Florence Pugh was named “The British Icon” for the Elle UK Style Awards. I agree, Florence’s style is very… British. I’m actually fine with her style and her short hair and everything – she’s not a carbon copy of the traditional “ingénue,” and she’s very watchable on film and on red carpets. I’m always curious to see what she’s wearing even if I don’t always like it. Florence’s Elle UK cover interview was conducted by her friend Jodie Turner Smith and most of the piece is really just about fashion and body-image and how Pugh DGAF. Some highlights:

She keeps it real: “Having people that can take the p*ss out of me around me keeps me very real. It’s easy, in this industry, to go down the slippery slope of only being around people who compliment you. Knowing who I am – and who I’ve been from the very beginning – has allowed me to feel safe. There’s no grand reveal – it’s just me. Even in my style, I never wanted there to be a filter.

Her personal style: “My friends always laugh when I’m getting ready and I say, ‘I don’t know what to wear. I don’t have any clothes,’ because I have so many clothes. I think what I’m actually saying is, ‘Who do I want to be today?’ I have so many versions of myself that I want to show…And there’s been a big excitement to go all out recently. Red carpets haven’t been this crazy in a long time! Young designers, people like Harris Reed, are like, ‘Why don’t we just look amazing and ridiculous for a night?’ People were so excited to wear his hats.

Her style evolution: I think I’ve always been interested in wearing loud clothing. When I was a teenager, I would buy the most outrageous things and sew them together. I’ve always loved colour. I’ve always wanted to be bold and make a bit of a scene – I don’t think that’s gone away. When I first started doing red carpets, it was really tough. It takes ages to feel comfortable with 50 men all shouting, ‘Picture, over here!’ I’ve become more confident in the last few years, and I think that’s hugely linked to the clothes I’ve been wearing. The more you can enjoy it, the more [people] can see that you’re enjoying it.

Why she talks about her body & her faults: “I speak the way I do about my body because I’m not trying to hide the cellulite on my thigh or the squidge in between my arm and my boob: I would much rather lay it all out. I think the scariest thing for me are the instances where people have been upset that I’ve shown ‘too much’ of myself. When everything went down with the Valentino pink dress a year ago, my nipples were on display through a piece of fabric, and it really wound people up. It’s the freedom that people are scared of; the fact I’m comfortable and happy. Keeping women down by commenting on their bodies has worked for a very long time. I think we’re in this swing now where lots of people are saying, ‘I don’t give a sh-t.’ Unfortunately, we’ve become so terrified of the human body that we can’t even look at my two little cute nipples behind fabric in a way that isn’t sexual. We need to keep reminding everybody that there is more than one reason for women’s bodies [to exist].

[From Elle UK]

“It’s the freedom that people are scared of; the fact I’m comfortable and happy. Keeping women down by commenting on their bodies has worked for a very long time.” She’s right, actually. She’s also right that it’s so ingrained, culturally, that women’s bodies are for display, for objectification, for sexualization, that it’s startling when a woman says “I feel comfortable like this and I don’t give a f–k what anyone says or thinks.” That a woman can wear revealing clothing and it’s not a performance of her sexuality.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, and cover courtesy of Elle UK.

Mindy Kaling appeared on the Today Show this week. She’s not promoting struck work – she was there to talk about her new Amazon deal where she’s basically highlighting diverse writers, sort of like a book club but it’s more like “hey, Mindy Kaling recommends this book!” She’s also highlighting Lion Pose, the skincare company she recently invested in. Of course, Jenna Bush and Hoda Kotb drove the conversation into Mindy’s love life! Mindy actually said some really beautiful things about her two children and missing her own mother (who passed away several years ago).

Mindy Kaling is past her teenage boy-crazy phase, but that doesn’t mean she’s taken romance off the table. In conversation with Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager on Monday’s episode of Today, the 44-year-old Never Have I Ever creator said her once boy-obsessed nature has “definitely” ended.

“I think when I was younger, I was so far away from anything close to attention from boys, so I just imagined it,” the actress said as she reflected on her teenage years. “I had this over-active imagination cause even then I was like a writer and a creative, so I used to love these stories about people falling in love and going to movies and seeing Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks in romantic comedies and all that.” At the time, romance was like “science fiction” to Kaling. “It was so far away from anything that I was part of,” she told Kotb, 59, and Bush Hager, 41.

Now, The Mindy Project star has slightly more realistic expectations about love, but she’s still open to it.

“I’m still a romantic at heart and I write these stories about people finding love when they least expect it. So of course, I’m open to that and I believe in magic and timing.”

Kaling added that her father found love again after the death of her mother, and his second chance at romance gives her hope too. “He’s an Indian man and he was in his 60s and he moved to L.A. without knowing anyone and then they met in the same apartment building. And they are such an amazing couple. People find love in unexpected places. So I don’t know about it for me personally right now, but I’m always open to it.”

[From People]

Can we really talk about this? Because I have some thoughts! As I’ve said many times before, I’m overly invested in Mindy’s life. I don’t actually think she is “open” to love or a new relationship because she’s still so f–king hung up on BJ Novak. He’s still in her life, he’s godfather to her children (if not the actual father) and he takes up a huge amount of emotional space in her life. It also feels like he controls the relationship, that he’s dictating the terms and parameters of their “friendship.” I feel like most men steer clear because Mindy is so clearly still hung up on BJ and everyone can see their unhealthy dynamic from miles away. But the story about her dad was really nice.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.

Over the summer, there was sort of a Sussex drought, and the British media lunatics stepped into that void, convincing themselves and others that Prince Harry and Meghan were having marriage problems and that all was not well in Montecito. While 99% of that was clearly bullsh-t, there was one small thread which I thought could be something. That was Meghan (alone) signing up to be represented by WME, and the talk that she would be branching out with solo projects. The idea that this fall would be Meghan relaunching herself professionally has sort of stuck, and people are waiting to see what she’s got cooking. Well, Us Weekly claims that they have some tea:

Meghan Markle is dreaming big when it comes to her next project.

“[Prince] Harry and Meghan have been busy with Invictus Games recently, but Meghan is still planning her Hollywood reinvention,” a source exclusively tells Us Weekly. “Meghan has a new team around her, and they’ve been strategizing about what mediums will have the most impact.”

The insider adds that Meghan, 42, wants whatever she does next “to be rooted in giving back” and “philanthropy” and has been in talks with both documentary directors and fashion houses.

“There isn’t anything locked in yet, but the most promising [thing] for everyone seems to be Meghan and Harry highlighting important issues through docuseries and bringing attention and fundraising,” the source explains.

[From Us Weekly]

“There isn’t anything locked in yet” – I don’t believe that. I think WME came to the table with a plan and that’s why she signed up. Is it “reinvention” or merely an extension of what she’s already done for years? I don’t know. How much of this is wishful thinking on my part? Probably a lot. I definitely want to see more of Meghan and I want her to make some money! She’s left so much money on the table for years!! I know why, I know she was healing and planning her next steps, but she could have been a brand ambassador, she could have been on Instagram, she could have taken some modeling/print advertising jobs.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images.

Public opinion and reporting around UFO/UAP sightings changed with the pentagon’s release, early in the pandemic, of three videos of Navy pilots encountering UFOs. Navy pilots and high ranking military officials have since gone on the record to recount ongoing encounters with aircraft that defied the laws of physics. There was finally a congressional hearing about UAPs earlier this year, with several navy pilots testifying and the existence of UAPs described as an open secret among commercial pilots.

There are so many stories of everyday UFO sightings and abductions and there are plenty of shows chronicling them. Some of them seem far fetched, Ancient Aliens has a whiff of truth until it veers into wild speculation almost every time. Some, like Unsolved Mysteries, both the original 90s series and the revival, are convincing. I’ve watched plenty and Encounters, a new docuseries on Netflix, has to be my favorite. I’ve only seen the first two episodes. So far I’m sold though and so many other people feel the same. USA today and Dexerto have a good overview and I’m including quotes from both.

Directed by Yon Motskin, each episode of the series produced by Stephen Spielberg’s Amblin Television, Boardwalk Pictures and Vice Studios explores a separate report of a mass sighting in a different part of the world.

Billed in Netflix press materials as a “detective story,” “Encounters” relies on both firsthand accounts and also the testimony of various scientists and military officials to delve into reports of suspected extraterrestrial phenomena. The four episodes feature accounts of strange lights in the sky in 2008 over small-town Texas; Cold War-era submersible crafts lurking near a coastal Welsh village; a non-human intelligence reportedly interfering in 2011 with the operations of a nuclear power plant in Japan; and an alien encounter in 1994 experienced by schoolchildren in Zimbabwe. – USA Today

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The stories, which span from mysterious sightings in Texas to an alien interference with a Japanese nuclear power plant, are cut between revelations from military whistleblowers and investigative experts.

With thousands of Netflix fans tuning in, many have shared their praises for the docu-series.

Reaction to Encounters has been strong, with one viewer writing on X/Twitter: “Encounters on Netflix is excellent. Prob the best UFO doco series I’ve seen.”

“Watch a four part documentary called Encounters. Just out on Netflix and directed by Steven Spielberg [sic]. Brilliantly done,” said another, while a third added: “This show Encounters on Netflix is tight.” – Dexerto

[From USA Today and Dexerto]

Just to clarify the last tweet in the quote above, the show is produced in part by Steven Spielberg’s production company. It’s directed by Yon Motskin, who says he believes in UFOs now but did not before making this series. So far I’ve watched the episodes about the 1994 Zimbabwe sighting and the 2008 Texas UFO sightings. Both were witnessed by handfuls of people, many of whom were interviewed both right after the events and for this show. The eyewitnesses are so convincing and you feel for them as they faced ridicule after going public. I’m excited to see the other two episodes!

Other shows that have really changed my opinion on UFOs and aliens are Unsolved Mysteries the revival (Volume 3, episode 2 “Something in the Sky,” Netflix), and Unsolved Mysteries the original (season 4, episode 1, on FreeVee/Amazon Prime and YouTube). The documentary Moment of Contact is also incredible (Tubi). I’m a little more skeptical about the abduction stories but the shows Alien Abduction: Travis Walton (Discovery Plus) and Alien Abduction: Barney and Betty Hill (Discovery Plus) are also very good.

In 1994, over 60 children at a Zimbabwe school claimed to have seen aliens. Years later, witnesses maintain their accounts. Hear their stories and more from around the world in Encounters — now streaming. pic.twitter.com/Av77jXj2ke

— Netflix (@netflix) September 30, 2023

Photos credit: Netflix

I’m not going to do a deeper dive on this and I’ll just boldly claim that Kensington Palace rushed out an announcement for some planned events next week for Prince William and Kate. KP rushed out the announcement because the Duke and Duchess of Sussex confirmed to People Magazine yesterday that they would be in New York for their first in-person Archewell Foundation event to mark World Mental Health Day. I’ll be fair to Will and Kate (even though they don’t deserve it) – I’d be willing to bet that they already a Tuesday appearance booked well before the Sussexes made their announcement. It’s the rush to announce Will and Kate’s Tuesday event which is questionable.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s return to New York City is set to clash with an important date in the Prince and Princess of Wales’ diary.

The warring couples will both make appearances on Tuesday to mark World Mental Health Day – although they will be on opposite sides of the Atlantic. The announcement of Harry and Meghan returning to the city where they claim they were involved in a “near catastrophic car chase” in May, came hours after William and Kate revealed their plans.

On Tuesday, they will also mark World Mental Health Day with a forum for young people in Birmingham in conjunction with BBC Radio One. According to Kensington Palace, the event will bring together 100 youngsters to discuss how they manage their emotions and to talk about the mental health challenges their generation faces.

It will also mark the start of further engagements on Wednesday and Thursday of next week, which will highlight the importance of mental health with university students and emergency responders. Meanwhile, over in NYC, Harry and Meghan will host their first in-person Archewell Foundation event. The occasion will see the Duke and Duchess of Sussex provide a platform for parents to navigate mental health when it comes to the digital world.

[From The Daily Mirror]

Again, I’m not going to do a deeper dive and look for the receipts, and I’m not claiming that Will and Kate’s event itself was thrown together at the last minute in a bid to compete with the Sussexes. I’m merely saying that the announcement of the Wales’ event didn’t come chronologically until after the Sussexes, despite the Mirror’s reporting. It’s perfectly possible that Kensington Palace staffers had been organizing Peg and RepliKate’s schedule for weeks, but here’s the thing – these days, Will and Kate prefer to keep their schedules very quiet. There are exceptions – that stupid QEII death-anniversary trip to Wales, the Black History Month appearance this week – but usually, their events are a surprise to everyone outside the Rota. They announced this sh-t specifically to “compete” with the Sussexes, just as they suddenly had tons of events during the Invictus Games. Sad!

I’m also sure that William and Kate’s thing was intended as yet another weaksauce gaslighting event for an audience of two: Meghan and Harry. They were already going to take swipes about people who get too much therapy and suddenly don’t want to be the family scapegoat.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

Here are some photos from last night’s gala event for the New York City Ballet’s 75th Anniversary. Sarah Jessica Parker, a longtime supporter and patron of the NYC Ballet, was there with her husband Matthew Broderick. Interestingly enough, Diane Kruger also decided to come out for this event. Diane has attended NYC Ballet events in the past, but she’s not known as some kind of long-time supporter of the company. I find it fascinating that Diane made a point of stepping out with her partner/fiance (and father of her child) Norman Reedus this week, the week that Jodie Turner Smith filed for divorce from Joshua Jackson. I think she did it on purpose, that she was looking for a chance to send a signal that she and Norman are still together. Considering she’s given interviews for years now, taking swipes at Joshua, you can’t blame me for feeling like this was pointed. Diane wore a “bridal white” bespoke Givenchy to the gala. The sleeves are so bad, it looks like her arm is in a sling.

Here’s SJP and Matthew Broderick. Sarah Jessica always does tulle-intensive ballerina looks for NYC Ballet events. We don’t talk about that enough, that SJP is a theme-dresser. This dress is Carolina Herrera and she added a giant hair bow. I get what she was doing but this feels like mutton dressed as lamb. I know exactly how judgmental that sounds but I still say this look is way too “young.”

Molly Ringwald in Zac Posen! She looks great!

And finally, Justin Theroux in heels!

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

This week, we learned something most of us knew months ago, which is that Prince Andrew will not be evicted from Royal Lodge. Andrew has lived in Royal Lodge since the Queen Mum passed away and QEII agreed to give Andrew a sweetheart deal on the lease. Royal Lodge is a 30-room mansion with extensive grounds within the larger Royal Windsor Estate. Hilariously, Prince William wanted Royal Lodge for himself and William has been trying to get his uncle evicted for the past two years. King Charles finally gave in and announced the evictions of both Andrew and Prince Harry, and Charles planned to “give” Frogmore Cottage to Andrew. Andrew refused to budge, meanwhile the Sussexes packed their things and left Frogmore. No one knows who is living in Frogmore now. Well, now Buckingham Palace and the Duke of York are trying to put a bow on it and act like “well, it’s not like William needed another home, after all.” LOL.

There is little sign that Prince William will move into Royal Lodge, the 30-room mansion in Windsor Great Park, any time soon. And there is every sign, says Richard Eden, that Prince Andrew will continue living his home of three decades, even though his older brother, King Charles, wants to move him out – and move the Waleses in!

But writing in the latest edition of his Palace Confidential newsletter, Eden says this could be good news for William, who already lives in three homes at once, including Kensington Palace and ten-bedroom Anmer Hall.

‘In my opinion, Andrew may have done his nephew, Prince William, a favour with his stubbornness,’ he writes. ‘A friend of the Yorks tells me: “I don’t know why the King thought it would look better for William and Catherine to have Royal Lodge in addition to all their other properties than for the Duke and Duchess to remain there.”‘

The Prince and Princess of Wales had been expected to move their growing family into Royal Lodge in the coming months, after expensive renovations had been carried out. But as Eden explains, ‘when King Charles demanded earlier this year that his brother Prince Andrew move out , it was never going to end well.’

After all, the Duke of York had paid £1million for a 75-year lease on the Queen Mother’s sprawling Grade II-listed mansion in 2003 and has since spent more than £7.5million on extensive renovation work. It is also home to his ex-wife, Sarah, Duchess of York.

‘The suggestion that the pair could move into somewhere smaller on the Windsor estate, such as the home from which the Duke and Duchess of Sussex had been evicted, Frogmore Cottage, rubbed salt into their wounds,’ he writes. ‘Now, however, Andrew appears to have won his power struggle with his elder brother.’

William and Kate certainly aren’t short of homes. Currently, they live in the four-bedroom Adelaide Cottage at Windsor. They also own Apartment 1A at Kensington Palace, a 20-room property that was renovated using £4.5million of taxpayers’ money in 2013. In addition, they own Anmer Hall, a ten-bedroom country house on the Sandringham Estate.

[From The Daily Mail]

The thing I don’t want people to forget is that no one – not QEII, not Charles, not Camilla, not Andrew – no one wanted William and Kate to move to Windsor. “They” suddenly “decided” that they needed to move in 2021 because their big, fancy Kensington Palace apartment wasn’t good enough and Kate wanted to be closer to mummy. Kate wanted the kids to go to school outside of London and William used that opportunity to talk his father into setting Kate up in a separation home. Kate had such plans, she wanted a palace or a fort or some kind of estate with extensive grounds. Instead, she got a four-bedroom cottage with no space for live-in staff and a closet full of discount wigs.

So… yes, William did want Royal Lodge and yes, it would have looked bad if he had gotten it. The thing is, if they had gotten Royal Lodge, they would have “moved out” of Adelaide Cottage, right? So they would have one mansion in Windsor, one mansion in London and one mansion in Norfolk. See, they’re practically peasants! I also love how no one is talking about what is currently happening with Frogmore. The whole point of evicting the Sussexes was that it “looked bad” for such a great property to be sitting vacant for a large part of the year, right?

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

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Matthew McConaughey is still talking about his mom’s behavior towards his wife Camila Alves when they first started dating. This whole press cycle began when Camila did a podcast interview and shared how Kay McCabe aka Ma Mac, “tested” her when she first started dating Matthew. For example, McCabe would call Camila by Matthew’s ex-girlfriends names and speak to her in broken Spanish, even though her native language is Portuguese. A lot of people did not find this treatment funny and rightfully called it out as abusive. MM tried to do damage control by laughing Ma Mac’s behavior off as a rite of passage in the McConaughey family. Yeah, no one was buying that one either. Now, Matthew is once again defending Kay, framing it as “looking out” for him.

“My family — and part of Camila and I as well — we cherish the value of a sense of humor and comedy,” the Oscar winner said on the “Whine Down with Jana Kramer” podcast Monday while admitting that his mother Mary McCabe’s treatment of Alves when they met had ruffled some feathers.

“Some people were like, ‘Oh, my gosh,’ but … Camila wasn’t wounded about it,” he insisted. “What tickles us may bruise others.”

McConaughey, 53, went on to praise his mom for “looking out for” him when he began his relationship with the now-41-year-old model.

“She was looking out for me,” he said. “She tested my feelings and tested the woman I had the feelings for. Big picture, that’s pretty cool actually.”

The “Interstellar” star also gave Alves a shout-out for going “right through” the hazing and earning McCabe’s respect.

[From Page Six]

Meh. I have never heard the phrase, “What tickles us may bruise others.” Is that a Texas thing? Maybe Matthew’s next book should be a compilation of random sayings, lol. But in all seriousness, MM had a messed up childhood. He also had a rocky relationship with Kay when he first became famous and stopped talking to her for eight years to set some boundaries. He likely still craves affection from his mother and probably has a very skewed way of looking for it. I believe him when he says that he thinks it was “cool” that his mom was looking out for him. Bless his heart. I just wish he’d understand that good intentions do not justify bad actions. Ma Mac’s actions towards his wife were still abusive.

When this story first broke, a lot of you shared some really great personal stories about getting along with your in-laws. At the end of the day, it’s up to Camila to decide what she wants to put up with, but Matthew needs to stop normalizing and justifying his mother’s behavior. Every time he does another interview explaining it away, it just brings more attention to it. Matthew, we’re in Hollywood Divorce Szn. Stop talking about your mom and everyone will forget about it soon enough.

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photos credit: Avalon.red and Getty

This week, the Ephraim Hardcastle column “reported” something very obvious, which is that King Charles’s slimmed down monarchy is very slim, and that Charles views his family quite differently than his mother. QEII saw everyone as part of “the Family Firm” while Charles categorizes the fam as “Senior Royals, Working Royals, Non-Working Royals and Others. The Others are, apparently, Andrew, Harry and Meghan – with Andrew getting preferential treatment over the Sussexes.” As I said, it was obvious, but the Mail does love to rake over old news and repackage it as something new. Anyone watching the Windsor sh-tshow in recent years has gotten the message loud and clear: a rapist pervert is preferable to a prince married to a Black woman. Tom Sykes, another master of the obvious, devoted his column to this too, that “sources close to Andrew” are quite pleased that Andrew is treated better than the Sussexes, and that Charles will continue to give Andrew what he wants because Andrew has never given an interview to Oprah.

Andrew gets better treatment than Harry: The differing treatment meted out to Andrew and Harry in respect of their security arrangements seems, with the benefit of hindsight, a foreshadowing of what has since become a routine habit of the new king; namely giving Andrew notably better treatment than Harry, despite his brother’s out-of-court settlement for a reputed $14 million with Virginia Giuffre over underage sex abuse allegations. Of course, there are complicating factors; principally that Harry lives in California not Windsor, and that Harry seems in no rush to bend the knee to his father. But the inconvenient fact remains that it rather looks like the king would prefer you pay off a sex accuser than give an interview to Oprah Winfrey.

Why Andrew is in the king’s good books: A friend of Andrew’s confirmed to The Daily Beast that Andrew believes he is in the king’s good books compared to Harry: “If you were Charles, would you rather have a problem that looks like Harry and Meghan or a problem that looks like Andrew? Andrew has taken his punishment, withdrawn from public life and done whatever has been asked of him. He knows he has damaged the monarchy. So have Harry and Meghan. The difference is [Andrew] deeply regrets it and it was not intentional, whereas Harry and Meghan deliberately set out to cause as much damage to Charles and Camilla as they could to sell books and TV shows. That’s an entirely different matter. Disloyalty is far and away the No. 1 crime in that family.”

A template for a Sussex reconciliation: “The extent to which the king has publicly made it clear Andrew is still part of the family has caught some people by surprise. But ultimately, he has the interests of the monarchy at heart, and that means a united family, whatever its problems. Hopefully that message is getting through to Harry and Meghan.”

Outside the tent, pissing in: A former Buckingham Palace staffer put the king’s strategic case for including Andrew in family set pieces more bluntly, saying: “It’s the oldest question in politics: would you rather have the troublemakers inside the tent pissing out or outside the tent pissing in? Harry is very much outside the tent pissing in and it’s a problem. Andrew is inside the tent pissing out, and that suits Charles better.”

Historian Andrew Lownie’s thoughts: The royal historian Andrew Lownie, who is publishing a biography of Prince Andrew next year, told The Daily Beast: “Harry is a loose cannon and Meghan even more so. They both have more books coming. The strategy, I believe, is to keep in with him and to marginalize her, which is exactly what they did with Wallis and the Duke of Windsor. Andrew has been loyal to a certain extent. He’s made some implicit threats, and things have been floated about books and TV interviews, but ultimately he is a loyalist. Andrew is less of a problem than Harry. He may become more of a problem, especially when my book comes out, because I think there will be things in there that will rock the boat. But he’s not been rude about Camilla. He’s not set out to destabilize the monarchy. He hasn’t spilled secrets.”

How the family views Andrew: Lownie said: “I think some of them feel sorry for him. He says the accusations against him are false, and there are suggestions that some of the family believe him.” Lownie also hints that Camilla may have had a significant role in urging Charles to reconcile with his brother—who he didn’t get on with particularly well before he was accused of sex crimes.

[From The Daily Beast]

“But ultimately, he has the interests of the monarchy at heart, and that means a united family, whatever its problems. Hopefully that message is getting through to Harry and Meghan.” No – Charles is a weak man who can’t stand to deal with things directly, so instead of speaking to his son and apologizing and figuring out a way forward, Charles is making a point of allowing his staff to brief against Harry and Meghan, leak sh-t about them and shun them. The message being sent to the Sussexes is actually as Lownie describes: “The strategy, I believe, is to keep in with him and to marginalize her.” Charles wants to keep some sort of line open to Harry – indirectly, of course – but treat Meghan like she doesn’t exist and is not worth his respect or regard. The galaxy-brains at Buckingham Palace think this is a good look for the king, they think it plays well that he can’t wait to include a rapist in family events but he won’t allow his son to stay in a guest room for one night.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

The biggest “tell” that King Charles and Queen Camilla’s big French tour flopped was the utter lack of post-tour buzz. It was that way after the coronation too – these are supposedly the monarchy’s biggest setpieces and they have zero shelf life. The coronation was a boring slog and people couldn’t wait to change the subject the second it was over. It was the same after the French tour – instead of a weekend full of glowing coverage, Buckingham Palace spent the days following the tour running around, briefing the Times, the Telegraph and the Sun about Prince Harry. The Mail didn’t get that memo and they’re still trying to put lipstick on this pig. The Mail’s Palace Confidential round-table had a big discussion about how Brigitte Macron is apparently a huge royalist and she loves reading gossip about the Windsors:

Brigitte Macron loves reading about the British Royal Family who are ‘huge sellers’ of celebrity magazines in France, experts have revealed. Madame Macron and her husband President Emmanuel Macron cosied up to the King and Queen on their recent state visit to France – with the two couples becoming fast friends. Camilla and Brigitte seemed particularly close, giggling together and helping each other out during the trip – which has been deemed a huge success for the monarchy.

Speaking to Palace Confidential, the Daily Mail’s Royal Editor Rebecca English explained that both the Macrons and the French public were charmed by Charles and Camilla.

‘It has definitely been viewed as a success by the Palace,’ she explained. ‘I’ve covered a lot of state visits over the years and I think it was definitely up there in terms of setting up things to happen and actually achieving it. There was a real warmth and welcome from President Macron and his wife, and from the crowds as well. You never know what you’re gonna get and the opportunities to mingle with the crowds were limited, as there have been big security issues in France. There were big cries of “Vive Le Roi” which is probably the first time in 100 years they’ve heard that in France. I would have thought [the French would] be too cool for it but far from it.’

‘One of the things I’ve learned from meeting some new friends on some of the French celeb mags is the Royal Family are big sellers for them. And apparently one of the big consumers is Madame Macron – she loves reading about the British Royal Family, particularly the Princess of Wales’.

[From The Daily Mail]

From what I’ve seen as a gossip blogger, the French tabloids are not as nasty and sadistic as the British tabloids, and the French/European tabloids tend to treat royals the same way they treat celebrities. Meaning, I doubt Brigitte Macron wants people to know that she’s reading the tabloids for celebrity gossip, nor do I believe that reading royal gossip means that she’s some big fan of the royals. Anyway, the British royalists just keep trying to convince themselves that their royalty is so big, important and newsworthy. While I do think a lot of people are paying attention to the Windsors, it’s the gossip equivalent of a hate-watch. Like, we’re watching a slow-motion train wreck. We’re watching the Titanic go down very slowly.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.