Anna Wintour went to Buckingham Palace on Tuesday for a special investiture conducted by King Charles himself. In a 2023 honors list, Wintour was made a Companion of Honour for her services to fashion. For the palace appearance, Wintour went with a pale grey suit by McQueen, paired with an amethyst necklace which has some royal history. According to People Mag, the amethysts once belonged to Queen Mary (King Charles’s great-grandmother), and it’s likely that Wintour bought the amethysts or the necklace itself at auction. She’s owned the necklace for years and she wears it to many big events.

While Wintour only met with the king yesterday, she was asked about the sus report that she had offered an American/global Vogue cover to the Princess of Wales. The Mail’s initial story was weird though, and it definitely seemed like Kate was the one offering herself to Wintour. Given that the report was followed by Kensington Palace’s announcement that they would no longer give fashion IDs for Kate (because “substance over style”), it’s all been very weird messaging from Team Keen. Well, Wintour was asked about it and this is what happened:

Dame Anna Wintour offered a cryptic response today when questioned about rumours that the Princess of Wales had been offered global Vogue covers.

The fashion editor addressed the speculation with a smile during her visit to Buckingham Palace, where she received one of Britain’s highest honours.

“Yeah, I don’t know where those rumours have come from, do you?” Wintour said when asked about the reports during the investiture ceremony.

[From GB News]

Yeah, she’s not going to say anything to alienate the Windsors, especially when she’s standing in Buckingham Palace. If she made Kate an offer, Wintour would be cryptic about it too. But it also feels like Wintour is sort of pushing back, as in – don’t believe everything Kensington Palace briefs to the Daily Mail. As if the Mail would get that information exclusively, you know?

Fashion editor Dame Anna Wintour told the King she will not stop working as she removed her trademark sunglasses when she was honoured at an investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace pic.twitter.com/ScsfHipVwK

— PA Media (@PA) February 4, 2025

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

The Daily Beast’s Royalist columnist, Tom Sykes, has always had suspiciously good sources in Prince William’s camp. For years – although not in recent months, weirdly – the Royalist has had abundant sources sharing every little detail of William’s thoughts on Prince Harry, William’s thoughts on Harry’s work, William’s thoughts on how Harry is obviously desperate to come back to the UK to be William’s doormat, and William’s thoughts on how William fantasizes daily about punishing Harry for his many perceived transgressions. Now the Royalist magically has a source spilling their guts about NGN’s settlement with Prince Harry last month. Curious, isn’t it? Especially since NGN bought William’s silence (and probably a lot more) and William regularly hands exclusives to NGN to this day. According to these sources, NGN settled with Harry for £10 million and the bulk of the settlement money is going towards Harry’s legal fees. According to these sources, Harry got played. Yes, I’m sure someone in the Windsor clan wants to believe that.

Prince Harry received just a fraction of the reported £10 million ($12.5 million) settlement he reached with Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers (NGN), with “75 percent” going towards his costs, and a smaller chunk to his co-defendant, Tom Watson, a source with knowledge of the matter has told The Daily Beast. Harry’s team has consistently emphasized that the “full and unequivocal” apology to Harry and his mother and NGN’s admission of criminality at the Sun were the critical factors in his decision.

Immediately after the trial, it was widely reported that Harry had walked away with an “eight-figure” settlement, suggesting he had received more than £10 million (around $12 million). While some reports noted that he would have to pay legal costs, some British media, notably that portion of it that tends to be hyper-critical of Harry, characterized the deal as Harry being bought off by the prospect of pocketing a handsome “profit.”

In fact, that is very far from the truth. The Daily Beast can now reveal that after costs, Harry could have received as little as £2 million ($2.5 million)—thought to be just a million pounds more than the sum his brother, Prince William, received from NGN in a secret 2020 deal to resolve his phone hacking claims.

A source with knowledge of the deal told The Daily Beast that “any sum being speculated on was a total sum and includes damages and costs for the two cases (Sussex and Watson) and a majority (in the region of 75%) of the total figure is provided to cover legal costs.”

Prince Harry and NGN both declined to comment. However, the revelation that Harry received a relatively paltry sum after costs may actually bolster the argument widely made by those close to him and his supporters: that what Harry really cared about was NGN’s admission of criminal activity at the Sun, which it has always denied. Sources sympathetic to Harry said that NGN’s admission of guilt was the pivotal factor in Harry accepting their offer and pointed to an article in the magazine Prospect, which said NGN’s settlement looked like “a desperate last-minute move by a publisher anxious to avoid a public trial of the claims.”

One legal source told The Daily Beast: “The amount of damages was actually settled a week before the case opened, what delayed it was the accountability issue. Harry wanted senior NGN executives who he alleged were involved in hacking and the cover up to be named but that was never going to happen. In the end what NGN did, which was a very clever piece of lawyering, was to admit to wrongdoing that was already widely known about, and not admit to the cover-up. Harry’s side has put together a file for the police about the cover-up but [a prosecution] is never going to happen because it was a long time ago and unlawful news gathering has now stopped. Millions of police hours have been spent on this and the police need to get on to ‘now’ problems —such as young men being radicalized in their bedrooms—as opposed to historic matters seen as basically affecting Prince Harry.”

[From The Daily Beast]

This makes zero sense – a legal source claims that Harry and NGN came to an agreement on the settlement amount a week earlier, and yet there was panic when the lawyers couldn’t get in touch with Harry on the day the trial was supposed to start? NGN made only a partial capitulation at the last minute – “a very clever piece of lawyering” – because they held all the power, huh? As opposed to everything we saw unfold in real time – NGN played chicken with the ginger prince and the prince didn’t blink. He was fully prepared to drag them to hell and back in the trial and NGN (the Murdochs) decided they needed to do everything they could to keep this sh-t from coming out in open court. No, this Daily Beast story is wishful thinking on the part of the British media complex and the Windsors. The over-emphasis on William’s settlement and how Harry effectively only got double what William got… I recognize those fingerprints. I’ve seen this framing before.

Also: I still believe the reporting from that week that it was likely that any settlement would have NGN paying Harry’s legal bills separately from the settlement. I also don’t believe that NGN successfully low-balled Harry, for what it’s worth.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Last month, the Duchess of Sussex spent a lot of time in Pasadena and Altadena after the wildfires ripped through the area and turned whole communities to ash. We knew that Meghan talked to evacuees and that she and Harry were serving food and meeting with first responders and officials. We also know that Meghan was offering a lot of support to the Altadena Girls. Well, it looks like Meghan was also meeting with families whose lives were upended by the disaster, and she befriended a family with a teenage girl. All the girl wanted was her Billie Eilish concert t-shirt, but it had been destroyed in the fire. So Meghan used all of her contacts to get a voice memo to Billie Eilish, and wouldn’t you know, Billie got the message and sent a big package full of signed merch to Meghan, to give to this teenager. Meghan made an IG video about it:

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I’m amazed by the shout-out she gave to Adam Levine and Behati Prinsloo – Adam and Behati are married and they have three kids and a home in Montecito. Of course Adam would know how to get in touch with Billie, or at the very least, Adam would know how to get in touch with Billie’s people. All this time, it was never really on the British media’s radar that the Sussexes might socialize with Adam and Behati. LOL. Anyway, well done by everyone involved – it was great that Meghan reached out to find some way to get a Billie Eilish t-shirt for one of the wildfire victims who lost everything. It was great that Meghan’s friends and contacts helped her get in touch with Billie, and it was great that Billie made sure that one of her biggest fans got a really nice merch package. The lunchbox is great, what a collector’s item!

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

After months of rumors about their marriage being on the rocks, Lily Allen and David Harbour confirmed earlier this week that they’ve separated. David and Lily got together after meeting on the exclusive dating app Raya in early 2019 and got married in Las Vegas in September 2020. Over the past few months, there’s been rumors that they were having problems because Lily caught David cheating or that Lily had relapsed. Lily addressed that gossip on a recent episode of her podcast, Miss Me?, saying it wasn’t true. She didn’t do much to quell rumors of a split, though, when she admitted that she’s was not in a good place and felt herself “spiraling.” And now we have confirmation thanks to a People exclusive.

Lily Allen and David Harbour are calling it quits. The “Smile” singer, 39, and the Stranger Things actor, 49, have separated after four years of marriage, multiple sources confirm to PEOPLE.

“Her marriage has been crumbling,” an insider tells PEOPLE exclusively, “and they have split.”

Reps for Allen and Harbour did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.

Allen — who married Harbour in 2020 after meeting on the celebrity dating app Raya — alluded to a recent “tough time” on the Dec. 16 episode of her BBC podcast Miss Me? with co-host Miquita Oliver.

Though Allen did not offer additional details as to the source of her trouble, she said it was affecting her mental health and causing her problems with her eating.

[From People]

According to an “insider,” Lily is “devastated and not in a good place” and that the separation has been “very hard” for both her and her two daughters, Ethel Mary, 13 and Marnie Rose, 12, who were close with David. I know Lily can be problematic as hell, but I do feel for her and I kinda liked them together. She seemed to really love David and whatever the ultimate cause of their split was, I bet she felt they could work it out. I also truly feel for Ethel and Mary. If they were as close with David as we’ve heard they were, then they must be going through a tough time right now. I hope Lily can keep herself together emotionally to be there for them. I am also certain that this is only the beginning of these types of exclusives and we’ll totally find out what went down sooner rather than later.

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Photos credit: Julie Edwards/Avalon, celebrityphotos uk/Avalon, Nicky Nelson/Wenn/Avalon, Michael Simon/startraksphoto.com, Craig Sugden For Netflix and screenshots from their Architectural Digest video via YouTube

To be perfectly clear, there was probably a version of these events in which Karla Sofia Gascon went on an American talk show and made a sincere-ish apology for all of her hateful tweets. She could have cried and accepted full responsibility and promised to do better from here. Would people buy it? No, but they would have given her credit for owning her mistakes, and some part of Emilia Perez’s Oscar campaign could have been salvaged. That version would have stopped the bleeding to some extent. The controversy wasn’t merely about the spectacularly awful tweets – it was also about the sh-tty way Gascon mishandled the situation, with arrogance, lies and a deep well of self-pity. Apparently, she refused to take Netflix’s advice and she spent the better part of the past week doing even more damage than anyone thought possible. So, now Netflix is washing their hands of Karla Sofia. She will no longer come to LA this week for various awards shows, and other Oscar nominees are asking to not participate in any event in which Gascon would be included.

This week, Emilia Pérez best actress Oscar nominee Karla Sofía Gascón was expected to fly to Los Angeles from her home in Spain for a busy week of awards campaigning. On Thursday, Feb. 6, she was to be seated with her writer-director, Jacques Audiard, and co-stars, Selena Gomez and Zoe Saldaña, at the AFI Awards luncheon, a glittery gathering at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills at which each of the AFI’s top 10 films and top 10 TV shows of the past year have a table, and much mingling occurs.

On the evening of Friday, Feb. 7, she and her colleagues would have reconvened at the Critics Choice Awards, at a table in the center of Santa Monica’s Barker Hangar, a giant space that will be packed to the gills with not only fellow nominees, but also dozens of selfie- and quote-seeking journalists. Saturday, Feb. 8, presented a dilemma for a lot of talent: The Directors Guild Awards and the Producers Guild Awards are happening opposite each other, and Emilia Pérez is nominated for the top awards of both. Gascón was to be deployed to the PGA Awards, at Century City’s Fairmont Century Plaza hotel, where she was to serve as a presenter.

And then on Sunday, Feb. 9, she was to have made the drive up to Santa Barbara to be feted as one of this year’s nine Virtuoso Award recipients at an Arlington Theatre ceremony at which the honorees would be interviewed individually and then collectively. The others set to be feted include her co-star Gomez and fellow best actress nominee Fernanda Torres (I’m Still Here).

However, given the massive controversy that has engulfed Gascón in recent days regarding commentary that she posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) — posts about which Gascón has, in recent days, been regularly writing on social media and discussing in interviews, without consultation or coordination with Netflix, which owns Emilia Pérez’s distribution rights in the United States, Canada and the UK — The Hollywood Reporter has learned that she will not be coming to town at all.

Tensions are said to be high between Gascón and the streamer, which has invested millions in the film’s awards push. It was flourishing as recently as Jan. 23, when the film received a field-leading 13 Oscar nominations, just one shy of the all-time record. The two parties are now said to be communicating only through Gascón’s agent, Jeremy Barber of UTA. And it is my understanding that there is no great interest on the part of Netflix to provide the usual courtesies afforded by a studio to an Oscar contender, such as transportation and accommodations, to facilitate her attendance at the remaining awards season gatherings.

The streamer is not the only party interested in distancing itself from Gascón. THR has learned that others who were to have attended some of the aforementioned events alongside the actress, such as the Santa Barbara Film Festival event, had indicated that they might have to cancel their participation if she did not cancel hers, out of concern that things could get very uncomfortable with her there.

[From THR]

THR’s Scott Feinberg (who wrote this ^ piece) also notes that Netflix is basically just focusing their efforts on salvaging Zoe Saldana’s Oscar chances in any way possible. This is basically unheard of though, for a studio/streamer to tell their star (and Oscar nominee) to stay home and not come out to schmooze or glad-hand. Netflix is definitely putting it out there that Gascon has not been listening to their advice, and that her self-pitying PR tour in recent days was not their idea. Variety also noted that Gascon and Zoe Saldana share the same PR firm – which would be awkward, except everyone is saying that people are only communicating with Gascon through her UTA agent. Netflix is also no longer paying for Gascon’s clothes or style team for any events – if she wants to attend any awards show, she’ll have to buy or borrow a dress on her own and pay for her glam squad out of pocket, not to mention hire her own car and driver. Yeah… I have NEVER seen anything like this during an awards season.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

I keep talking about how time keeps flying but Keke Palmer’s son, Leodis, turns two this month. I feel like we just heard about how he was born! Anyway, Keke’s latest movie, One of Them Days, dropped in theaters on January 17 and did very well with critics and at the box office. It co-stars SZA and Katt Williams, and was produced by Issa Rae. Over the past week or so, a clip from an interview that Keke did with Glamour in 2022 has been making the rounds. In it, she’s asked if she prefers to go by “Keke” or her birth name, Lauren. Her answer? She “would love” it if people started calling her Lauren again.

Keke Palmer is eager to use her birth name again!

In a recently resurfaced clip from a 2022 Glamour interview, the One of Them Days actress admitted that she “would love to go to back to” her given name, Lauren, “more than anything.”

“[Keke] went from being just something that my family called me to being something that the whole world called me,” said Palmer, 31, at the time.

The Nope actress explained that her manager at the time “heard my mom call me Keke ’cause I wasn’t listening. So she was like, ‘Keke. Keke!’ ”

“And he said, ‘That’s … that should be your stage name,’ ” she recalled, also saying, “I actually don’t prefer to go by Keke instead of Lauren.”

Palmer is one of many celebrities whose stage name is different from their given name, including Will Ferrell, Michael Keaton and Emma Stone.

[From People]

Well, the more you know! I had no idea that Keke’s real name was Lauren. I always just assumed Keke was short for Kristen, Keisha, Keira, or something similar. But, yeah, I get it. Some names are personal and reserved for family use only. Lauren was young when they came up with her stage name. How was she to know that it would stick around for this long? I looked it up, and her middle name is Keyana, but Keke is actually inspired by the name of her older sister’s childhood imaginary friend. I wonder if she’ll ever make the switch professionally or just go by it in her everyday life, the way that everyone knows that Lady Gaga’s real name is Stefani, Emma Stone prefers her birth name, Emily, and that Sandra Bullock goes by Sandy.

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photos credit: Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Avalon, TheStewartOfNY/INSTARimages, Roger Wong/INSTARimages

Monday was a wild day at the New York Stock Exchange, as the markets reacted to Donald Trump’s moronic trade war. For years, racist idiots claimed that they voted for Trump because “he’s a businessman and he’ll be good for business.” He hasn’t been in office for three full weeks and he’s already tanking the American economy and planes are falling out of the sky. Yesterday, after insulting and denigrating our North American trade partners, drama queen Don made some “last minute deals” to pause his tariffs on Canada and Mexico for 30 days. Apparently, Mexico and Canada rooked the con man – they “promised” to deliver on things they were already doing and Trump took those deals to save face. However, the tariffs on Chinese goods have started, and China is already retaliating.

Beijing responded swiftly on Tuesday to the tariffs President Trump had promised, announcing a fusillade of countermeasures targeting American companies and imports of critical products. Mr. Trump’s 10 percent tariff on all Chinese products went into effect at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, the result of an executive order issued over the weekend aimed at pressuring Beijing to crack down on fentanyl shipments into the United States.

The Chinese government came back with a series of retaliatory steps, including additional tariffs on liquefied natural gas, coal, farm machinery and other products from the United States. It also said it had implemented restrictions on the export of certain critical minerals, many of which are used in the production of high-tech products.

In addition, Chinese market regulators said they had launched an antimonopoly investigation into Google. Google is blocked from China’s internet, but the move may disrupt the company’s dealings with Chinese companies.

The U.S. tariffs, which Mr. Trump said on Monday were an “opening salvo,” come on top of levies that the president imposed during his first term. Many Chinese products already faced a 10 or 25 percent tariff, and the move adds a 10 percent tariff to more than $400 billion of goods that Americans purchase from China each year.

Mr. Trump had been planning to hit America’s three largest trading partners, Canada, Mexico and China, with tariffs of varying degrees. But after days of frantic negotiations, Mr. Trump agreed to pause the tariffs on Mexico and Canada for 30 days after the Canadian and Mexican governments promised to step up their oversight of fentanyl and the border.

[From The NY Times]

But the price of eggs, amirite? Now Trump voters are falling all over themselves to justify Trump’s sh-tty economic policies and his tanking of the American economy. What’s sad is that the only thing which might stop Trump’s economic death spiral is the avarice of the Republican business class. Speaking of, Rupert Murdoch was in the Oval Office on Monday too – the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal has been very critical of Trump’s tariffs and his moronic economic policy. While Murdoch supports Trump in a general sense, apparently Murdoch can’t stand Trump on a personal level. I wonder if Murdoch was sent by the business contingent to tell Trump to settle down.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

Thank God we’re no longer supposed to talk about the Princess of Wales’s style whatsoever, because she walked out of her house today looking particularly bedraggled. Kate and her shapeless grey-and-brown ensemble were out today in London, where she rode on a bus with a group of school kids and they visited the National Portrait Gallery. This is the big launch/relaunch of Kate’s Early Years project, Shaping Us. Or something, whatever, Kate is keen about kids.

The Princess of Wales travelled by coach along with an enthusiastic group of five-year-olds as she joined them on a visit to an exhibition in central London. Rather than a formal arrival in a royal car, the princess stepped off the bus with the primary school class as they pulled up at the National Portrait Gallery.

The children were visiting a trail around the gallery encouraging them to think about their emotions, linked to Catherine’s early years education project, Shaping Us.

At the weekend she launched an initiative aimed at teaching young children about “positive relationships” and challenging “mistrust and misunderstanding”.

The gallery visit is another part of Catherine’s gradual return to work after completing her cancer treatment. The gallery, which has Catherine as its royal patron, has opened an interactive, storytelling trail for young children, with activities encouraging them to think about their emotions as they create their own self-portrait.

Children from All Souls primary school in Westminster in London tried out the exhibition which uses the idea of a magical tree, with the royal visit surprising visitors at the gallery.

[From BBC]

Something nice: I think it’s cool when big, fancy museums do these kinds of kid-specific programs and interactive exhibitions. Kids should learn that museums are open to them too, and I just love that kids get to go on these kinds of field trips. As for Kate and her substance… I guess the substance of this was Kate encouraging the kids to talk about their emotions? “I feel” statements, perchance? I feel that Kate wore a really bad ensemble on purpose to challenge us to NOT talk about it. We’re also not supposed to talk about how she’s not wearing Big Blue, right? She’s wearing her “new eternity band.”

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

Over the weekend, Kensington Palace told royal reporters that they (KP) would no longer provide information or designer IDs on the Princess of Wales’s clothes. While the Times was the first to report the “news,” many other outlets independently got the story too. It was a real thing, a real briefing from KP, that Kate is demanding that everyone talk about her “work” and not her style. People had a lot of theories as to why this message, why now, and what was behind it. I agree that something weird has been happening with Kate’s wardrobe budget – it’s been noticeably slashed. I also think the “no IDs” thing is an admission of defeat, as in: Kate is not a fashionista and she’s tired of trying to compete at that level. Still, the usual suspects are trying to massage this into a victory for Kate, because at least she’s not like the very fashionable and chic Meghan! So predictable.

The Princess of Wales is reportedly making an important change as she returns slowly to royal duties after being treated for cancer, and will no longer release details of the outfits she wears on public engagements. Explaining the decision, a Kensington Palace source told the Sunday Times that there is ‘an absolute feeling that it [the public work] is not about what the princess is wearing.’

This desire to keep the focus totally on her work is in direct contrast to the approach taken by her sister-in-law Meghan Markle who has spoken about how she wears outfits by brands she’s invested in, knowing they will get a sales boost.

The Duchess of Sussex has been building her investment portfolio since she left the Firm with Prince Harry in 2020, and has put money into five to ten brands – including handbag label Cesta Collective, whose designs she’s sported on mulitple occasions.

With Kate determined for the focus to be on her work, it raises the question of whether she wants to distance herself from her sister-in-law’s approach of putting the focus on her outfits. While the future Queen hasn’t invested money in any of the brands she wears, she is fully aware that her endorsement will give labels a welcome sales boost. Kate is often seen supporting her favourite British brands such as Sarah Burton, who designed her wedding dress, Jenny Packham, Boden, LK Bennett and Whistles.

Since Kate officially became a member of the Royal Family in 2011, Kensington Palace would routinely issue press with details of the garments she wore to events. But it seems that the mother-of-three is hoping to shine the spotlight away from her clothes and more on the work she does to help charities and other causes.

The Duchess of Sussex, also known for her stylish and elegant ensembles, often dons accessories and clothing from ‘smaller, up-coming’ brands, before investing in a handful. Her wardrobe, like Kate’s, holds influential power, as a bag from the Scottish brand Strathberry sold out 11 minutes after Meghan was seen proudly sporting it on an engagement with Harry.

[From The Daily Mail]

Actually a bit surprised that the Mail admitted that Meghan drives fashion sales and that people are fascinated by what she wears. I mean, yeah, there’s a difference between the two women. Meghan has a great eye for fashion and accessories and she wears clothes well. Kate… used to have a large budget for fussy, button-covered coatdresses. Meghan uses her money and stardom to invest in smaller, female-owned brands and bring more attention to the brands. Kate wanders around in Sister Wife dresses and she apparently doesn’t want those brands to get any attention or boost from her style patronage. You can really tell that the British media isn’t crazy about Kate’s new “substance over style” tantrum. They can’t even gin up any rage over Meghan in their comparison.

Also: the Telegraph had a piece about Kate’s “substance over style” thing, and they quote Bethan Holt, the newspaper’s Fashion Director. Holt hilariously said this: “Fashion has always been a delicate subject for Kate. It was obvious from the beginning of her relationship with William that her style choices would be closely scrutinised and there was almost no way that she couldn’t play into that. It was reported that she was keen not to become an instant style icon in the way that Princess Diana had.” You guys, she never wanted to be a style icon like Diana! She never wanted to be fashionable or fun or iconic!

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Last month, Southern California was devastated by widespread wildfires. Densely populated areas like Pasadena and Altadena were very heavily damaged and thousands of people’s lives have been radically altered. Amid the chaos of the fires, a group of teenage girls in Altadena decided to put together what they hoped would be a week-long pop-up “shop” where teens could come in and get some fresh clothes, makeup, skincare and other items they needed. They called themselves the Altadena Teen Girls Fire Recovery Group, or Altadena Girls for short. Their little project took off instantly, with celebrities and major charities stepping in with donations and all kinds of help. One of the celebrities doing the most? The Duchess of Sussex, and her Archewell Foundation. The founder of Altadena Girls spoke to Marie Claire exclusively about their mission, and how Meghan helped out and more. Some highlights:

Altadena Girls was started by 14-year-old Avery Colvert: In the days following [the fires], Colvert gathered clothing to help local wildfire victims. Then she and stepdad Matt Chait had an idea: They would “collect some clothes from whomever will donate” and “have a little bit of a free fair for one day.” Colvert decided to also include products like skincare, accessories and makeup—“exactly what a teenage girl would want.” A friend of her stepdad’s offered his creative space, Small Green Door, for them to use.

It was supposed to be a temporary thing: “It was supposed to be a weeklong plan,” Colvert says with a laugh. However, word quickly spread and “within probably 30 minutes of releasing the location” there were “trucks lined up down the street donating items.” Celebrities like Paris Hilton and Ariana Grande got involved; major brands—including Grande’s R.E.M. Beauty and Bella Hadid’s Orebella—sent in donations. Girls from around the area flocked to their temporary space to shop. And then Shauna Nep, the co-executive director of the Archewell Foundation, came calling. When Avery’s stepdad told her that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s foundation wanted to get involved, Colvert says she “just started to break down crying.”

Avery on Meghan: “Meghan is so incredibly kind,” the Altadena Girls founder continues. “She was so excited to help.” After the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were spotted volunteering at a Los Angeles food bank and Meghan appeared in an Instagram Reel from Altadena Girls, numerous “royal experts” claimed the duchess was just looking for a photo opp. Colvert says she finds the claims “ridiculous.” “They’re like, ‘Oh she came in and she just dropped her stuff off and left.’ People weren’t there,” she shares, explaining that Meghan “came in with bags of clothing from her own closet” and “was there for multiple hours in a day.” The duchess even “got stylist training” so she could help girls choose outfits and accessories. “For all the girls that were coming in, they got to be styled by Meghan Markle,” Colvert continues, noting that some clients “came in and just completely broke down” when they saw the duchess there. As for her stepdad, Chait, he says he was in shock at how long Meghan stayed and helped. “She was carrying out bags to people’s cars,” Colvert says.

Archewell helped secure Altadena Girls’ new space: But the Archewell Foundation’s support “has continued beyond just that day,” as Chait tells Marie Claire. “They’ve continued to open lots of doors for us and make connections,” he says. When it came to Altadena Girls’s new permanent space, which opened in Pasadena last week, Archewell even helped them “to secure the building,” Chait says.

A long-term solution: As for that future, Altadena Girls has now become “a long-term solution” to help girls in need, Colvert says, and not just a project to address the wildfires. Along with providing clothing and other items, mental wellness services—which Altadena Girls is already offering—will be at the heart of the organization’s new 12,000-square-foot permanent space in Pasadena. The building will also give kids who have lost their schools and activities a safe place to gather. “There’s going to be therapy services, we’re going to build out a dance room and have dance classes and yoga classes,” Colvert says of Altadena Girls’s new HQ, which, of course, also includes a free storefront where girls can shop. Chait adds several national brands have reached out to provide funding for the activity rooms. “This isn’t like a pipe dream right now,” he says. “We signed a long-term lease.”

Archewell’s consequential support: While Altadena Girls has been lucky to receive support from the likes of Kerry Washington—whose birthday party the duchess recently attended—along with Charlie XCX, Mindy Kaling, Skims and Huda Beauty, Chait calls their relationship with the Archewell Foundation “the most surprising and really consequential” connection to date. “It really made the biggest difference,” he says.

[From Marie Claire]

The criticism of Meghan for volunteering in her hometown during a huge natural disaster was always unhinged, and it never had any basis in reality. It was actually a test case of the virulence of Deranger hate – they exposed themselves as unreasonable people who lost their sh-t over absolutely anything involving Meghan. It’s really cool that Meghan went out of her way to support Avery’s project and that this has grown to such a huge extent in a matter of, like, three weeks. Archewell continues to do good work behind the scenes.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Sky News, Fox affiliate.