Prince Harry made a surprise appearance at the 17th Annual Stand Up for Heroes event. The event was held in NYC last night, but Harry sent in a video message, which was filmed at his home in Montecito. Stand Up for Heroes was started by journalist Bob Woodruff, who was badly injured in an IED explosion in Iraq. Harry has made remote appearances at the event before, and as always, he supports all veterans. I’ve yet to see the full video, but there was a clip released and Hello had a transcript of Harry’s jokes:

Harry went on to poke fun at himself, saying: “Due to the shockingly low representation of gingers last year, and out of respect for my fellow endangered species, here I am, reporting for duty.”

The 39-year-old also joked about never being scrutinised, as well as taking advice from a reiki healer. “As someone who never gets scrutinised, I haven’t even had to prepare much. But out of an abundance of caution, I have been working on this particular act for quite some time and everyone I know tells me it’s perfect. And no, these aren’t people who just tell me what I want to hear, these are people like my finance manager, my lawyer, and of course, my reiki healer.”

A cough was heard from someone off-camera, and Harry was handed a script. “So, we’re not doing the thing?” he asked, before reading the first sentence. “Thank you for having me to this splendid evening celebrating our incredible veterans.”

He then put the paper on the floor, saying: “It’s ok, I got this,” before delivering a more serious message in honour of the military community.

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, service is what happens in the quiet and the chaos,” he said. “And whether we are wearing the uniform or not, we must continue to uphold the values we learned side by side on the base, on the drill square and on the battlefield. Values of service, values of honour and integrity and values of togetherness and solidarity.

“I know our journeys to this point differ but we are always connected through what we learned as humans, what we faced as families and how we’ve come out stronger because of our ability to listen, to understand, to support one another.”

[From Hello]

A really lovely message! I appreciate that Harry’s got jokes! It wouldn’t surprise me if he does have a reiki healer, honestly. Harry’s like his father in that way – open to alternative medicine. Is it also kind of funny that his appearance happened while his brother looks constipated in Singapore? Yes. That’s the biggest joke of all.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, screencap courtesy of ‘Stand Up for Heroes’.

I’m seeing Priscilla tomorrow and I can hardly wait. Even though the film has a SAG-AFTRA waiver and the actors have been promoting it, the most interesting promotional appearances are coming from Priscilla Presley herself. After many decades living in the shadow of her famous ex-husband, she gets to be the central character of the story. But, she’s still talking about Elvis, because that’s what people are interested in. She was at a Q&A at a casino in Vegas on Friday where she talked about why she never remarried. At first she decided not to remarry while Elvis was still alive. But even after he died, she never wanted to get married again. She says it’s because no one compared to him.

Priscilla Presley is opening up about her decision not to remarry after the collapse of her six-year marriage to Elvis Presley.

During a Q&A event at the South Point Casino in Las Vegas on Friday, the actress, 78, seemingly confirmed the rumor that she made a vow to never marry again as long as her ex-husband was alive.

“I just don’t think that he could handle that,” she said of the late rock music icon, to whom she was married from 1967 to 1973.

Despite the fact that Elvis died in 1977, Priscilla kept that promise over the past four decades. “To be honest with you, I never wanted to marry after him. I never had any desire,” she said. “No one could ever match him.”

Priscilla also explained why she and Elvis chose not to have more children after welcoming their daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, in 1968. “Elvis felt he had a very busy schedule and he did have a bit of guilt that he wasn’t around that much when Lisa was younger,” she told the audience.

“With his scheduling and his touring, he just felt he wasn’t around enough to give a lot of attention to having another child.”

[From People]

She also said that Sofia Coppola is the only filmmaker she would trust to do a biopic of her life:

“I love [Coppola’s] filmmaking. I think she does a great job. She is for women, and when she approached me about doing a movie about me, I was moved by it,” Presley, who is credited as an executive producer on Priscilla, noted. “If anyone were to do a movie, it would be for her. I would never support another movie from anyone else doing it.”

[From People]

I interpret her comment about no one comparing to Elvis in two ways. On the one hand, it is true that Elvis is literally incomparable–an icon who changed American popular music and culture forever. Nancy Sinatra also said a similar thing about Frank–that there was no point getting married again after having been married to Frank Sinatra. But on the other hand, I think that the marriage probably scarred Priscilla emotionally and made it hard for her to imagine trusting someone in the same way again. If your first marriage was that stifling and that miserable, why try it again? As for what she says about Sofia, it’s very sweet. Sofia is so adept at telling stories of female isolation and alienation, it is a perfect fit for Priscilla’s adolescence and early adulthood.

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King Felipe and Queen Letizia are on a royal tour of Denmark this week. They arrived in Copenhagen yesterday, where the Danish royals greeted them at the airport, then Queen Margrethe hosted a big state banquet last night. Lots of tiaras, gowns and shiny medals. In retrospect, this is probably why the Spanish royals didn’t attend Prince Christian’s 18th birthday celebrations last month – this visit was already scheduled, and Letizia and Felipe knew they would be seeing the Danes soon enough. Here are some tiara details from the state dinner:

Queen Letizia of Spain, Crown Princess Mary of Denmark and Queen Margrethe are a trifecta in tiaras! On Monday, the three royals glittered in the ultimate royal accessory at a state banquet at Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen. The glamorous evening capped the first full day of Queen Letizia and King Felipe’s state visit to Denmark, which runs until Wednesday.

Queen Letizia, 51, glittered in the Fleur de Lys tiara — nicknamed “La Buena” or “The Good One.” Meanwhile, Queen Margrethe, 83, sported the Danish Emerald Parure Tiara and Princess Mary, 51, topped her look with the Diamond Necklace Tiara. The Court Jeweller notes that the piece is uniquely convertible and can be worn as a tiara or necklace — and Mary has done both.

The Spanish royals also added a truly special new accessory: pale blue Order of the Elephant sashes. The Danish Royal Court announced the awards of Denmark’s highest honor of chivalry on Monday, explaining that the designation came directly from the Queen.

“When foreign heads of state pay a state visit, there is a tradition that in connection with the state visit there is an exchange of orders and medals if both the host country and the country from which the visit is made have a law enforcement agency,” a statement said. The memo noted that there has not been a Spanish state visit to Denmark since 1980, in a trip by Felipe’s parents, King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia.

As part of the latest exchange, Princess Mary and Prince Frederik also received the Grand Cross of the Spanish Order of Isabella the Catholic. They appeared to wear the new honor at dinner, along with the order’s signature yellow and white sash, per Identify Medals.

[From People]

Per The Royal Watcher, Letizia paired the Fleur de Lys tiara with “Queen Sofia’ Sapphire Earrings, Fleur de Lys Brooch, and Queen Victoria Eugenie’s Diamond Bracelet.” She was really blinged out. The vibes were pretty good between the two royal houses as well – CP Mary was seated next to Felipe, and Letizia was seated next to Prince Frederik, and there were conversations happening and everyone seemed to get along. I’m also adding a photo of CP Mary’s deep curtsy to King Felipe at the tarmac greeting!

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

Here are some photos from last night’s CFDA Awards, which is sort of like the Met Gala but smaller (both events are organized by Anna Wintour). This year’s honorees included Gwyneth Paltrow (CFDA Innovation Award) and Serena Williams (Fashion Icon Award). Gwyneth wore a look from her very own “G Label,” her in-house Goop fashion line. I have to admit… um, Gwyneth looked good?

Here’s Serena in a custom Thom Browne. She just gave birth to her second daughter over the summer and I have to say, her “bounceback” has been amazing, especially given that she’s in her 40s and she has a long history of medical complications. I love that she looks and seems so healthy and happy.

Y’all are going to hate me when I say this, but I genuinely thought Kim Kardashian was one of the best-dressed women at the CFDAs. She wore a custom Chrome Hearts look. My guess is that the fashionistas will say that she looks too done, too over the top, but I wish she would dress like this for every event.

Here’s Karlie Kloss in a really bad black dress. LOL, Swifty’s Revenge.

Molly Ringwald wore Zac Posen and Posen was her date! She’s his latest muse and I kind of love it.

Emily Ratajkowski was a tad underdressed but the minidress is cute. Just not for the CFDAs.

Demi Moore in a sparkly Carolina Herrera – this was also one of my favorite looks of the night.

Bonus look: Anne Hathaway in Ralph Lauren. Mm, I’m not so sure about this.

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Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Backgrid, Getty.

It’s fascinating to watch, in real time, as the Middleton family clings to what little power and clout they have, all while the monarchy and the British media has their knives out. Carole and Michael Middleton’s Party Pieces collapsed in May and June of this year. Carole and others badly mismanaged the company and then defrauded banks, vendors and local businesses out of £2.6 million, money which will apparently never be paid back. There have been two separate poster campaigns in Bucklebury, calling out the Middletons’ fraud and pointing out that they should just sell their big manor house to pay off their debts. The problem is, as James Sinclair (the new PP owner) pointed out, the Middletons “haven’t got the kind of money people think they have.” And what’s worse is that there’s seemingly no way for them to start another company and begin to pay off these debts. From a Daily Express exclusive:

The Middleton family registered a company called First Birthdays with Companies House in the UK some years ago which they planned to launch once they had sold off their Party Pieces empire. However, we can reveal that following the collapse of their party planning business with debts of more than £2.6million, Carole and her husband Michael have finally decided to hang up their “entrepreneurial” dream and focus on family instead.

“The Windsor name took a minor dent when Party Pieces collapsed because of all the money it owed to hard-working people,” the source said. “There’s no way that the Palace will want that kind of thing to happen again. The royals are meant to be inspirational for hard-working people, not those that are seen to profit from the loss of others.”

Companies House records show that Carole and Michael set up the ‘First Birthdays’ business in 2006 to secure the name but it has remained idle since then. However, the couple signed on to keep it running as a dormant company in May of this year and changed the address of the company on August 31 from Party Pieces Childs Court Farm to The Manor Bucklebury in Reading, where the family now lives in a plush £4.7million mansion.

“The couple were busy planning their next move but have now scrapped any future business plans to protect their daughter’s reputation,” the source said. “Anything the Middletons do will inevitably swing back on Kate, so it’s best that her mum and dad keep a low profile moving forward.”

It was revealed last week how the Middletons have been the subject of a malicious hate campaign in their hometown of Bucklebury ever since their Party Pieces firm went bust owing millions to creditors.

“Everyone was surprised by how much money paper hats and cups were making, so nobody was surprised when Party Pieces collapsed,” the source said. “We just hope that the people affected will get their money back.”

[From The Daily Express]

One of the most shocking things to me is that I always considered James Middleton to the be the family’s black sheep, the one with zero business sense, the one who kept crashing company after company. As it turns out, James is a chip off the old block – the Middletons were well known grifters and everyone knew they were lying about their wealth for years. How embarrassing! Seriously, there’s a reason why Carole has disappeared from public view – she’s humiliated, her house of cards collapsed and the palace has made it clear that her lying grifter days are over. No more “businesses” being propped up God knows how. No more defrauding local businesses and small vendors. As someone who has always believed that the Middletons were never what they appeared, the past six months have been amazing to watch.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

If y’all want to Mute Challenge this story, I completely understand, but I genuinely want to talk about Prince William’s eagerness to be around attractive women and celebrities. The clout-chasing is really unseemly, and it’s really crass that a married man is paying people to brand him as a hot single guy. These are photos from the Earthshot Awards in Singapore. William made Cate Blanchett, Hannah Waddingham, Lana Condor and Sterling K. Brown fly all the way to Singapore for his sad Look At Me I Can Hang Out With Celebrities Too, Harry Awards. As always, William looks so much more relaxed when Kate isn’t around. He did mention her in a speech yesterday, as he clings to that dumb excuse about George’s exam:

Prince William is explaining why Kate Middleton didn’t travel with him on his visit to Singapore. In a speech on Monday morning, William said his wife couldn’t be with him because of an important family reason: Prince George’s schooling.

“Catherine is very sorry she can’t be here,” said the Prince of Wales, 41. “She is helping George through his first set of major exams.”

[From People]

If they really wanted to copy Harry and Meghan, William should have flown to Singapore (as planned) over the weekend, and then Kate could have joined him later so that she could support her husband at his big dumb event. The truth is, William didn’t want her there. That’s the big thing which no one can say out loud. William would rather do matching greens with Hannah Waddingham than spend one more minute with his wife. William would rather pose awkwardly with Cate Blanchett than get man-handled by Kate’s need to grope his ass in public. This whole situation is so bizarre to watch.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

Every time I look for new photos of Donald Trump during his Manhattan fraud trial, I’m inevitably shocked by the state of him. He’s gained weight, he’s more jowly, his eyes seem even more glazed over and whoever is doing his makeup these days despises him. Monday was Trump’s big debut on the witness stand and his makeup artist didn’t even extend the deep sienna bronzer to his hairline. Yikes. As for Trump’s testimony, this part of the case isn’t even about guilt or innocence or liability anymore. Trump was already found liable of fraudulent business practices by Judge Engoron, so this is “penalties” phase of the trial. Meaning, how much Trump will be fined for his extremely illegal and deeply fraudulent business practices and whether he’ll even be able to do any kind of business in New York again.

Donald Trump opened his high-stakes testimony Monday by pissing off the judge overseeing his civil fraud trial. “Just answer the question,” Justice Arthur Engoron scolded the former president, as he attempted to paint the case against as being brought by politically motivated “Trump haters.”

“No speeches,” Engoron said, later urging Trump’s legal team to “control your client.” “This is not a political rally.”

Even before he headed to the Manhattan courtroom Monday, Trump took a minute to fire off a characteristically unhinged social media missive attacking the case—and the judge he sat next to when he took the witness box. “Got a really Biased, Nasty, Club controlled, but often overturned, Judge, a Racist, Evil, and Corrupt Attorney general, BUT A CASE THAT, ACCORDING TO ALMOST ALL LEGAL SCHOLARS, HAS ZERO MERIT,” Trump wrote, referring to Engoron and New York Attorney General Tish James. “WITCH HUNT!”

While Trump was expected answer questions about his business practices Monday—and possibly to try to shift blame to his adult sons, who have already taken the stand—he has unsurprisingly employed the same old verbal assaults over the course of his testimony, given his notorious lack of impulse control and the political benefits he’s tried to squeeze out of the spectacle. “This is a very unfair trial,” Trump said on the stand. “I hope the public is watching.”

[From Vanity Fair]

I watched some of MSNBC’s coverage and the reporter who was stationed inside the courtroom (there’s no live TV feed, but the trial is open to the media) said that in her opinion, the judge didn’t interrupt Trump enough and that if Trump had been any other defendant, his pitiful and hateful act on the stand would have landed him in contempt of court. That being said, there’s a theory going around that the prosecution likes that Trump can’t shut up because he continues to incriminate himself whenever he opens his mouth.

Also: when the New York AG’s office attorney asked Trump if he gave certain statements in 2021, Trump claimed “I was so busy in the White House with China, Russia, and keeping the country…” He was interrupted and told that he was not president in 2021.

Meanwhile, according to a new NYT/Siena poll, Trump is leading Biden in key battleground states, one year before the presidential election. This is the same newspaper which makes every Biden achievement sound like a tragedy and that negative energy has spread out across the national media. They ALL want Trump back because they’d rather report on chaos, crime, insurrection and stupidity than competent, low-drama governance.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

As a way to deflect from the after-action reporting of their dumb, colonialist tour of Kenya, King Charles and Queen Camilla authorized their courtiers to go on a briefing spree about the king’s relationship with Prince Harry. It was as obvious as it was stupid, but Roya Nikkhah and Camilla Tominey both got briefed that poor Charles invited Harry (and seemingly Harry alone, not his wife or children) to his birthday party and Harry refused! I guess we were supposed to think that the poor king has only light and goodness in his heart and he’s just so desperate to mend fences with Harry (alone), except the palace sadists couldn’t help but remind their audience that the rest of the family loathes Harry. Anyhoodle, funny story: it was all palace make-believe. No invitation was extended to Harry.

King Charles is celebrating his upcoming 75th birthday with a party filled with family and friends and reports stated that Prince Harry would not be in attendance despite being invited. However, the Duke of Sussex’s spokesperson said those stories are inaccurate and “disappointing.”

“In response to UK media headlines, there has been no contact regarding an invitation to His Majesty’s upcoming birthday,” the spokesperson tells the Messenger. “It is disappointing the Sunday Times has misreported this story.”

While the Sunday Times reported that Prince Harry was invited and turned down an invitation to the Clarence House event on Nov.14, a source with knowledge of the situation clarified to the Messenger that The Palace had “never reached out.”

When reached by The Messenger, a spokesperson for Buckingham Palace declined to comment.

[From The Messenger]

LMAO. It really is amateur hour over there. While Kensington Palace is a well-known clownshow, usually Charles’s people are more prepared than this. I find it interesting to watch as Charles completely abandons “never complain, never explain” as well – Charles and his people have gone on clear, obvious and detailed briefing sprees with regards to the Sussexes since Day 1. Literally, one of Charles’s first acts as king was banning Meghan from Balmoral, bitching out Harry for wanting his wife by his side after QEII’s passing, then briefing the media about all of it. Charles did the same about Harry’s coronation attendance – for months, the palace spoke of little else besides Harry’s possible attendance. Then there was the bullsh-t about Harry staying one night in Windsor in September. I wonder why Harry decided to clap back on this one. And why did the palace lie so blatantly to Nikkhah and Tominey?

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

This story is wild. So, in 2017, a Portland man named Joshua Smith was leaving an addiction recovery meeting when he saw a stray tabby cat in the parking lot and took the cat home. The cat was starving and had a swollen eye. Joshua named the cat Frank and loved him very much. Then, two years later in 2019, his landlord went into his apartment without notifying Joshua, which is illegal, and abducted Frank the cat. There was allegedly a no pets policy, though Joshua’s attorney says he couldn’t find any such policy or property rule in writing. The landlord claims he had his girlfriend drop Frank off at a shelter, where they checked his microchip and he was reunited with his previous owners (I do not buy this, I have to say). A neighbor saw Frank being abducted and told Joshua about it. So Joshua took the landlord to court, and won a hell of a payout, $1.375 million. Good. Kidnapping somebody’s pet is a demented thing to do, regardless of any “lease violations.”

An Oregon man’s dogged search for the truth has left him nearly $1.4 million richer.

Joshua Smith was forlorn when his feline sidekick, Frank, mysteriously disappeared.

But Smith sported a Cheshire cat smile this week after a Multnomah County Circuit Court jury deliberated less than two hours before awarding him $1.375 million for the loss of his 3-year-old tabby, oregonlive.com reported.

Smith had previously sued, claiming his landlord had “catnapped” the furball.

“The jury’s message should be loud and clear to landlords,” said purr-suasive attorney Michael Fuller, who won the case. “You need to respect the rights of tenants, especially when it comes to pets.”

The rags to riches tale began when Smith, 41, encountered the apparent alley cat on the street in 2017 and welcomed him into the humble room he rented at a drug recovery group home in Portland, court records show.

Smith returned home on April 29, 2019, and found Frank had mysteriously vanished. He sued his landlord, Devon Andrade, and the recovery house business, Pinestreet LLC, days later, the outlet reported.

As the fur flew in court, landlord Andrade fessed up that he filched Frank, saying it was a violation of Smith’s lease to have a pet, the media report said. The heartless landlord owned up and said he got his girlfriend to drop Frank off at a local shelter.

“It turned out that the people on the jury were also animal lovers,” said Fuller.

While Smith won beaucoup bucks in court, he didn’t get Frank back. Veterinarians found a microchip in the cat and returned him to his original owner.

[From The New York Post]

I couldn’t find more info about the case besides this article from four years ago here. Basically Joshua’s argument was that he was devastated by the loss of Frank the cat and was originally suing his landlord for $250K for emotional distress and violating entry laws. I’m guessing that the remaining amount is punitive damages that will go the state. Pets are great across the board but I think they can be so supportive for people in addiction recovery. Joshua says in that article linked above, “He was the only thing that loved me at the time. Girlfriends come and go. Friends come and go. Frank’s been the one constant in my life.” And even if Frank had previous owners, he clearly loved Joshua a great deal.

Cats choose their people. When I was in high school, there was a cat in my best friends’ neighborhood who had essentially been abandoned by his owners once they got a dog. Bruce was a giant, fluffy, friendly orange tabby who was always wandering down the street looking for attention. I would always pet him, and my friend’s family started feeding him on their patio. One day as I was leaving my friend’s house, Bruce just jumped into my open car door and sat on the passenger seat. I knew what that meant. I drove home with him and took him inside. I just told my mom, “this is our cat now. We have been chosen.” (She understood. She knows that’s what cats do.) Bruce was our boy from that point forward. Frank the cat chose to be Joshua’s companion, and it’s enraging that his landlord would just abduct the cat instead of having a conversation with him about violating the lease or trying to work out an agreement with pet rent or something. I really hope that Frank is okay and that his previous owners love him as much as Joshua did.

evidence photos via PageSix

Joan Collins has a new memoir out called Behind the Shoulder Pads: Tales I Tell My Friends. The book shares tales of her younger years in Hollywood and her adventures with and grief for her sister Jackie’s passing. It also delves into relationships and talks about her happy marriage to producer Percy Gibson, who is 32-years younger than she is. While doing the press rounds for the book, Joan gave PEOPLE magazine some additional insight into what makes her marriage to Percy work. For Joan and Percy, it’s all about shared hobbies and separate bathrooms.

Collins tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue that there are a few elements that have kept her marriage going strong for so many years, and they range from shared hobbies to separate facilities. To the actress, success lies in keeping a balance in her relationship, which she says she and Gibson have worked out to be “separate bathrooms and the same bedroom.”

“First of all, Percy and I were working together and we became great friends,” Collins, whose new memoir, Behind the Shoulder Pads: Tales I Tell My Friends, is now available to purchase, explains. “We found we had a lot in common. We like the same things. We like doing the same things.”

As for what those “same things” are, Collins, 90, says, “We both adored the theater, and particularly musical theater. We love reading. We love playing cards or playing Scrabble. Neither of us are particularly outdoor[sy] people. You know, he doesn’t go running out to football games. And we love going to the theater and films and we just got along.”

The combination of those mutual interests led the Golden Globe winner to conclude that she and Gibson are in “the same blood group.”

Collins and Gibson’s story began when the former starred in a play managed by Gibson’s company in 2000. She had been married four other times before their meeting, but addressed the distinction between her relationship with Gibson from past loves in her 2011 memoir The World According to Joan. She said at the time that she “kissed a lot of frogs before I found my prince.” By 2002, the couple officially wed and have been together ever since.

When it comes to critics who have called out the 32-year age gap between her and Gibson, 58, Collins makes it known that the naysayers don’t affect her.

“They don’t do it in England anymore because everybody knows how happy we are together,” she explains. “And, you know, age is — as far as we’re concerned — just a number, and that’s the way that we both feel.”

She doubles down , telling PEOPLE, “Obviously, we talked about it before we got married, but it isn’t in the slightest importance.”

[From People]

Separate bathrooms…that’s the dream right there. I was just thrilled that our bathroom has two sinks! We have two bathrooms upstairs and another downstairs. The first upstairs bathroom is the master bathroom and the other one is the one my two elementary school-aged boys use, so that’s only usable to everyone else for a short period of time after a thorough cleaning, lol. The closest my husband and I ever get to separate bathrooms is usually accompanied by the phrase, “I’m in the shower, go downstairs!”

I do think what Joan says about having similar interests with your significant other is important for most relationships to make it long term, especially during that period in life when you’re both really busy. It’s good to have common ground so you can pause and reconnect. However, I also think it’s healthy for couples to have different interests, too! You’re both individuals and being well-rounded means enjoying doing things both together and apart. I suppose having the same interests is more important when there is a 32-year age gap, though. It’s kinda blowing my mind that someone who is the same age as my grandma is married to someone who is younger than my father, but I won’t judge. Good for Joan for finding her prince and being happy. I guess the fifth time was the charm.

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