Prince William had an event today in London, at the Royal Geographical Society. He joined Oman’s heir to the throne, His Highness Theyazin bin Haitham, as they viewed their new joint patronage, the Jewel of Arabia Exhibition. Did you know exhibitions get royal patronage? They do, apparently. Theyazin is only 34 years old, eight years younger than William. It looks like there are decades between them. Theyazin is better dressed as well (his suit is lovely, as is his tie) and his body language isn’t so weird. I have no idea why William continues to obsessively cover his crotch when he’s in public. He even walks with his hands clasped in front of his groin at times.

Anyway, this exhibition will highlight Oman’s heritage and emphasize the close relations between the UK and Oman. Apparently, William plans to visit Oman in January too. It will be interesting to see if that really happens. It’s so strange to watch this 42-year-old man, the heir to the throne, be stage-managed and “handled” in this kind of way.

Meanwhile, I missed this last week, but King Charles was succeeded as the president of the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama “not by his son and heir, Prince William, but by Dame Shirley Bassey.” As in, when Charles was Prince of Wales, he forged connections with Wales by taking on specific Welsh patronages. But the new Prince of Wales doesn’t give a sh-t, so now regular celebrities are taking on positions and patronages which used to be “royal.”

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

Over the weekend, the Daily Mail leaned into the fact that they’re not going to say one thing about the Princess of Wales’s disappearing act, nor will they discuss Prince William’s increasingly odd/creepy makeover. Instead, they’re going all-in on their years-long strategy of just screaming and crying about the Duchess of Sussex. The thing is, Meghan isn’t giving them much. She’s been making some quiet, low-key appearances here and there. She’s investing in female-owned businesses. She’s probably prepping her cooking show and her American Riviera Orchard line. So what can the Mail do with that? A whole lotta nothing. So they decided to dust off a storyline which is over seven years old.

For what it’s worth, I guess relatively new Sussex fans might not remember this vital part of the Sussex mythology, but in 2017, the Middletons freaked the f–k out about Prince Harry potentially bringing his beautiful American girlfriend to Pippa Middleton’s Bucklebury wedding. I still believe that this was the start of the Middletons doing way too much around Harry’s relationship with Meghan. Ahead of Pippa’s May 2017 wedding, the Middletons were openly briefing the Mail, the Mirror and everyone else about how Harry shouldn’t bring Meghan to the wedding. They devised what they thought was a clever ruse: “no ring, no bring.” The rule only applied to Meghan. Behold, the Mail’s top royal story on Saturday: “Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s excitement at attending Pippa Middleton’s wedding together was short-lived after they discovered the bride’s unusual request.”

Not yet engaged and less than a year into their relationship, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry were set to enjoy Pippa Middleton’s wedding reception in each other’s company. But the Princess of Wales’s younger sister had other ideas – with a strict seating plan that separated every couple in attendance.

It meant that instead of spending the evening together as a new couple, Harry was sat with ITV News at Ten presenter Tom Bradby while Meghan dined with Roger Federer’s wife Mirka. Guests enjoyed a meal of trout and lamb at the 2017 nuptials of Pippa and hedge fund manager James Matthews, washed down with ‘2002 Dom Ruinart Champagne’, according to Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand’s biography of the Sussexes, Finding Freedom.

‘Sitting together in the custom glass marquee that had been erected on the 18-acre property should have been a fun night for the couple, but, per Pippa’s request, no couples sat together,’ they wrote. Harry and Meghan, who was still new to royal circles at the time, reunited near the dance floor after the meal. And while ‘the old Harry would have certainly closed at the bash with the rest of his friends’, Mr Scobie and Ms Durand note that the then 32-year-old prince instead spent the remainder of the evening catching up with his girlfriend.

The seating chart was not the only challenge faced by the pair that day, with Meghan absent from the ceremony at St. Mark’s Church in Englefield, West Berkshire. Pippa and her mother, Carole Middleton, apparently shared concerns that the presence of the royal couple might overshadow the big day. The future Duke and Duchess of Sussex eventually agreed it would be best for Meghan to avoid the church and media.

The authors of Finding Freedom say that Harry and Meghan then came up with a plan which saw them drive out to Berkshire on the day of the wedding. Meghan stayed in an Airbnb that a close friend had rented on her behalf while Harry attended the service in Englefield. Meghan did her own makeup and put on a black dress before Harry returned to the Airbnb for a spot of lunch with his partner. He then drove them both to the reception at the Middleton’s Bucklebury home.

[From The Daily Mail]

What was the purpose of this trip down memory lane? The Mail included no new information, unless you count “Pippa and her mother, Carole Middleton, apparently shared concerns that the presence of the royal couple might overshadow the big day” as new info. Carole was practically calling up the Mail every day in 2017 to share her concerns about Meghan doing this or that, so no, it’s not news that Pippa and Carole basically told Harry that his girlfriend couldn’t come to the wedding. I always sort of wished that Harry had told the Middletons to go f–k themselves with this drama. It’s one thing for a bride to say “no kids at my wedding.” It’s quite another to say “no prince can bring his Black American girlfriend.” Harry should have called their bluff – they obviously wanted him to come, but they were trying to badger him in the press to leave Meghan in London. He should have just said “we’re skipping the wedding, congrats to Pippa or whatever her name is.”

I genuinely fear that the purpose of this piece was to say “Meghan is the worst, she didn’t let Harry party with his friends!” But it’s just reminding everyone that the Middletons are classless, tacky and that they were intensely insecure about Meghan from the start.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, WENN.

I love a v-neck sweater. So cozy, so sexy, so versatile. Angelina Jolie wore a black v-neck sweater and a dark grey pencil skirt in Torino, Italy today. She arrived at the Torino Film Festival and was promptly handed an award – the Stella della Mole prize, a sort of lifetime achievement for her acting career. She’s also at the film festival to promote Without Blood (which she directed). I love that she wore flats – this is such a chic-yet-simple outfit. I really want to know where she got the sweater – it looks like it’s either really expensive, or really mass-market, like something from Banana Republic. The coat is nice as well.

Meanwhile, Brad Pitt and his team keep trying to impose themselves on Angelina’s promotional autumn and winter. Last week, sources close to Brad told Page Six that Angelina was “pushing his buttons” by bringing Knox as her date to the Governors Awards. Then Pitt’s team ran to the Daily Mail (one of the favorite outlets to leak to), telling the Mail that Brad’s parents haven’t seen the six kids for the past eight years. An insider told the Mail: “Brad Pitt’s parents have not been able to see their beloved grandchildren for around eight years amid the ongoing divorce and legal battle between Brad and Angelina. Prior to the separation, they were a part of the kids’ lives and they all spent a lot of time together. It is just heartbreaking to see that this is no longer the case.” The insider is very careful in how he words things, never directly saying “Angelina has banned the children from speaking to their grandparents.” That’s probably because Angelina has likely done no such thing – I would assume, given everything Brad has done to Angelina, that Brad is the one responsible for the estrangement between the kids and his parents.

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Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

As we discussed, Queen Camilla pulled out of attending the Royal Variety show at the last minute on Friday. King Charles went stag and he looked profoundly unwell. Camilla was supposed to be the sick one, and that was the reason given for her sudden absence: she was still suffering with a lingering chest infection. Or was that a cover story? The Daily Beast’s Royalist column added this interesting wrinkle in their coverage:

Queen Camilla’s decision to skip the Royal Variety Performance this week, palace sources told the Daily Beast, was due to a “lingering” chest infection. She appears to have been suffering with it since her return from the royal tour over three weeks ago. The decision to cancel won’t have been taken lightly by the palace, which is acutely aware of the optics of an ailing, elderly monarchy. King Charles is 76 and Camilla is 77.

Camilla personally, however, may not have been too upset at missing the famously middle-brow live show, which this year featured such luminaries as “Britain’s Got Talent” show winner Sydnie Christmas, with one friend telling us, “It’s not exactly her thing.”

[From The Daily Beast]

I have no idea why the royals act like the Royal Variety show is such a chore – it’s a fundraiser for retired entertainers, and the show is just like… comedians, skits and music. It should be such an easy event? Why is Camilla acting like she’s too good for it? She horses around with C-listers all the time. The Windsors are all starf–kers – they love to hang out with reality stars, actors and the like. Meanwhile, there’s probably another reason why Camilla has been pulling a disappearing act: last night, Channel 4 aired a documentary about Cam and people are talking.

A new documentary which branded Queen Camilla as a ‘wicked stepmother’ has been slammed as ‘tedious’, ‘needlessly tacky’ and ‘dull’. Critics have blasted the programme, which aired last night on Channel 4 and spoke to journalists and insiders about the royal’s past – as well as her reportedly fraught relationship with Prince Harry.

The Duke of Sussex, 40, last year seemed to surface familial tensions when he, speaking in an interview with Anderson Cooper to promote his memoir, described Camilla as ‘dangerous’ and a ‘villain’. He said: ‘She was the villain, she was a third person in the marriage, she needed to rehabilitate her image. That made her dangerous because of the connections that she was forging within the British Press. And there was open willingness on both sides to trade information and with a family built on hierarchy, and with her on the way to being Queen Consort, there was going to be people or bodies left in the street because of that.’

The documentary, titled Queen Camilla: The Wicked Stepmother?, in a synopsis questions: ‘How did Camilla Parker Bowles ascend from most hated woman in Britain to Queen Camilla, national treasure? And was her transformation at Prince Harry’s expense?’

However, with two-star ratings across the board from major critics, it was poorly received, largely for rehashing old material with little new insights, and doing so in a ‘tacky’ way. The Guardian found the programme ‘tedious’ and ‘flimsy’, claiming that there was no real need for the documentary to air. Elsewhere, The Times branded Channel 4’s offering as a ‘ranty mess’ that ‘doesn’t serve anyone’. The Telegraph’s Arts and Entertainment Editor meanwhile said that the movie was a ‘needlessly tacky deep-dive’ into Camilla’s past.

[From The Daily Mail]

I’m just here to point out that if any British channel aired a documentary about Prince Harry or Meghan, the Mail would have devoted twenty articles to every single little detail in the documentary like it was all new information. From what little I’ve seen online about the doc, it was a rehash of just how thoroughly Camilla and Mark Bolland threw Harry under the bus constantly in his teens and 20s, and how Charles was absolutely fine with Camilla sacrificing his relationships with his sons. While it’s old news to all of us, the thing is… a lot of people don’t know. A lot of younger people, especially. So it’s good to remind everyone – Camilla has always been horrible. She set out to destroy Diana, and then she set out to destroy Diana’s sons.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

In late July, a man went on a rampage at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class for little kids. Three little girls died in the stabbing, and the Southport community was devastated. The whole of England was devastated, and white nationalists used the stabbings as an excuse to go on their own racist rampages throughout the country. In those weeks, King Charles was vacationing in Scotland, and the Prince and Princess of Wales vacationed in Norfolk. Charles didn’t go to Southport and meet the families until more than three weeks later (and I theorized that Keir Starmer ordered him to do it). Meanwhile, William and Kate waited until October to meet with the families and first responders. Well, on Friday, Marie Claire released photos and information from the Duchess of Sussex’s dinner with Afghan refugees/immigrants. A short time later, Kensington Palace rushed out an announcement that Kate has invited the Southport families to her Christmas caroling show.

The Princess of Wales has invited child survivors of the Southport stabbing to her annual Christmas carol concert. The Princess, who is recovering from cancer, is holding her festive event at Westminster Abbey on Dec 6, Kensington Palace has confirmed.

It comes after the Princess and the Prince of Wales met privately with the bereaved families of Bebe King, 6, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, 9, who were fatally stabbed during a Taylor Swift-themed dance class on July 29 in Southport, as well as the children’s dance teacher. At the Southport Community Centre, they met emergency responders involved in the attack and heard about their experiences.

The Princess had set her sights on being able to stage the Together At Christmas service in 2024 despite the health challenges she faced in what the Prince of Wales described as a “brutal” year.
It forms part of her gradual return to public duties after finishing chemotherapy treatment in the summer.

The Palace said the Princess, who honoured the war dead at Remembrance events earlier this month, wanted the theme of this year’s carol service to celebrate those supporting others in need, with a focus on the “importance of love and empathy”
.
“The service will shine a light on individuals from all over the UK who have shown love, kindness and empathy towards others in their communities. This year, Her Royal Highness wanted to celebrate the many people supporting those in need – individuals who have inspired, counselled, comforted, and above all else, shown that love is the greatest gift we can receive. This theme takes inspiration from the Christmas story which encourages us to consider the experiences of others and the important human need of giving and receiving empathy.”

[From The Telegraph]

As I mentioned previously, Taylor Swift actually did more for these families and she did it faster – before Charles even stepped foot in Southport, Taylor had already called up the families and personally invited them to her London shows, AND she met with the families backstage. That probably meant so much more to those kids and those families. As for Kate inviting the kids to her Christmas piano recital… the thing is, I always get the feeling that this show is really dull, boring and not great for kids? It seems like it would be such a chore to get squirmy kids to settle down for two hours for this kind of thing. Now, did Kate announce this as a direct reaction to Meghan’s dinner? Eh. I think Kate had already invited the families, but yeah, the announcement was probably reactive.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

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Recently, the Duchess of Sussex hosted a dinner for Afghan women who have relocated/immigrated to California. The dinner was just another moment of Meghan’s continuing work with Afghan refugees, many of whom helped American military and Coalition forces in the long-running war in Afghanistan. One of my favorite things the Sussexes ever did was travel to Task Force Liberty in New Jersey in 2021 and spend time with the refugees who had been evacuated out of Afghanistan. That trip was stage-managed by the military, and the Sussexes’ visit threw a huge spotlight on those refugees and the Amazon wishlists to get those families some essentials. Meghan and Harry now have a “Welcome Project” as part of Archewell, and Welcome Project teamed with Mina’s List to host this dinner a few weekends ago. Meghan allowed Marie Claire to have exclusive coverage of the dinner, and Meghan gave MC a real interview. Some highlights:

The Archewell Foundation’s Welcome Project. Launched in 2023, the initiative was created by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s foundation to support programs for women who have resettled in the United States from Afghanistan. There are currently 11 Welcome Project branches in nine states across the country, including one in San Antonio, which Prince Harry and Meghan visited in March. The Duchess of Sussex tells me that The Welcome Project “is that perfect example of seeing an immediate need and then saying, ‘Okay, how do you make this a much larger vision so it’s not just a short-term banding on a problem, but a long-term solution?’”

Communities coming together: The Duchess of Sussex says, “whatever cultures are different, whatever traditions are different, there’s actually so much we have in common. There’s a lot of joy in discovering each other’s new rituals too,” she says, a feeling many of us in the room experienced as we tried new foods and listened to the aforementioned poetry. Even though some of us don’t understand the language, the duchess notes that she feels the emotion behind their words as she listens to their hopes for a better future. “You find comfort in things you know, but you find so much community and connection in things you don’t know, as well.”

Working with the Hubb community in London: “With Hubb, that was 13 different countries represented. We were constantly learning from each other.” She says that while some of the foods she’s used to eating were “very different” to the women in the kitchen, they “loved being able to talk about that. It’s a great icebreaker. And then through that, it kind of becomes the background to a much deeper connection.” She points out that some other groups use activities like sewing or playing board games versus cooking, but that those things form bonds focused on “what actually matters.”

She loves the holidays: “I love the holidays,” the Duchess of Sussex says, sharing that Archie and Lilibet are now “three and five, so every year it gets better.” She muses that “at first, I think as a mom with children you’re just enjoying having them there, but they’re not understanding everything that’s happening yet. But now we’re at the age where I just can’t wait to see it through their lens every year.”

A low-key Thanksgiving: As for Thanksgiving, she says that the Sussexes are “always pretty low-key,” and Meghan tells me that “being close to my mom is great,” referring to her mother, Doria, who is also based in California. “I was thinking about, in the past few years of having Thanksgiving here, like many of us, I think you always make sure there’s room at the table for your friends who don’t have family, which is really key,” she shares. One such friend is none other than feminist icon Gloria Steinem, who Markle tells me “came for Thanksgiving” one year.

The holidays are about more than food: “We’re always making sure we have something fun to do,” the Duchess of Sussex says. “Like any other family you spend time having a great meal and then what do you do? Play games, all the same stuff, someone brings a guitar—fun. Every single holiday is a new adventure,” she says, stressing that it’s important for her that Archie and Lilibet can experience the “magic” of traditions like “great recipes that they end up connecting to a formative memory” at Thanksgiving and putting out “carrots for the reindeer” at Christmas.

[From Marie Claire]

Archewell’s Welcome Project sounds great, and I’m glad they’re working with a group like Mina’s List. Of course Meghan goes above and beyond to create communities with refugees and women from other countries too – Meghan has experienced that first-hand, being a stranger in a strange land, and her wealth and privilege didn’t save her from feeling isolated and alone. I loved that she answered some questions about the holidays too – I hope Archie and Lili have a great Thanksgiving and Christmas. Archie in particular is at the right age to have an amazing Christmas.

Speaking of the Sussex babies, this is how the Daily Mail covered MC’s exclusive: “Admitting she loved the holiday season, the Duchess revealed that seeing it through the eyes of the King’s grandchildren made it increasingly special, saying ‘every year it gets better.’ Prince Harry’s wife also said she ‘can’t wait to see it through their lens every year.’” LMAO. “The king’s grandchildren” – who is the mother of the king’s grandchildren? This reminds me of when Meghan was hanging out in the VIP section of Beyonce’s concert last year, and suddenly all of the coverage was Britain trying to claim Meghan as their own, that Meghan belongs to them (and her children apparently belong to Charles).

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Marie Claire’s IG.

Last week, Netflix finally dropped the trailer for Polo, a sports docuseries produced by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. While their names appear in the trailer as producers, neither of them appears in the trailer. I would assume that Harry appears at some point in the series though, right? If only to provide some commentary, although we know that cameras have been around for some of his polo matches. Here’s the trailer again:

Netflix has the money and inclination to do these deeper dives into various sports. Full Swing looked into professional golf and that series was a huge success. Break Point – which focused on pro tennis – was less successful, because (in my opinion) no one at Netflix thought to put actual fans of the sport in charge of the show and you could tell that they didn’t actually give a sh-t about the actual tennis part. Polo looks good to me, because I’ve always been curious about that elite world, and it looks like pretty standard Netflix fare – dialing up the glamour and soap opera drama. Obviously, the British media has been screaming and crying about the trailer for days. Now the Daily Beast’s Royalist columnist Tom Sykes managed to get Prince Harry’s “former friends” and a “senior Hollywood executive” to bad-mouth the series:

Former friends of Prince Harry who played polo with him in their younger years have told the Daily Beast they have been left in “appalled hysterics” by the new trailer for his and Meghan Markle’s “tacky” new Netflix show about polo. One Hollywood executive has cautioned the couple are “running out of last chances” to prove they can make compelling TV that is not about themselves, and speculated their futures may lie in social media influencing.

The trailer for Polo dropped this week, and has been either ignored or ridiculed in global media, a clear sign that Harry and Meghan’s once-bright star appears to be fading. Although their role as “executive producers” is flagged full screen in the opening credits, the cheesy trailer does not feature an appearance by either Harry or Meghan.

One former friend of Harry’s who played polo with him as a teenager said, “It’s hilarious, but not in a good way. It’s so tacky and cringey, it is literally all the worst things about polo. I watched it in appalled hysterics.”

Another former friend said, “The irony is that polo is actually a surprisingly inclusive sport these days. You do see plenty of rich kids but there are also plenty of kids from less rarefied backgrounds who just happen to be fantastic riders who are sponsored by the teams. It doesn’t look like this show is going to foreground that, which is a real missed opportunity.”

A senior Hollywood executive told The Daily Beast: “This looks like it has failed to capture the imagination. They still have Meghan’s cooking show to screen next year but there is very little tolerance for pissing money away these days. It’s debatable whether anyone cares about these two if they are not serving up outrageous stories about the royals. They are running out of last chances to prove that isn’t so. If they can’t, they could try to monetize their fame on social media. Plenty of people would still give Harry a million bucks for a post.”

The trailer was ridiculed by the prominent Daily Mail columnist Liz Jones. Jones was for many years a Meghan sympathizer but has recently turned against the duchess. In one particularly biting comment she opines: “What next? His own slot on the Shopping Channel? How can Harry and Meghan possibly travel the globe, preaching about poverty and diversity and inclusion, when not one black player can be spied… the funds required to run a polo team doubtless outstrip that of Formula 1. How can they lecture us about global warming when one player admits he flies to Argentina twice a week?”

[From The Daily Beast]

Pick a struggle, you know? Or in this case, pick a consistent criticism for why this series (which has not been viewed by any one of these people) is bad or unwatchable. It’s bad because it features rich people who fly around the world playing polo! Yeah, we get that from the word “polo.” It’s bad because Harry and Meghan are involved yet they aren’t involved enough! It’s bad because it’s tacky and cringey, unlike every single tacky and cringey thing Harry’s brother does! Jesus. This whole Royalist piece reads like William screaming and throwing a tantrum. Polo belongs to Peg!!

Photos courtesy of Backgrid,Cover Images, Netflix.

Well, I was wrong. I kept thinking “they’ve spent way too long promoting Wicked, there’s no way this is going to do what they think it will.” I thought it would be an oversaturation issue, that people would be bored of hearing about Wicked before Part 1 even came out. But I was wrong – people love a musical, especially when it’s the first film adaptation of a massively popular Broadway show. Wicked is on track to becoming one of the biggest hits of the year. Gladiator II also performed very well – they were trying to make this into another Barbenheimer head-to-head (“Glicked”) and it worked?

If you care to find “Wicked,” look to the top of box office charts. Universal’s adaptation of Act One (with some padding) of the popular Broadway musical was No. 1 in North America with $114 million from 3,888 theaters over the weekend.

Those dazzling ticket sales rank as the third biggest domestic debut of the year behind “Deadpool & Wolverine” ($211 million) and “Inside Out 2” ($154 million). Among other benchmarks, “Wicked” landed the fourth-biggest start in history for a musical, ahead of Disney’s recent “The Little Mermaid” remake ($95.5 million) and behind “Frozen II” ($130 million), as well as the best opening (by far) for a Broadway adaptation, overtaking the record held by 2014’s “Into the Woods” ($31 million).

“Wicked” collected an additional $50.2 million at the international box office, bringing its global tally to $164.2 million. It marks the biggest worldwide opening for a film based on a Broadway show, supplanting another Universal musical, “Les Miserables,” with $103 million in 2012.

“It’s a juggernaut,” says David A. Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research. “Audiences are making the singing and costume experience their own.”

While “Wicked” was courting women (nearly 75% of ticket buyers) and families, men turned out in force for Paramount’s R-rated “Gladiator II,” the quarter-century-in-the-making sequel from director Ridley Scott. The bloody sword-and-sandal epic opened solidly in second place (though behind expectations) with $55.5 million from 3,573 cinemas over the weekend.

It’s unclear whether “Wicked” and “Gladiator II” fueled each other, à la “Barbenheimer,” an unexpected 2023 phenomenon in which tens of thousands of moviegoers opted for back-to-back screenings rather than choosing between Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” and Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” — or if “Glicked” is just an effective case of counterprogramming. Either way, this weekend was one of the biggest of the year with approximately $210 million in overall revenues.

[From Variety]

Meanwhile, I debated whether to see Anora this weekend at the second-run theater in town – I ended up not going, but I will try to catch it this week before it leaves theaters. Like, I’m much more excited to see the awards-bait “smaller” films. But I’m happy for Wicked and Gladiator II. I even think they’ll both end up with some awards nominations, especially in supporting categories. People are saying Ariana Grande could get nominated in supporting actress, and Denzel Washington might get some supporting actor noms. It’s always good when actors are nominated from films people have actually seen.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images, ‘Gladiator II’ poster.

In recent months, Kim Kardashian and “sources” close to her have been emphasizing the fact that she’s raising four children pretty much by herself. The comments were, I believed, about Kanye West’s lack of involvement with his children, although I think Kanye does spend some time with North (the oldest). But Saint, Chicago and Psalm? Ye isn’t involved. It really is up to Kim to do all of the child-rearing and keep up with all of the kids’ schools and activities. But this whole time, we’ve always believed that Kim has an army of nannies and helpers. I mean, she’s a billionaire on paper, she’s also still a “law student,” of course she pays for nannies and helpers, right? Well, not according to Kim, who told a podcast that she’s “basically raising four kids by myself here.”

Kim Kardashian admits she often feels “alone” raising the four children she shares with ex Kanye West. During Tuesday’s episode of pal Zoe Winkler’s iHearRadio podcast, “What In The Winkler,” the reality star addressed her co-parenting arrangement with her ex-husband. The episode was dropped just weeks after a source claimed to People that West has been an absent father.

“You and I have mostly connected on parenting and judgment, and you know, feeling like sometimes you’re in this alone,” Kardashian, 44, told Henry Winkler’s daughter. The Skims founder — who shares North, 11, Saint, 8, Chicago, 6, and Psalm, 5, with West — went on to confess that she also feels overwhelmed at times.

“Even though we have great support systems and we have people around us, but sometimes in the middle of the night when [the kids are] all sleeping in your bed, kicking you and crying and waking up, like, it is…,” she said before trailing off. “It’s not something I talk about a lot because I feel like there is always a lot of judgment. Or people will always jump to the, ‘Oh, but you have the resources to have nannies and to have help.’ And I just think that no matter what kind of help I have, I’m basically raising four kids by myself.”

Zoe called Kardashian’s current parenting situation “insane,” to which the Hulu star replied, “Yeah. I mean, even carpool this morning, I had five kids that I had to take, two came over, and everyone leaves and wants to leave at like, different times and wants different stuff. I feel like I’m at, like, a pitstop of a racecar driver, when it’s like, ‘Brush your teeth, brush your teeth, brush your teeth, brush your teeth, OK, get dressed, get dressed, do your hair.’”

Zoe brought up in the podcast how the SKKN by Kim creator drives her children to school every morning. “That’s what’s really important to me … driving them to school every single day is just what I have to do no matter what [my] work schedule [is]. It’s really important to me. That’s just, like, my bonding time. That’s when I can get them up, get ready, but it’s madness.”

[From Page Six & Marie Claire]

“I just think that no matter what kind of help I have, I’m basically raising four kids by myself.” Yeah, even though I know everyone loves to hate on Kim, I understand what she’s saying. She’s not saying she doesn’t have nannies or help, she’s saying that she’s the only one parenting her kids. She’s the only one making decisions about the kids, she’s the only one “raising” these kids. I think that’s fair for her to feel that way. I’d also like to point out that… she’s the one who wanted four kids. Even when her marriage was on its last legs, she was still organizing a gestational carrier for the two younger kids. She said that was what she wanted. And now that she’s raising the kids on her own, she’s overwhelmed.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images, Instagram.

Something is going on in Isla de Saltines. In recent days, they’ve been pushing a lot of weird stories about the Duchess of Sussex and almost none of those stories have new information. It’s giving desperation, it’s giving “pay attention to me!” Speaking of, the Mail found some change at the back of the sofa, and they decided to pay Samantha Markle for another interview. When we last checked in on this c-u-next-Tuesday, Samantha’s defamation lawsuit against Meghan was being dismissed with prejudice back in March. Then Samantha and her lawyer gave some interviews about how they were not giving up and they’d find some way to continue to abuse the legal system to harass Meghan. So what’s new? The script Samantha is being paid to perform, I guess. Some lowlights:

Samantha’s mother died: Samantha Markle’s mother died six weeks ago. They had been estranged for many years. Things had been rocky anyway, but the nail in the coffin of their relationship, Samantha claims, was when her half-sister Meghan got engaged to Prince Harry, and the whole world turned its attention to the Markle family, in all its dysfunction. ‘And everyone sucked up to Meghan, even on the fringes of the family,’ says Samantha. ‘It was like the Emperor’s New Clothes. Unfortunately, my mother fell prey to it.’

Samantha talks to her father: She speaks to her father Thomas ‘every day, sometimes several times a day’, but Meghan has not been in contact since before her wedding. Thomas Markle has had two heart attacks and a stroke. He is 80, she points out, ‘and we don’t know how long he has’. Her anger returns. ‘Meghan has no idea what she is missing out on because when my dad goes, it will be too late. Believe me, I know. You can’t get back that time. It leaves a hole in your heart. When my father passes away, I hope she can feel, and remember he loved her more than life itself – or she will never be able to look in the mirror.’ She hasn’t finished. ‘Maybe Harry can learn something from me too,’ she continues.

The Sussexes’ interview with Oprah: ‘I don’t know the Royal Family. I’m just a human, watching from across the pond, but I couldn’t believe it.’ In particular, she was incensed by Harry’s implication he never had fun with Charles, and wasn’t able to go bike riding with him as a child. ‘Then we saw all those pictures of him rolling in the grass with Charles, laughing, riding on the back of his bike. I want to say to him “Why did you say it? Do you know what a gift that is? Maybe you didn’t get that every day, but you had it, and your family gave you those experiences”. I’d ask Harry “What did you give them? Heartache? Grief?”.’

How Meghan treated the Queen! ‘I never thought I would see Meghan do what she has done to the Royal Family. She’s done what she did to her own family to so many other people, too. I knew my dad had suffered, but I thought she would stop at the Queen.’ Samantha tells me ‘a line was crossed’ when Meghan mimicked curtseying to the Queen during the couple’s 2022 Netflix docuseries. ‘What a flagrant, nasty mockery of lovely royal protocol. And Harry sat there smiling, like a buffoon. He allowed it. In counselling [Samantha is a trained counsellor] we call this “enabling”.’

Her evolving view of Harry. ‘I used to think Harry was the victim here, that he had arrested development over the death of his mum and Meghan manipulated it. But there was no excuse for the things he said in his memoir Spare. There is no excuse for hurting people like that. Now I think of him as the teenage delinquent who throws stones at the windows of the school then sets it on fire, yet has the audacity to play the victim and say, “Oh I’ll come back to school on these terms”.’

On Meghan’s American Riviera Orchard line: The subject of American Riviera Orchard and Meghan’s lifestyle venture comes up – so far we’ve seen some jam and dog biscuits. ‘Is it in the shops? I don’t think it got beyond the PR stage,’ she muses ‘In the 70s, Tom [Samantha’s brother] and I would spend our summers with Grandma Markle and she did make jam, but that was long before Meghan was around. By the time she was interacting with Grandma Markle, she was in a care home and she certainly wasn’t making jam.’

[From The Daily Mail]

As a long-time reader of the British press/tabloids, I’m quite familiar with their talking points, Britishisms and worry-stones. Which is how I know Samantha was either operating from a script written by a British person, or she was being fed these lines by the Mail. No American says “is it in the shops?” No American gives a f–k if Meghan mocked the curtsy. No American thinks Spare was the story of a delinquent who constantly plays the victim. Between Samantha’s scripted interviews and her nuisance-suit harassment, Samantha is playing a really dangerous game. Also: with all of this talk about “family,” it’s good to remember that Samantha is estranged from her children, and Meghan is very close to her niece (Samantha’s daughter).

Photos courtesy of WENN.