women is growing, given what we’re able to do in film and TV, and then the nuance that is afforded in the way things are written now. There’s a lot of talk about strong women and strong women’s roles, and that’s great. But when you think about it, a strong woman is also a flawed woman and is also a woman with weaknesses and vulnerabilities. And so it’s not a question of just strong women’s role. It’s real women. And that’s what we want.”

Challenging yourself is not just a young woman’s game: Bening said that no age becomes the finish line for a woman’s evolution. “Just like we see in real life around us, just as we see among the women that we know, there isn’t a point at which a woman stops evolving and changing,” she said. … She said that since she started in film 35 years ago, there are “fewer stereotypical pictures,” but that goes for roles for men too. “I think a lot of people want to stay challenged as they grow older, not just in work, but in life and in relationships and in what they might do day-to-day,” Bening explained. “It doesn’t have to be a marathon swim to feel like you want to challenge yourself. You want to do something new, you want to change and grow. And that’s true of many of the women that I know.”

Stay off Insta, Mom! Bening, who has been married to actor Warren Beatty since 1992 and has four children with him, is also mindful about how much of her life she puts out in public. She said she once considered joining social media to boost some of the causes she’s passionate about. But ultimately, her children advised her against it. “I did ask one of my kids, I said, ‘You know, should I start? Should I go on social media?’ And they’re like, ‘No, Mom,’” Bening laughed.

Sounds like she wouldn’t have been on much, anyway: In a digital age when smartphones capture everything, Bening said, she would recommend that young actors and actresses maintain a sense of privacy. Looking back, that’s the advice she’d give herself. “I would say to my younger self, keep something of yourself to yourself, and to the people that you love and the people that you trust,” she said. “And I would certainly say that to people starting out now. There’s so much pressure on young actors and actresses to make themselves public and to talk about events in their lives in their publicity. And obviously, some is OK. There’s not some hard-and-fast rule, but to always find a way to keep the things that matter to you most private.”

[From Yahoo! Entertainment]

So her kids just didn’t want their mom on social media, right? Didn’t want her seeing their accounts? LOL. I’m sticking with this interpretation until and unless Annette expands her answer. As for her advice that aspiring actors protect their privacy, I am wholeheartedly and spiritually with her in theory. In practice, I don’t think Annette is fully appreciating how much a young actor’s online following is factored into the business these days. I mean, even frickin’ Elle Fanning lost out on a role for not having enough Instagram followers, and she’s had a high profile in the industry since she was, what, four?! Again, I’m not advocating for this way of casting. I’m just saying that it’s a bigger reality than perhaps Annette was leaving room for. So yes, the roles being written may be getting richer, more honest, more complicated. But the question hovering over that is — on what criteria are actors being considered to play them?

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Photos credit: IMAGO/London Entertainment/Splash/Avalon, Getty and Netflix press

Super Bowl LVIII takes place on Sunday, and there’s usually something for everyone, whether it’s the game, the halftime show, the overpriced commercials, or the puppy bowl. Well, now there’s even something for kids to enjoy about the Super Bowl: SpongeBob! CBS Sports and Nickelodeon are joining forces to broadcast the game live from SpongeBob’s home turf of Bikini Bottom. The broadcast will feature SpongeBob, Patrick, and CBS Sports’ Nate Burleson and Noah Eagle. Bikini Bottom’s Sandy Cheeks and Larry the Lobster will also make appearances as a reporter and commentator. This is so freaking adorable.

SpongeBob SquarePants (voiced by Tom Kenny) and Patrick Star (voiced by Bill Fagerbakke) will be going live from the booth in the alternate, kids-friendly telecast airing on Nickelodeon. The dynamic duo will be joined by CBS Sports analyst Nate Burleson and play-by-play announcer Noah Eagle. Meanwhile, Sandy Cheeks (voiced by Carolyn Lawrence) will serve as a sideline reporter as Larry the Lobster (voiced by Mr. Lawrence) provides live commentary.

“We are so excited to just go into this massive sports event and just be goofy and silly, and make it a fun experience for kids and Nickelodeon fans,” Fagerbakke, 66, tells PEOPLE.

“There’ll be so many other Nickelodeon characters involved,” he continues to tease. “We’re going to have Plankton and we’re going to have, I’m sure Squidward and Mr. Krabs will be in the stands. It’s going to be a lot of fun. And the announcers, Noah Eagle and Nate Burleson, they’re all in for fun too. So, we’re going to have a good time.”

Kenny, 61, notes that “the conceit is that the Allegiant Stadium has been transported to Bikini Bottom through a crazy series of events having to do with an invention of Sandy’s there.”

He teases, “That gives the animators, the technicians, the computer guys, us, the real live sports casters that Bill mentioned, license to take the game into a whole new level of oddball silliness because you’re going to be looking at the Super Bowl the same way it is if you watch it on a conventional broadcast — but there’s jellyfish and bubbles and craziness and cartoon characters running through frame, just this whole overlay of insanity making the Super Bowl even weirder and crazier than it is normally.”

Although Sandy Cheeks voicer Lawrence, 56, hopes Bikini Bottom’s villainous Plankton “doesn’t try to do something” to disrupt the fun, Fagerbakke predicts that “he will.”

For Kenny, “Part of what makes it cool is that if you’re a football newbie or a younger member of the family who maybe is just learning about football or just getting interested or getting on board, this will be a nice primer for that.”

“There’s little interstitial things, tutorials and things about football terminology and gameplay and all that,” he adds. “SpongeBob and Patrick, at least, are the perfect people to learn, too, because they don’t know anything about football. They’ve never seen football. Everything they know about football, they learned from their Texas pal Sandy Cheeks.”

[From People]

This is so cute! My kids love SpongeBob and all of the various spin-off shows. I know they’ll get a kick out of watching this for a little while, at least. My older son, who doesn’t actually watch football, adopted the Kansas City Chiefs as his team back in 2020 because his best friend is a fan and wears Patrick Mahones jerseys to school. This SpongeBob thing will make it much more fun for him to pay attention now. I don’t even want to wonder what the logistics are or if it will be cheesy or not. It’s clever and creative and the kids and longtime SpongeBob fans will enjoy it. Oh, and the Bikini Bottom residents aren’t the only Nick ‘toons getting in on the fun. Dora the Explorer and Boots will also show up during the big game to help explain penalty calls. I love this all so much.

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Photos are screenshots from YouTube

IYKYK: Britney Spears says she once made out with Ben Affleck but she forgot to add that story to her memoir. [Socialite Life]
The cast of Dune 2 talks about that sandworm popcorn bucket. [OMG Blog]
Gwen Stefani & Blake Shelton are doing an album together. [LaineyGossip]
The trailer for Love Lies Bleeding (starring Kristen Stewart). [JustJared]
North West is making music with her dad. [Hollywood Life]
Sheryl Lee Ralph was on Wonder Woman! [Seriously OMG]
Timothee Chalamet might be too fashion-forward. [RCFA]
You’re not really a writer if you’re getting “help” from AI. [Pajiba]
Great, now we have to worry about being too independent. [Buzzfeed]
Kathryn Newton has such pretty hair. [GFY]

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At the Grammys, Taylor Swift announced her forthcoming album, The Tortured Poets Department. She stunned her fans, many of whom believed that she had been working on Reputation (Taylor’s Version), yet another rerecording. As I said, I believe she has also been working on Reputation TV, and that announcement will probably come later this year (spring or summer, probably). But for now, we will soon deal with another promotional blitz for a new Taylor Swift album. Thinkpieces will be written, Easter eggs will be analyzed and Taylor’s power will keep growing and growing. Speaking of, the NY Times did a truly delightful piece about what actual poets think about Taylor’s album title. Some highlights:

Poet-approved: “As a tortured poet, I approve,” said Christian Wiman, the editor of Poetry magazine from 2003 to 2013. “Or is she making fun of us? I guess I kind of approve of that, too.”

Dark academia: The title calls to mind the Robin Williams film “Dead Poets Society” — also sans apostrophe — said Adrienne Raphel, a poet and the author of “Our Dark Academia,” who noted that the film was released in 1989, Ms. Swift’s birth year. “Tay is taking us full dark academia mode,” Ms. Raphel continued, referring to an online subculture that emphasizes reading, writing and a gothic fashion sense. “Let’s not forget the article: ‘the.’ ‘The’ also conjures academic programs: the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, the Ivy League.”

Poets are being taken seriously: “It takes us tortured poets seriously, as seriously as the post office, and yet it pokes a little good-natured fun at us at the same time,” said Richard Siken, whose 2004 poetry collection, “Crush,” won the Yale Younger Poets prize.

Are songwriters & poets the same? “Songwriters and poets are interchangeable to some extent,” said Eileen Myles, who has written more than 20 books of poetry. “So I feel a kindred spirit in Taylor Swift’s title.” Stephanie Burt, an English professor who teaches a class on Taylor Swift at Harvard University, said by email: “I’m hoping the title ends up in part lighthearted, since you don’t have to be tortured to be a poet, or even to be a skillful one. No one should be tortured (literally), and no one should have to feel tortured (figuratively) to make lasting or emotionally engaging art.” Whether or not Ms. Swift herself is a poet has long been a subject of debate. Ms. Burt posited that she was “not a great page-based poet but a major songwriter. Closely related art forms, but not the same.” Ms. Burt hastened to add that Ms. Swift belonged to poetic traditions nonetheless: She seemed to be inspired by “Wordsworthian romanticism, Burnsian lyricism — the intense and intensely gendered inwardness and the wit of Laura Kasischke,” she said.

Taylor’s poem, which was included in her social media post: Alongside the album artwork, Ms. Swift posted a handwritten poem on social media. Signed by “The Chairman of The Tortured Poets Department,” it rhymes “muses” with “bruises” and ends with “All’s fair in love and poetry.” Mr. Siken said he was struck by one line in particular: “‘My muses, acquired like bruises’ is brutal,” he said. “She got that exactly right. Muses don’t float in and out without doing any damage.”

Gregory Pardlo took issue with the word ‘tortured’: “Poets today take mental health very seriously,” Mr. Pardlo said, “and I find it a little troublesome that this poem seems to be romanticizing what are often diagnosed as anxiety disorders.”

Taylor is very much in favor with the rise of Instapoets: “Taylor’s music is a source of inspiration for many contemporary poets on Instagram and TikTok,” said Ginnie Bale, the poet responsible for the oft-memed verse “He didn’t like drama/and I was [expletive] Shakespeare.”

Taylor could become a poetry influencer: Some hoped that Ms. Swift’s next era would increase interest in American poetry, a precarious market for academics in real-life poetry departments — usually subsumed by English departments, which themselves face existential threats — across the country. “If this gets more people to write poetry, I’m all for it, because I want there to be more jobs to apply to,” said Sasha Debevec-McKenney, a poet and creative writing fellow at Emory University. “I want there to be more people fighting to get into poetry classes.”

[From The NY Times]

We’ve talked for months/years about Taylor’s power and how she is, like, a stand-alone economy at this point. She influences so much, why couldn’t she be a poetry influencer? Why not? Why couldn’t Taylor single-handedly bring back poetry classes and poetry as a humanities discipline? I also think Taylor sees herself as a poet, writer, songwriter and lyricist first and foremost. I hope she’s as charmed with this as I seem to be! Yes, let’s have more poets in the world!

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instagram.

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While I thought Ryan Gosling was great in Barbie, I’ve been annoyed for months that Gosling has gotten so much attention for playing Ken and that so many people are acting like the movie was mostly about Ken. And then Oscar voters nominated Ken and not Barbie or Barbie’s director and I guess it all made sense. Oscar voters watched Barbie and they thought it was all about Ken too. Well, Gosling is currently Oscar-campaigning and he’s striking just the right balance between “being happy/grateful/wanting it” and “still being cool.” Gosling covers the current issue of Variety and this piece is very long and detailed, especially about Ryan’s background as a child actor/performer. Some highlights:

Ken was his hardest role: “It’s the hardest role I’ve ever had to play. It was like a high-wire act — in tiny shorts and no shirt — with no net. I wanted to make sure if I was going to do it — I was like, ‘I can’t mess this up. I can’t be the guy that messed up the Barbie movie.’ So if I’m going to do it, I have to do more than I know that I’m even capable of.”

On his statement about Margot Robbie & Greta Gerwig’s Oscar snubs: “Look, I heavily edited that statement. I think if I say any more about it, I’m going to basically put on a mink and start challenging people to a beach-off on Malibu Beach.” He references the themes of Gerwig’s script: The Barbie characters live in a feminist paradise and are shocked when, in the real world, they encounter systemic sexism at every level. “In terms of people’s reactions, the film continues to provoke conversation in every incarnation. It keeps provoking this dialogue. It’s the power of this movie. I struggle to compare it to anything. But it’s yet another reason that proves it’s more than a summer blockbuster. It’s a great work of art. That’s what Greta and Margot created.”

How he figured out how to play Ken: While preparing for the character, “so many times, I would come home and say, ‘What am I doing?’ And I would overthink it.” His wife would tell him, “Just make it about Barbie,” he says. “And so every take became an opportunity to get Barbie to notice me.”

Moving to LA as a teen: “Thank God for West Hollywood. This director I had worked with told me when I was a kid, ‘If you ever come to L.A., you can sleep on my couch.’ I had an amazing experience. I did my homework at the Abbey. My next-door neighbor was named Mocha Cream. It was an amazing place to land: Somebody had showed me the movie ‘Auntie Mame,’ and I felt like the kid in ‘Auntie Mame,’ who was like, ‘Only yesterday, he was in short pants.’ Everyone was just so accepting and living their dreams. It was very supportive and creative.”

Taking four years off to focus on fatherhood. “Just to be with my family. I didn’t want to miss anything. My priorities changed, and I wanted to be with my kids. It’s going super fast. I hear the clock ticking. I don’t know how much time I’m going to get, and I don’t want to spend it in the wrong place. I know I’m not spending it in the wrong place if I’m with my family.”

Barbie is a continuation of all of his big dramatic work: “In some way, everything I’ve done led to it. And I can’t believe I’m saying that. There were moments when I would do it where I’d think, ‘I haven’t felt like I’ve worked this hard since “Blue Valentine.”’ There were moments when I left ‘Blue Valentine’ just completely emotionally spent, laying on the floor of the car on the ride home just done — empty. And it was even harder to play Ken. And I thought, ‘How am I feeling that on this film?’”

He turned down Ken several times: “Eventually, I thought, ‘Who am I to argue with Greta Gerwig and Margot?’ They had a vision for it. They believed it. And they believed I should do it more than I believed I shouldn’t. At a certain point, I thought, ‘They see something that I don’t see.’ I thought it was such a great part that anyone could play it. I understand now, but it took me a while.”

Whether he’ll perform at the Oscars: “I still have not been asked. It might be too much of a risk to have me do it. I don’t know how that would work. But I’m open to it.”

[From Variety]

I kind of hope he does perform at the Oscars and does it really seriously, like in a tuxedo, standing beside a grand piano, delivering a heart-wrenching performance of “I’m Just Ken.” That’s obviously what Oscar voters want. The Variety piece is full of quotes from Gerwig and Robbie too, how much they wanted him for the role, to the point where Gerwig had no backup plan for who she would cast if he kept saying no. I like what he says about how hard it was, the hard work of playing Ken, because I keep getting the feeling that people think Barbie was “easy” to make because the actors made it look easy. Anyway, I kind of love everything he said here. It would be hilarious if he ended up winning the Oscar for it.

Cover courtesy of Variety, additional photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Prince Harry is not an evil genius, but I do think his whirlwind 25-hour trip to the UK will box in a lot of anti-Sussex narratives for a time. If Harry had not made the effort, the entire British media would have been solely devoted to calling Harry a sh-tty son and a terrible person for refusing to publicly acknowledge his poor father. Harry’s visit put the onus on Charles, and Charles panicked and could not even clear his schedule for one hour for his son, nor did Charles even offer Harry a room in any of the London palaces, nor did Charles invite Harry to Sandringham so they could even spend some real time together. So it is what it is – Harry is a good son, Charles is a dogs-t father, the same as it ever was. Hilariously, Katie Nicholl is still trying to play it like Charles is desperate for a reconciliation. If he was so desperate, could he have not cleared one full hour?

Royal Expert Katie Nicholl spoke with ET on Tuesday and shared some insight into the state of Harry and Charles’s relationship and how Harry has handled the news of his father’s illness.

“His father personally telephoned him to inform him of his cancer diagnosis, [and] Harry jumped on the overnight flight from Los Angeles,” Nicholl shared, adding that when he arrived in London, Harry “came straight to Clarence House for what we understand was a brief meeting with his father. One could only imagine that it would have been an emotional reunion. Because they haven’t seen each other since the King’s coronation, and then they didn’t get to spend very much time together at all.”

According to Nicholl, Charles “desperately wants to reconcile with Harry,” so he can have a real relationship with both his son and his grandchildren.

“The king would have been hugely relieved and comforted by the fact that Harry flew over,” Nicholl shared, explaining that the meeting likely was “emotional and probably quite difficult for both of them.”

Harry and Charles’ meeting was not a lengthy one, “But however brief that meeting may have been, I think it’s absolutely fundamental and important and healing the rift between father and son,” Nicholl said. “I certainly think we’re seeing a real thawing in the relations between Charles and his son. I know, for Charles, the door has always been left open regardless of some of the things Harry has written… I was told by a source very close to the king that whatever Harry has said or done, he loves his son. He wants to repair that relationship and indeed have a relationship with his daughter-in-law and his grandchildren,” she added, referring to the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle — who stayed in California with their children, Archie, 4, and Lilibet, 2 — while Harry flew to London.

“I think when someone has a serious health scare like this, it does make you reassess things,” Nicholl said, “and I think that’s why Harry got on the first flight he could.”

As for repairing the rift between Harry and his older brother, Prince William, Nicholl said, “I think that’s less certain.”

[From ET]

“But however brief that meeting may have been, I think it’s absolutely fundamental and important and healing the rift between father and son.” My honest-to-God theory is that Charles’s current relationship to Harry is (from Charles’s perspective) singularly about power. Charles wants to demonstrate to himself and the public that he still has power over Harry in some way, that he still has the power to bring Harry “back,” that Harry’s visit was about some kind of fealty from son to father. Harry, obviously, views all of this differently and he’s made that pretty clear in interviews and in his memoir. He loves his father so much and he allows himself to be used by Charles occasionally. I think Harry sees that as the price he has to pay to have some kind of relationship with Charles, however toxic. That’s my armchair analysis of what’s going on! For Harry, this is about love. For Charles, it’s about power.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

I’m trying to do some upkeep on who said what about Prince Harry’s 25-hour trip to London and Prince William’s briefing spree about Harry’s visit. The Telegraph sort of talked around it earlier this week, but there’s some indication that Harry actually saw Charles face-to-face before William bothered to see their dad in person. There’s also no indication that William has seen his father face-to-face in weeks, although there’s every indication that Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace are coordinating fully right now, and that Charles has no intention of asking William to take over anything. William, in turn, has taken it upon himself to make Harry’s visit to their father all about how much William hates his brother. Speaking of:

The nature of Harry’s trip, in which he shared a ‘brief 45 minute meeting’ with the King and Camilla and is not believed to have seen his brother William or sister-in-law Kate Middleton, shows how bad things have really become, royal expert Jennie Bond said.

She claimed: ‘William has shown today that he has disowned Harry, he doesn’t want to know him, and he probably doesn’t even like him anymore. Harry is just not part of his life. That rift is so deep now, and that has been shown by Harry being here and them not meeting, so deep that I really do wonder if it can ever, ever be mended.’

The Duke is not believed to have seen his brother William or sister-in-law Kate Middleton, who is recovering from her abdominal surgery and on extended leave. But expert Richard Fitzwilliams suggested the fact that Prince Harry made the trip at all shows hope for reconciliation.

He told MailOnline: ‘The whole situation has changed with cancer. The fact the King has been diagnosed with something that millions know is life threatening has changed the whole relationship between the Royal Family and the Sussexes. The only way for a family to fight cancer is to come together. A lot has been made of the length of Harry’s visit and how quickly he left but that isn’t the point. The point is that Harry came – and Charles shared the diagnosis with him. What he wanted was to express support, it’s a completely new situation.’

‘Harry is probably planning on coming over himself in the future. Charles has started outpatient treatment and was probably very tired, which may be a reason the visit was so brief. I hope this could be the beginning of some form of reconciliation. There was no question of him meeting William – they haven’t spoken in months and William has engagements and Catherine is recuperating. And of course they don’t trust the Sussexes because in the past if they’ve said anything the comment could have ended up in a book or in the media.’

[From The Daily Mail]

Quick question: if William was screaming, crying and throwing up about how he would never, ever see Harry this week, how was Harry supposed to check in with Kate? Did they expect Harry to get a police escort to Adelaide Cottage just so he could visit his sister-in-law’s bedside? If he had done that, wouldn’t that be giving up the game, wouldn’t that begin to unravel whatever web of secrets is currently being hidden from the British public? Also, just a little piece of free PR advice to the Kensington Palace clownshow: you’ve now spent four years making Prince William’s sole “brand” into “William despises Harry,” and you guys desperately need a rebrand. It’s tired, it’s repetitive, it’s negative, it’s childish and you aren’t making your primary look good. When KP is doing more to complain and explain about Harry’s visit (which had nothing to do with William or KP) than they’ve had to say in months about the missing princess, then that’s a huge communications problem.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

Now that Prince Harry has escaped the UK once again after a whirlwind 25-hour visit this week, I hope he understands (yet again) that his family is trash and the national media is actively trying to harm him. He only has to glance through the coverage following his visit to understand the grotesque sadism coming from the royal establishment. A son flew fourteen hours to see his cancer-stricken father and his dogsh-t father couldn’t even spare an hour for him. THAT is the story, that King Charles is awful and that Harry will continue to do everything he can to have a relationship with the father he adores. But according to “palace sources” and “royal experts,” Harry’s trip was about Charles and William flexing their power over Harry, and it was explicitly about how they’re both still punishing Harry and will continue to punish Harry forever. From Maureen Callahan’s unhinged Daily Mail column:

Memo to Prince Harry: Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Such is the obvious message from Buckingham Palace — and what’s to come under William’s reign. Only 24 hours after making a transatlantic dash to see King Charles, just diagnosed with cancer, Harry is flying back to California. That’s 10,000 miles and 21 hours in the air for minutes with his father.

Imagine Harry’s overwhelming emotions. The exhaustion from jet lag – flying commercial. Tyler Perry’s private jet, it seems, was not available for loan this time. Nor was there room at the Palace, or Clarence House, or any castle or royal cottage. Harry was reportedly forced to put himself up at a hotel. Room service for one! Imagine how lonely he must have felt: His father dashing off after their fleeting reunion — the first time Harry has spoken in person with Charles since the funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth in September 2022 — contentedly cocooned with Camilla.

His estranged brother, his only sibling, tending to his recovering wife and their three children, no invitation extended — presumably not a phone call or even a text message. All of Harry’s old friends, either cut off or fallen away. No one to see, to commiserate with, to meet at the pub for a pint and a cry.

Of course, Harry had no other option but to turn around and go home. It seems our desolate duke is learning the hardest of lessons, one most of us learn as toddlers: Actions have consequences. Having sold out his family’s secrets, having slandered them for years through Oprah Winfrey and Netflix and a self-pitying memoir, having made Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth’s final years a misery — well, it seems the royals have reached the sad conclusion, the only conclusion, that Harry cannot be trusted.

Adding to his humiliation, a source close to Prince William made it clear that under no circumstances would he be seeing or speaking to his brother. ‘No plans’ to see Harry, the source said. And why would William risk a conversation? The one piece of information that William and Kate want to keep private — the exact status of her health and recovery — is the very thing the Sussexes, if history is any guide, might leak. Recall Meghan cruelly reminding the world, during the Oprah sit-down, of the ‘Waity Katie’ nickname. Or Harry writing of Kate’s refusal to share her lip gloss with Meghan and reprinting a tense text exchange between the women over bridesmaids’ dresses. That Kate made Meghan cry!

And, most gravely, the gruesome twosome seemingly doing nothing to stop their groupie Omid Scobie’s revelation that the so-called ‘royal racists’ were Charles and Kate — as printed in a foreign edition of Scobie’s book ‘Endgame’, released late last November. Truly: Who in the royal fold would trust these two?

[From The Daily Mail]

Again, if anyone thought that this week’s events were a “win” for Charles and William, they are utterly delusional. Charles looked like a cranky old man who is too out-of-it or stage-managed to spend private time with a son who flew thousands of miles to see him. William continues to look like a desperate loser who is obsessed with his younger brother. William was MIA for weeks and the only thing which got him out of his hole was these pathetic briefings about Harry. Oh, speaking of, Carole Malone admitted that last November’s briefing spree about Harry and Meghan’s call to King Charles on his birthday came from Prince William’s office. Funny that. The only thing Kensington Palace’s comms office really does anymore is leak sh-t about Harry and talk endlessly about how much William hates his brother. Congrats on your psychopath heir, British peeps.

“I don’t think William or Kate or any of the Royals that Harry has slated as racist want to meet him.”@thecarolemalone doesn’t understand why he has waited until King Charles has been diagnosed with cancer to visit him.@jerryhayes1 | @theJeremyVine | #JeremyVine pic.twitter.com/CYe9tDgHJK

— Jeremy Vine On 5 (@JeremyVineOn5) February 7, 2024

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