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No joke, I was surprised by the love for Miley Cyrus at last night’s Grammys. While her most recent album was pretty good, Miley is still Miley. Miley ended up winning her first-ever Grammy for “Flowers” and she also performed the song on stage (the performance was awful). She showed respect for Mariah Carey, who presented her with her first Grammy as well. On the red carpet, Miley wore this Maison Margiela dress which… well, it was a look. The styling was insane and Miley’s hair/wigs just kept getting worse and worse throughout the night. The more weight she loses, the bigger her wigs. She performed in a vintage Bob Mackie look!

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Meanwhile, Paris Jackson looked kind of boring in Celine, with her tattoos covered with makeup.

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Kelly Osbourne was there with her partner, Sid Wilson of Slipknot, who was nominated for Metal Performance. She wore Christian Siriano.

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Photos courtesy of Getty.

Issa Rae covers the current issue of Time Magazine, and the cover story is all about the racial wealth gap, and for Issa, it’s about Hollywood’s declines in employing Black creators and greenlighting shows written by, produced by and starring Black talent. Issa is one of the biggest Black creators working in Hollywood today – Time lists all of her companies and I was shocked to see how much she has going on (per Time): “Rae’s growing portfolio includes a production company (Hoorae), an indie music label (Raedio), a management company (Color Creative), a marketing agency (Fête), a prosecco line (Viarae), a hair-care brand (Sienna Naturals), and a stake in the U.S. SailGP Team.” AND she also owns an independent coffee shop in Inglewood. She’s not only a major creator, she’s a major employer, she is her own economy. Some highlights from Time:

Witnessing Hollywood backsliding on pledges to increase representation and diversity post-strikes. “I’ve never seen Hollywood this scared and clueless, and at the mercy of Wall Street.”

She doesn’t want to just create, she has to create successful projects: “I recognize that I have to do well economically to be able to make change. That’s frustrating, that’s ugly. But I recognize that money moves things faster—and so much of what I do is with the intention to help make those moves.”

Post-strike, so many projects disappeared: “But there was the frustration of, ‘Oh, my gosh, this project that I’ve been working on for five years just disappeared,’” she says. Rap Sh!t would not have been greenlit by WarnerMedia today, as all executives seem to want, she says, is safe, “universal” stories. Its cancellation is just one example of what Rae sees as a larger withering of promises Hollywood executives made in 2020 toward increasing diversity and representation, both on- and off-screen. “There is a bitterness of just like, who suffers from you guys pulling back? People of color always do,” she says.

On the current leaders of Hollywood. “I’m sorry, but there aren’t a lot of smart executives anymore. And a lot of them have aged out and are holding on to their positions and refusing to let young blood get in.” In prior eras, Rae says, the money-making suits mostly stayed away from creative choices. “Now these conglomerate leaders are also making the decisions about Hollywood. Y’all aren’t creative people. Stick to the money. The people that are taking chances are on platforms like TikTok: that’s what’s getting the eyeballs of the youth. So you’re killing your own industry.”

Questioning the feasibility of “smaller, quieter projects.” “When you have all of these streaming services that are competing with each other, it means they’re also moving the goalposts of what success looks like and what their brand is. It’s all mush. I know what my brand identity is and what I want to make. But if that doesn’t align with who’s paying me to make stuff, then that’s complex. We are malleable, but only to an extent.”

She doesn’t want her own blockbuster franchise. “I’m just excited to create and see what I can do in this space where everything is asking for those big, IP-driven things…I know what drives me and I know what brought me in—and I remember when they were telling me that they didn’t want to make my types of stories. So I’m still optimistic in that way.”

[From Time Magazine]

“Where everything is asking for those big, IP-driven things” – the thing is, Rae would likely never even step one foot in those meetings because the IPs aren’t there for Black women. No one is saying “let’s make the Black Barbie movie” or “we need to cast Issa as Wonder Woman.” That being said, I hope that she continues to dip her toe in those larger projects – she was wonderful in Barbie, and I hope she made lifelong allies in Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie. Robbie was similar to Rae when Margot created her production company, LuckyChap – the idea was to create more movies by and for women, and do it smaller. Then Margot asked to pitch for Mattel executives and the rest is history.

As for what Rae says about how the executives are scared, dumb and old… yeah, I believe that. We saw that play out during the SAG strike too – executives were truly saying the dumbest sh-t ever, and we saw Hollywood management slowly realize that they can’t actually treat their creators like garbage 24-7. She’s right about TikTok as well – executives are so far behind.

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

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Jay-Z received an honorary Grammy last night, the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award, and y’all know the Recording Academy was nervous about platforming Jay-Z and giving him the time to say whatever he wanted. They let him have the time though, and he stood on that stage and called them out – for failing to televise the Rap categories, for marginalizing “urban” music and for failing to recognize his wife in the major categories like Album of the Year.

Jay-Z used his acceptance speech at the 2024 Grammys to call out the organization that honored him with a special award. While accepting the 2nd annual Dr. Dre Global Impact Award — in recognition of his musical legacy — the hip-hop artist, 54, questioned the process behind the voted categories.

“We want y’all to get it right. At least getting close to right. And obviously it’s subjective. Y’all don’t gotta clap at everything. Obviously it’s subjective because, you know, it’s music and it’s opinion-based,” the artist started. “But, you know, some things — I don’t want to embarrass this young lady, but she has more Grammys than everyone and never won album of the year. So even by your own metrics, that doesn’t work. Think about that. The most Grammys, never won album of the year. That doesn’t work.”

While he didn’t mention the “young lady” by name, he appeared to be referring to his wife Beyoncé, who has been nominated for album of the year four times and never won. Beyoncé was up for best new artist in 2010 (losing to Taylor Swift), 2015 (losing to Beck), 2017 (losing to Adele) and 2023 (losing to Harry Styles).

“You know, some of you gonna go home tonight and feel like you’ve been robbed. Some of you may get robbed. Some of you don’t belong in a category. No, when I get nervous I tell the truth,” he added. JAY-Z’s latest comments echoed ones he made at last year’s Grammys. “The truth is, we grew up wanting to be on the Grammys, and it was our goal. We just want them to get it right. That’s what we want,” JAY-Z said in 2023 of Beyoncé’s Renaissance album, which lost to Styles.

He then called out his daughter, Blue Ivy, who joined him on stage for the award.

“Outside of that, you know, we got to keep showing up and forget the Grammys for a second. Just in life. As my daughter just sits and stares at me nervous as I am. Just in life, you got to keep showing up. Just keep showing up. Forget the Grammys you got to keep showing up until they give you all those accolades you feel you deserve. Until they call you Chairman, until they call you a genius until they call you the greatest of all time,” he concluded. “You feel me?”

[From People]

You could say that Jay-Z is at a point in his career where he can say these things and not be “punished” by the music powers-that-be, but that’s not really the point. The point is that however ass-backwards, however blatantly racist, however blatantly sexist, the Recording Academy and Grammys are still the biggest awards in music and they confer “legitimacy.” Jay walked the line between calling them out and acknowledging that he still wants them to do better for Black artists, because the Grammys actually do matter. It IS ridiculous that Beyonce has never won Album of the Year (she should have won it in 2017, for Lemonade).

Blue is so grown up!! And Beyonce looked like she didn’t even want to be there. That cowboy hat, LMAO!!

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Last night’s Grammys were a lot! I appreciate the celebrities who showed up early, revealed their dress designers, and gave us plenty of photos on the red carpet. Victoria Monet was one of my early favorites in a formfitting brown Versace corset gown. She was there with her boyfriend, John Hayes, and their two-year-old daughter, Hazel. Her family is beautiful. I don’t keep up with music as much as I should but of course I know On My Mama, it’s a fabulous song and such a smooth twist on the original. Victoria won Best R&B Album for Jaguar II in the pre-ceremony. She also won Best New Artist during the live show! Also I’m a sucker for the Bulgari snake necklace, that never goes out of style.

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Coco Jones was another early standout on the red carpet in a phenomenal Celia Kritharioti cornflower crystal gown with a deep v-neck. She won Best R&B performance for ICU. Coco stars on Bel-Air and she’s only 26. We’re going to see a lot more of her. Coco told Laverne Cox she was wearing Skims under her gown!

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Gracie Abrams, nominated in the Best New Artist category, was in a black Chanel look with a tube top and tiered skirt. During her red carpet interview she said she didn’t want to take up space and Laverne told her never to worry about that. For real. Gracie looked pretty and it’s the Grammys, some nominees want to be comfortable. Maybe glam is not her thing.

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Coi Leray was one of the fun early looks in a 2019 Yves Saint Laurent bodysuit look with a lime green muppet coat! She was having so much fun that it really showed. Coi was nominated for Best Rap Performance, for Players. That song is so much fun! Coi lost to Killer Mike in the pre-ceremony and she congratulated him during her red carpet interview. (Incidentally, there was so much drama with Killer Mike in the non-aired part of the Grammys. Embed from Getty Images

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E! red carpet host Laverne Cox was in a red Comme des Garçons dress from her own archive. She said the theme was “blood and roses” and I like how she had an answer to her own “what story are you telling?” question on the red carpet. Laverne got so many compliments on this edgy dress and it was perfect for the Grammys.

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photos credit: Getty

How long will it take for the royal reporters’ WhatsApp group to decide to start asking serious questions about Prince William and Kate? If the past is prologue, all it takes is one well-worded piece in the Sun or Mail to get the ball rolling. So far, they’ve been unwilling, which might indicate that they’re being promised something down the line. The Sun’s Royal Editor is currently regurgitating KP’s vague line about how much time off William will need:

It was expected the Princess of Wales would pause her engagements to take time to recover, but William will also be clearing his diary temporarily.

“We still don’t have a date for when William will return. So, we’re just in that situation where [the Princess of Wales] is at home, waiting for her to be settled, before we see William again,” The Sun’s Royal Editor Matt Wilkinson explained.”We know Kate won’t be back till after Easter. But I think William, as a devoted father and husband, can just take as long as Kate needs him to be there and that’s the message they’re sending out to us.”

[From The Sun]

That’s the palace’s line, as I said. That’s what KP is telling the royal-reporter WhatsApp group. But it looks like Rebecca English got her own special briefing, because she reported exclusively on Friday that William might be seen by the end of this week.

The Prince of Wales is likely to return to work next week, Daily Mail’s Royal Editor Rebecca English has told Palace Confidential. With three senior royals currently out of action, the past couple of weeks have looked relatively different for The Firm. The Prince of Wales, 41, has been caring for Kate Middleton, 42, as she recovers from an abdominal surgery at Adelaide Cottage in Windsor Great Park.

However, speaking on the Mail+’s weekly talk show, the Daily Mail’s Royal Editor Rebecca English, revealed that a sense of normality should be restored by the end of next week.

‘I think we could see him [William] doing some public engagements towards the end of next week I have to say. I think he’ll start to go back to work once she’s [Kate] settled,’ Rebecca said.

Speaking to podcast host Jo Elvin, Mail on Sunday’s Editor at Large Charlotte Griffiths and the Daily Mail’s diary editor Richard Eden, Rebecca explained that both Kate and Charles are doing well. But while Rebecca believes that William will make an imminent return to the public eye, Charles is expected to recuperate in private until the end of the month.

‘The King headed immediately for Clarence House, which is a London residence, and my understanding was that it was because he wanted to be within the vicinity of the hospital just for the first few days’, Rebecca said. She added: But after that I suspect he will head out to the country, maybe Windsor or Highgrove, for the next two or three weeks for recuperation.’

‘I doubt we’ll see him until the end of February out in public,’ the royal expert concluded.

[From The Daily Mail]

Yeah, at first they were saying that Charles would only need a few weeks of recovery, then it was upgraded to a month, and I suspect we might go up to five or six weeks for Charles. As for William… just last week, courtiers were soft-launching the idea that William would be off from work as long as Kate, as in we wouldn’t see him until after Easter too. Now Becky claims that William could be seen as soon as Thursday or Friday? Who knows. If it happens – whenever it happens – I’m sure William’s first event back will be stage-managed to a crazy degree. He’ll be asked about Kate, he’ll recite one sentence (“She’s doing well, thank you.”) and then he’ll pose in a hard hat or something. Will that settle the restless vibe in the royalist media?

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

Julia Roberts covers the latest issue of British Vogue, and she’s interviewed by her friend, filmmaker Richard Curtis. Curtis wrote Notting Hill and that’s where he met Julia, when she came in to meet about the role in the 1990s. Notting Hill is a movie which grew on me over time – at first I hated it, but when I watched it a few years ago, there are parts of it which really hold up. It’s not as sweet as I remembered – there’s an edge to it, especially Julia’s character. Anyway, Julia is charming in this interview, and it’s a reminder that she really is one of the last movie stars, one of the last “greats” of that generation, the pre-social media gen. Some highlights from British Vogue:

How she stays so young-looking: “Pickling. I put my head in the jar every other Saturday for 18 hours. It does wonders. The smell is awful. No – serious answer. Good genes, leading a life that is fulfilling, and I have said this – and I say it usually as kind of a joke – but I do believe in the love of a good man. I believe that my husband loves me and cares for me in a way that makes me feel deeply, deeply happy. And anytime you see someone who’s happy, it doesn’t matter how old they are. Anouk Aimée said to me, many years ago when I was very young and it didn’t occur to me that I would ever have a wrinkle, “You live your face in your life until you’re 50, and then you live your life on your face.”

She’s not a trained actor: “I still envy people I work with who are very technical. I find it really fascinating, and I envy it so much. There’s so many different ways to approach it. And honestly, one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do was your movie [Notting Hill, 1999], playing a movie actress. I was so uncomfortable! I mean, we’ve talked about this so many times, but I almost didn’t take the part because it just seemed – oh, it just seemed so awkward. I didn’t even know how to play that person.

Her G-rated career: “My G-rated career…You know, not to be criticising others’ choices, but for me to not take off my clothes in a movie or be vulnerable in physical ways is a choice that I guess I make for myself. But in effect, I’m choosing not to do something as opposed to choosing to do something. Not long ago, I did my whole family tree with the brilliant Dr Henry Gates. If you’ve seen his show, Finding Your Roots, it’s brilliant and I’m obsessed with it. One of the things he does at the very, very end is he tells you who they have discovered you are DNA cousins with. I won’t even say, “Can you guess who I’m DNA cousins with?” because there’s no telling what horrible person you would choose just to embarrass me in this interview, but I am DNA cousins with Gloria Steinem.

The next generations of actors: “Oh, it’s completely different from my time. I mean, that’s when I really feel like a dinosaur, when you just look at the structure of the business. It’s completely different. I don’t know if it’s better, because it’s not my experience, but it just seems very different. And in a way, it seems so cluttered. There are so many elements to being famous now, it just seems exhausting. Whereas I feel like, and again this is just my perception, because I don’t really know – I’m not a young person starting out in show business in the 21st century – but it seems to me that it was: you meet people, you read for parts, you try to get jobs, you get a job, you try to do a good job, and from that job, you might meet some new people who might suggest you to some other people and then you might get another job and you might get paid a little bit more for that job, and it might be a little bit of a better job. It kind of just made this sort of structural sense, and now it just seems more chaotic. There’s more elements, there’s more noise, there’s more outlets, there’s more stuff.

Her family life: “Well, I think that the luckiest aspect of my work life/family life is that the success of my work life came earlier. So by the time I had the success of my family life and had a husband and children who wanted to stay home, I had been working for 18 years. And so I felt that I had the luxury. I didn’t have to pick one or the other…It was easy to pause work life to nurture my home life. And so, because I have girlfriends who were having to juggle being at work and having to go into the bathroom, and you know, get out that breast pump, I sort of went through that with them by proxy. To be allowed the luxury of staying home and being with my family, I had a deep gratitude for that time.

[From British Vogue]

Curtis really pressed her about how she stays so youthful and Julia was lying her ass off! I mean, yes, she does have good genes and she was always a natural beauty (more than that, she’s always been otherworldly photogenic), but Julia has absolutely had some surgical upkeep. No shade, but it’s been obvious for years. I don’t really get why she went from “I never did nudity in films” to “Gloria Steinem is my cousin!” Feminism isn’t “don’t take your clothes off in movies.” That mentality is so dated, but hey, Julia sort of fits in with the Puriteens. Her most interesting comments are about how much the industry has changed and how she doesn’t really understand how things work for young actors these days. She’s not alone – the industry which nurtured her and helped her become one of the biggest movie stars in the world does not exist anymore.

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Cover & IG courtesy of British Vogue.

Last July, Spotify pulled the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s contract after only one successful season of Meghan’s Archetypes podcast. The British media – and some of the trade papers in LA – had a field day, because apparently Harry and Meghan were the stand-alone story and it wasn’t about the larger issues with the paid-subscriber model for Spotify-exclusive podcasts. Months later, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said as much, that the Sussexes’ were victims of a larger, industry-wide post-pandemic restructuring. Of course, that larger narrative – which also included the Obamas leaving Spotify – was ignored by haters. What was also ignored was Spotify’s blatant shift to right-wing podcasting and the fact that Joe Rogan is their golden goose. Rogan is a vaccine skeptic and he favors right-wing guests and talking points. Spotify just loaded up the money truck for his new contract.

Spotify has reached a new deal with star podcaster Joe Rogan that will allow his hit show to be distributed broadly. Rogan’s fresh deal—estimated to be worth as much as $250 million over its multiyear term, according to people familiar with the matter—involves an upfront minimum guarantee, plus a revenue sharing agreement based on ad sales.

Under the new licensing agreement, Spotify will sell ads for and distribute “The Joe Rogan Experience” across several podcast platforms, including in a video format on YouTube, the company said Friday. Under his previous deal, the show was exclusive to Spotify.

“The Joe Rogan Experience” has released more than 2,200 episodes.

“Cool conversations are a kind of mental nourishment,” Rogan said in a Spotify blog post announcing the new deal. Listening to those discussions “encourages people to have similar conversations with their friends, and it just generally makes life more interesting.”

The new deal is emblematic of shifting economics in podcasting, which has matured in both audience reach and advertising spending since Rogan’s last deal. Spotify is working to revise the terms of its deals with top talent so that shows are distributed on several platforms to maximize their audience and ad sales, rather than requiring exclusivity. It is also aiming to pay smaller minimum guarantees and emphasize revenue sharing, a model that helps share risk with talent.

Spotify struck its first deal with Rogan in 2020 during its initial blitz into the medium. It agreed to pay more than $100 million to bring “The Joe Rogan Experience” to Spotify exclusively in a bid to jump-start podcast listening on its platform. The show has remained far and away the most popular podcast on Spotify.

[From WSJ]

“The show has remained far and away the most popular podcast on Spotify” – I mean, Archetypes regularly dethroned it on a weekly basis, but I guess that doesn’t count when you’re busy polishing Rogan’s knob. It is legitimately wild to me that Joe Rogan, a washed-up actor turned reality-competition-show host turned UFC commentator, would end up as the voice of the increasingly chaotic “low-education white male” demographic. I don’t begrudge Rogan’s huge contract, but let’s not pretend that Spotify hasn’t made a very specific choice here.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, screencaps from ‘TJRE’.

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Happy Groundhog Day! Punxsutawney Phil didn’t see his shadow this morning, which means that spring will come early. [CNN]
Punxsutawney Phil has an amazing personal profile at HL. [Hollywood Life]
Why did Larry David attack Elmo?? He’s just a child! [Pajiba]
I’ve heard some people say that the Donald Glover/Maya Erskine version of Mr. and Mrs. Smith is actually really good. [LaineyGossip]
Emma Stone wore a brown outfit (blah). [Go Fug Yourself]
Devery Jacobs was also one of the people speaking out against KOTFM. [OMG Blog]
Tech companies endorse a bill which would wipe abortion information from the internet. What in the Gilead?? [Jezebel]
Halle Bailey stepped out with DDG. [Just Jared]
Bryce Dallas Howard’s stylist is doing a great job these days. [RCFA]
Alan Cumming really has been around forever. [Seriously OMG]
Gen X talks about what Gen Z doesn’t know. [Buzzfeed]

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It’s more than likely that the Princess of Wales’s medical mystery turns out to be incredibly serious, when we eventually learn what exactly happened. It’s also more than likely that it’s been amateur hour from Kensington Palace this whole time. Both things can be true at once: Kate’s situation is serious AND KP completely bungled the release of information, which led to weeks of speculation and ham-fisted damage control from staffers who can’t manage their way out of a paper bag. Last weekend, the Spanish media was widely reporting on Kate’s surgery and medical situation, and one Spanish royal expert claimed she heard, from sources, that Kate’s condition was dire, to the point where Kate had been in a medically-induced coma. The next day, Kate was suddenly discharged from the London Clinic and the British and American media suddenly has a vested interest in minimizing Kate’s situation and making Kate’s situation sound like it was no big deal. Five days after the Spanish media was widely reporting the “coma” story, “palace sources” have finally come out to try to rebut that speculation:

Palace officials are said to have been left furious after a Spanish news show’s ‘made up’ claims that Kate was in a ‘coma’ and in ‘great danger’ following abdominal surgery.

Overseas journalist Concha Calleja claimed doctors had to act quickly as they were ‘saving her life’ in a broadcast the day before she was released from hospital The writer, 59, who has appeared on Spanish TV as a royal expert, said the medical team’s ‘drastic’ actions included intubating the 42-year-old Princess of Wales and putting her in an induced coma.

She claimed: ‘There were serious complications that they didn’t expect because the operation went well, but the post-operative period didn’t go so well.’

She continued that Kate’s recovery was ‘possibly going to require a bit of assistance, and I’m not just referring to her family’ – as she said ‘practically an entire hospital’ was being set up to support her at their Windsor home. But the Spaniard’s claims – made on news channel Fiesta – have been rubbished by the palace.

‘It’s total nonsense,’ a source told The Telegraph. ‘No attempt was made by that journalist to fact-check anything that she said with anyone in the household. It’s fundamentally totally made up, and I’ll use polite English here: it’s absolutely not the case.’

The most-watched channel in Spain for 13 years, Fiesta is known for its gossip shows and was founded by an Italian media company formerly owned by Silvio Berlusconi. The claims about the Princess of Wales quickly went viral – and was even taken up by the country’s more serious sites including El Confidencial, La Vanguardia and La Razon.

Calleja claimed to have gained the insight from an aid in the royal household ‘in a completely confidential manner’ – something the Palace has completely refuted. They also strenuously denied her assertions that Kate had been taken to hospital for the first time on December 28, where she stayed for several days, as she said she ‘began to feel unwell, not for the first time.’

[From The Daily Mail]

Not only did it take “the palace” nearly a week to pushback on the coma story, it’s taken them three weeks to push back on the “Kate was rushed to the hospital on December 28” rumor, which spread like wildfire on social media, and I even half-believe it too. Whatever Kate is going through, I’d be willing to bet it’s been an issue for many weeks, if not months. As for the palace finally doing some pushback on the coma story… I don’t know what to believe anymore. KP is definitely being way too furtive, but some of these conspiracies feel so wide off the mark. As I’ve said before, wherever Kate is and whatever her condition, I hope she’s receiving quality care and I hope she’s doing okay.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images, Backgrid.

From Kensington Palace’s sudden pushback on the “Kate was in a coma” speculation to this new exclusive in the Daily Beast, it finally seems like the palace communications office is finally back from vacation. Did they have all of January off? KP announced on Monday that Kate was discharged from the hospital and that she’s returned to Adelaide Cottage, where she’ll recuperate for the next two to five months. “After Easter” is what we were told at first, but they keep extending it, like Kate might be iffy for Trooping the Colour in June. This week, there’s also been a strange effort to minimize Kate’s situation. Now the Daily Beast’s Royalist column is doing the most to make it sound like this has all been expertly handled (???) because Kate and William are showing the world that they’ll do things their own way, which means months and months of never being seen. There’s also some speculation about when William will “come back to work.” Some highlights:

A change of protocol: Former royal editor of the Sun, Duncan Larcombe, told The Daily Beast: “The whole of their focus is on her recovery and their family right now. This is a big change in protocol: it’s not really the done thing in royal circles to be seen to be taking great swathes of time off for a mere illness. You keep going. Just look at the queen; even when she was dying, she would get it together for five minutes and walk out onto the balcony and wave. The queen mother had breast cancer in the late 70s—but that didn’t emerge until after her death in 2002! Any suggestion that Prince Philip was ever seriously ill was always aggressively denied by Buckingham Palace. William and Kate are making it very clear that times have changed and they won’t be bound by the old ways of doing things. Instead, they are going to act like anyone else in this position, and are putting their family first.”

Nanny Maria is a big help: The Daily Beast understands that William and the couple’s nanny, Maria Teresa Turrion Borrallo, are splitting household duties including school runs for the children, with Kate under doctor’s orders to remain in bed as much as possible. Borrallo… has become a trusted and valued member of the domestic household, one whose presence will be relied on more than ever in the months ahead.

When Kate & William will be back to work: Kensington Palace have said that Kate will not be expected to return to public life until April. After Kate was admitted to hospital, palace sources told The Daily Beast that William would be absent from public duties, “during the immediate period following her return home.” They have since declined to enlarge on that carefully ambiguous formulation. In contrast to Kate’s protracted absence from public life, King Charles is understood to be mending well from his much more minor prostate procedure. Some sources have suggested he could be back doing public engagements as soon as next week. When it comes to William and Kate, however, no-one is making any bets, although some hope that William might return to public engagements relatively soon.

Maybe William will attend the BAFTAs after all: One source said: “It would help give a sense of normality, and that things are being adequately managed, if William made a few public appearances. Perhaps the BAFTAS [the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards] will be the moment.” Certainly, if William, President of BAFTA since February 2010 is not able or willing to attend the awards, scheduled to take place on 18 February, his non-appearance will cut through to the general public, precisely because of his near-perfect attendance record at the ceremony.

Other sources think William will be MIA for longer: A friend of the couple told The Daily Beast: “I don’t think William will be doing anything at all in the next few weeks.” Asked if they thought that was a sign of how seriously the couple are taking Kate’s recovery, the friend said, “It is totally unprecedented. It’s just about two very conscientious parents putting their children, on whom there is tremendous pressure, first.”

No one will cover for the Waleses: There seem to be no plans for any other royals to step into William and Kate’s shoes while they are off work. A royal source told The Daily Beast: “William and Kate have their own royal household, so it wouldn’t be appropriate for Prince Edward, for example, to suddenly start representing them, in the way he could represent the king.”

[From The Daily Beast]

“If William, President of BAFTA since February 2010 is not able or willing to attend the awards…his non-appearance will cut through to the general public, precisely because of his near-perfect attendance record at the ceremony.” BAFTA President William has actually skipped the ceremony seven times since 2010. If he skips this year’s ceremony, that will be the eighth time. The other times he’s skipped, it’s usually been for reasons like “he needed to recover from his holiday” or “he didn’t feel like it.” He even skips the pre-BAFTA party HELD AT KENSINGTON PALACE every damn year.

As for when Will and Kate will return… the way the wind is blowing, I would say Kate probably won’t be seen until May. I think William will probably aim for one or two March events. Maybe he’ll take the kids to church on Easter Sunday.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.