One nice thing I’ll say about the Prince and Princess of Wales is that it actually does feel like they’re doing more events these days. It’s all relative, of course, and their “busy schedule” comes after a two-month summer holiday where they did not work at all. It’s also funny to me that William and Kate basically schedule everything for Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays nowadays. It’s not even “we only work during the week, never on weekends.” They need Mondays off, and Fridays too!

So, William and Kate were out again today for an event with SportsAid, one of Kate’s patronages. They visited Bisham Abbey National Sports Centre in Marlow, Buckinghamshire and they spoke to young athletes about mental health. Their events this week (together and solo) have been part of the theme of “mental health.” You can read more about their activities here.

Kate wore her version of sporty gear – jeans (not jeggings, thank god), a white top and a garish blue blazer from Zara. I think the button count on the blazer is 12? Her shoes are Vejas, one of her favorite brands. Once again, Kate was sporting bandages on her right hand, the same two fingers. Everyone is still going with “Kate has a lingering finger injury from a trampoline accident,” which is the excuse we were given last month. Is it possible that those fingers are still bothering her? Sure. Is it possible that Kate is only taking extra precautions with the bandages when she’s doing sporty events where she uses her hands? Sure. But these reappearing finger bandages are still really concerning. They just keep getting bigger too.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.

Sarah Ferguson started a podcast months ago, before she was diagnosed with breast cancer. I have no idea if her pod is successful, but I would assume most people really just don’t care. Still, because Fergie is toeing the Firm’s line for the most part, she must be hyped as the next big thing in… American broadcasting?? The Mail is trying to start the rumor that Fergie might end up hosting an American talk show. Like… this isn’t a real thing. It seems the real story is that Fergie is back to scheming for a way to make money so she can “support” her ex-husband.

The Duchess of York is hoping to land a lucrative chat show in America in a bid to help her ex-husband, Prince Andrew, pay his mounting bills. TV producer Amy Rosenblum told The Mail on Sunday that she met Sarah Ferguson at New York’s Regency Hotel last month and discussed possible formats. Ms Rosenblum, one of the most respected figures in US television, who was a long-time producer of America’s top-rated breakfast programme, NBC’s Today Show, said: ‘Sarah told me, “I want a show! I want a show!” I did a pilot with her about 15 years ago. We were up against Ellen DeGeneres and ultimately they went with Ellen. But Sarah was really good when we did the pilot. We have been friends since then.’

Ms Rosenblum declined to comment on specific pitches which may be in the pipeline. But an insider at ABC TV, part of giant Disney Studios, said: ‘Fergie could reasonably expect to earn around £2million a year, but that figure would go up considerably should her show be a hit.

‘She’s always gone down well in America. She’s never been too proud to promote the heck out of anything, be it one of her books or WeightWatchers. Americans respect someone who hustles.’

The ABC source said: ‘Ellen has retired so there is a gap in the market.’

Fergie is reportedly keen to help bankroll £2million worth of essential maintenance work at Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park.Andrew had faced losing his 30-room mansion until he paid £200,000 for urgent roof repairs this summer. A source told the Mail on Sunday: ‘It’s true Sarah wants to help Andrew stay in what she considers their family home. She lives at Royal Lodge when she’s in the UK. It’s very much their family’s base. Andrew has lost so much. She will do everything she can to help him keep the house, even though it may prove untenable in the long term.’

Friends say that the Prince has been left ‘bereft’ by events and is a ‘lost soul’.

‘He rides his horses and goes for long walks but he is a lost soul and veers between bafflement and feeling bereft by the turn of events,’ said one woman who is in touch with members of his inner circle. ‘He has always maintained his innocence and those close to him believe him absolutely. He is struggling. He was able to pay for the emergency roof repairs but that was very much an interim fix. The overall repair bill is considerably higher and you have to factor in the day-to-day running costs of a place like Royal Lodge.

‘Money, or the lack of it, has been a constant in Andrew and Sarah’s relationship. She will do everything she can to support him now, just as she always has.’

[From The Daily Mail]

The Mail also name-checked Kelly Clarkson and Drew Barrymore (but failed to mention Jennifer Hudson) as talk-show hostesses who are trying to fill the daytime market following Ellen’s exit. Again, Fergie isn’t getting a network talk show. Americans wish her well, but we’re not dying to see her on a talk show, and these days, her baggage (Andrew, Jeffrey Epstein) would weigh down the show. As I said, the real point of this story is “poor broke Andrew.” “He is a lost soul and veers between bafflement and feeling bereft by the turn of events…He has always maintained his innocence and those close to him believe him absolutely.” Bafflement? Does he not remember all of the teenage girls procured for him by Jeffrey Epstein? Did someone force him to settle out of court with Virginia Giuffre? Did someone force him to lie his ass off in a BBC interview? Good lord. The Yorks are a complete disaster, and I really hope that Eugenie and Beatrice are smarter about money and their associations.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.

Prince William and Kate come across as such throwbacks to another era, it’s hard to think of them as modern people who text emojis. They’re surely too Victorian to know about the peach emoji, right? When someone described Kate a “Millennial Queen,” I was actually shocked by the realization that, oh right, technically she IS Millennial (or perhaps more of an Xennial, but that’s a conversation for another time). Anyway, Will and Kate did a radio interview on World Mental Health Day and the quotes from the interview are really something. They listed their favorite emojis and William’s most-used emoji is… shocking.

Kate Middleton and Prince William have favorite emojis just like the rest of us! During an interview with Radio 1 show hosts Jordan North and Vick Hope for their Going Home show, the royal couple was asked a few light-hearted questions sent in by listeners.

When asked what their most-used emojis are, William joked that he was going to have to think of a family-friendly option because his initial answer would be the aubergine [eggplant].
“Is this a clean thing or is this a family one?” he said with a laugh. “I’ve been told not to say the aubergine so I’ve got to pick something else. It would have been the aubergine but I’m saying now—because I’ve got to be all grown up—it’s the one where the eyes go up and down and the mouth’s out. What’s that one? The slightly crazy one.”

Kate then shared which emoji she opts for, and gave listeners a little insight into when she uses it.

“Mine’s probably going to be the heart with then the crying emoji. The hysterical laughing when things have gone wrong,” the royal admitted.

Both presenters were amused by William’s initial suggestion of the aubergine emoji. “He said the aubergine emoji, this is brilliant!” North said. Hope added, “He knows. He’s got a dirty mind.”

[From People]

Genuine question: why the hell is the eggplant – often used as a reference to dong – William’s most-used emoji? He’s texting eggplants to WHOM?? This is the second time in two weeks where I’ve really wondered about William’s inappropriate conversation and behavior during events. The first was when he suggested that women were pinching his bottom, and now this! Why does William want us to think about the royal jewels and the royal bum? Yikes.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

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The Dolly Parton promotional machine is in high gear ahead of the release of her album Rockstar in November. She gave an interview to The Guardian that has some fascinating moments in it. Dolly is famously apolitical, though she did speak out in support of Black Lives Matter and has been a vocal LGBTQ ally for many years. But in this interview, she talks a lot about political issues, or rather, she talks around them. Dolly’s too nimble with interviews to give anything much away. But if you read between the lines, there are some interesting nuggets here. She admits in this interview that she won’t speak on politics because she doesn’t want to alienate her fans. But she also says that political discussions have become so heated in her own family since Tr*mp was elected, that they can’t have an extended family dinner without people fighting. (I wonder if she ever pipes up during these family brawls.) Dolly says she’s not a feminist because of the connotation the word has and she believes in “living an example” instead of “preaching it.” Oh, and I think one of her new songs on the upcoming album could reference climate change? Which I did not see coming.

She won’t call herself a feminist, but she believes in equal pay: “If you do something great, you should be recognised and paid for it. So if that makes me a feminist, yeah.” Is Dolly Parton admitting to being a feminist? She laughs. “That title just never seemed to fit right with me, although there’s not a feminist out there that don’t say, ‘Dolly Parton does her job, a good example of what a strong woman can be.’ I’m all about living an example rather than preaching it.”

Why she has always been apolitical: “Because you’re going to lose half your audience,” she says. “Even within my own family, especially the last few years since Trump and Biden, all that, it’s like we can’t even go to a family dinner any more. Especially if people are drinking – they get in a damn fight at the table.” She is dismayed at how polarised politics has become. “Don’t get so trapped where if you’re a Republican, you got to be this way, if you’re Democrat, you got to be that way. You’re not allowed to think nothing else. Well, how crippling is that? I’ve got as many Democrats as I do Republicans as fans, and I’m not going to insult any of them because I care about all of them. I ain’t that good a Christian to think that I am so good that I can judge people. That’s God’s job, not mine. So as far as politics, I hate politics. Hate politics.”

Her upcoming song World on Fire might be about climate change (?): “I tried to say what I was thinking about all of it – can’t we rise above, some love, step up and make a change?” She looks momentarily exasperated, but she’s still smiling. “Whether it be about the world being on fire with hate and greed and climate change or whatever, you’re not even allowed to say you believe in certain things because you’re going to just lose a whole bunch of people that are so set in their ways, they wouldn’t believe it.”

[From The Guardian]

Dolly also refuses to say whether she supports or opposes the abortion ban in Tennessee. But she wrote songs about unwanted pregnancies back in the early days of her career. “Down from Dover” is the most famous example, and there’s also “The Bridge,” a story about a young woman who falls pregnant and is then abandoned by the father, so she commits suicide. Dolly treats the women in both of these songs with compassion–there’s nothing judgmental in the lyrics. She clearly thinks this kind of story is worth telling. The fact that she wrote these songs in the 1960s as an up-and-comer in (notoriously conservative) country music was a big risk. Based on those details, and everything else we know about her, I’m extrapolating that Dolly is probably not in favor of the ban and is just staying out of talking about it on principle. I think it’s fascinating that Dolly tries so hard not to alienate people. You can tell when an artist does that just because they don’t want to lose market share (ahem, Taylor Swift before roughly 2019). But Dolly has taken that stance because she tries not to judge people. That’s not easy. I think Dolly is trying to hold space for the possibility that people can evolve and grow, which is…kind of a radical thing to believe right now.

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Rebecca English had a curious piece in the Daily Mail this week, all about King Charles and his closest royal advisors, all of whom are women. English refers to these royal women as “Charlie’s Angels,” which is nauseating and insulting, not to mention false. The fact is, Charles has always put men in senior positions of his offices and foundations, although he does have a handful of women in managerial positions (not many though). Still, let’s hear about how much “Charlie” values his “Angels,” the Duchess of Edinburgh, the Princess Royal, the Queen Consort and the Princess of Wales.

Duchess Sophie is a key player: Approachable yet passionate, the Duchess is rather formidable in her own quiet way – qualities well-recognised by her brother-in-law, the King. And why Sophie is a key player in the coterie of strong female advisers known as ‘Charlie’s Angels’.

Three generations of kings: Fortunately, Charles III is surrounded by straight-talking female figures, a theme played out behind the scenes as well. Front and centre is the king’s sister, Princess Anne, a worthy inheritor of their mother’s non-nonsense mantle. Surely it was no coincidence that in her brother’s official coronation portrait she was positioned standing at the King’s right hand? Then there’s Catherine, Princess of Wales, who has steadily become the ‘steel marshmallow’ of the current generation of Windsor women (a reference to the late Queen Mother, whose fluffy exterior hid a hard-boiled core) and on whose shoulders many see the future of the monarchy resting.

Camilla, the greatest asset: And of course there is Queen Camilla herself, once so vilified but whose quiet dignity and loyalty to the Crown has seen her transformed into one of her husband’s greatest assets. Indeed, the fact that Charles’ court has become so female-centric is in no small part down to his wife of 18 years, the undoubted power behind the throne. ‘The Queen can do more with half a raised eyebrow than many a courtier could ever hope to achieve,’ says one insider who knows the set-up well. ‘It’s a power she uses wisely and because she has such common sense approach to all this business of monarchy, it’s brought a very welcome energy to the operation.’

Princess Anne, the workhorse: ‘She’s an absolute chip off the old block and she, recently made clear, the Royal Family still needs her given recent departures, ‘ one source says, referring to an interview she gave to Vanity Fair. The source added: ‘She will continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with her brother, with minimal fuss, and after the drama of the last few years that’s exactly what he needs.’

The women are the power behind the throne: ‘The institution has long been a matriarchal one, regardless of who has the top job. And it is the women who ultimately manage, smooth out and improve relationships when they hit the skids, ‘ one former courtier tells me. ‘The Princess of Wales and the Queen [then Consort] were the architects of the rapprochement between the King and Prince William when their relationship was somewhat rocky a few years ago. The men in this family can be quite hot-headed and stubborn at times. And, unbelievably, given what Prince Harry had to say about her in his book, the Queen [Camilla] was instrumental in bringing Meghan into the family at the beginning and trying to make her feel welcome.’

The keen peacemaker: It was the Princess of Wales who very publicly engineered the first conversation between estranged brothers William and Harry after the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral in 2021, an act of instinctive thoughtfulness and compassion. ‘Exactly,’ says my source. ‘If the King and Harry are ever to be reconciled, let alone the two brothers, it will be by the guiding hand of the female members of the family. And let us not forget that this not just a question of ensuring that everyone gets on at Christmas. It’s about the smooth running of global institution. There’s real pressure on them here.’

Kate & Sophie, the dynamic duo: ‘The Duchess is very bright, switched on and a very safe pair of hands, while the Princess of Wales has more say than anyone gives her credit for about what goes on in that household [Kensington Palace], particularly as far as the media and their children are concerned,’ says another insider. ‘But I think it is only now that people will get to see the real influence they wield.’

Charles isn’t afraid of women: ‘He is very emotionally intelligent and is not frightened of powerful women, although occasionally pretends he is,’ they say with a laugh. ‘He has always liked a diverse set of voices around the table and I am confident that won’t change.’

[From The Daily Mail]

Out of all of the “Angels,” Charles only gives a sh-t about Camilla and Anne. Anne and Cam legitimately advise him and help him and have power behind the scenes (not that Anne wants any power, she just wants to be left alone). Sophie and Kate are expendable and Charles really doesn’t give a f–k, let’s be honest. And this desperation to credit Kate with something is hilarious. No, really, she facilitated a conversation at a funeral! No, really, she does something in Kensington Palace! Too bad Charlie’s Angels (minus Anne) freaked out and behaved with reckless, racist spite the very moment an intelligent, well-spoken, educated American woman married into the family.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instar, Cover Images.

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Here are some photos of Taylor Swift at her huge Eras Tour film premiere last night in LA. The big mystery guest – which was hyped during the day, before the premiere – was not Taylor’s footballer boyfriend, Travis Kelce. No, Taylor’s mystery guest was BEYONCE! Beyonce and Taylor dominated the year with their respective tours, both of which are two of the highest-grossing tours of all time. While it would have been a great headline if Travis had come to this premiere, it’s amazing that Beyonce came out to support Taylor.

As for Taylor’s look, she wore a Cinderella-inspired Oscar de la Renta gown. Her styling and the vibe was very “vintage Taylor” – she dressed like this and styled herself like this circa 2009-11. While it’s cheesy, I think it’s kind of cool/funny that Taylor keeps referencing her own style periods as some kind of meta commentary/promotional tool for her Eras tour.

As for Travis, according to TMZ, Taylor plans to be in Kansas City tonight for the Chiefs game. They’re playing the Denver Broncos. So… NFL broadcasters are going to be riding high!

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On Wednesday, King Charles and the Prince and Princess of Wales made statements on Israel and the Hamas terrorist attacks which have left thousands of Israelis and Palestinians dead. The amount of statement-making and noise from celebrities, edgelord commentators and deeply problematic people has been a lot this week. I would not blame anyone if they simply avoided making public statements entirely. But many people feel it’s necessary to say something. At least the Duke and Duchess of Sussex kept it very brief. They posted this message on their Archewell site, titled “With Heavy Hearts.”

At The Archewell Foundation, with Prince Harry and Meghan, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, we stand against all acts of terrorism and brutality. We are supporting our partners and organizations on the frontlines in Israel to provide the urgent aid needed, and to help all innocent victims of this unconscionable level of human suffering.

[From Archewell]

Yeah, that’s fine – please don’t get into the politics, just focus on the humanitarian disaster. I’m interested in the timing of the Sussexes’ statement, which came chronologically hours after Charles, William and Kate’s statements. While the Sussexes obviously do not coordinate with the Windsors, they followed the kind of protocol which the palace would have approved of. This wasn’t what happened when Russia invaded Ukraine last year. The Sussexes made a statement on the day of the invasion… while William and Kate were tweeting about their upcoming Caribbean tour. The Sussexes were called “breathtakingly arrogant” for their statement last year.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.

As we discussed yesterday, Jada Pinkett Smith is doing a big rollout for her memoir, Worthy. Jada covers this week’s issue of People Mag, and she gave an exclusive interview to the Today Show, plus People has published some excerpts from the memoir. One of the subjects Jada finally gets to discuss in depth and on the record is this decades-long mess with Chris Rock. Rock has targeted Jada in his “comedy” since 1997, and at one point, years before the slap, Will Smith had words with Chris, asking him or telling him to back off. Following the 2022 Oscar slap, Rock did a big Netflix stand-up show where he repeatedly targeted Jada, acting as if SHE was the one who slapped him. He denigrated her, called her a “bitch” dozens of times and claimed that “she started it.” At the time, sources close to Jada went to People and noted that: “Jada has had no part in all of this other than being heckled. Chris is obsessed with her and that’s been going on for almost 30 years.” This whole time, Rock has been giving off “incel with a grudge” vibes, and guess what? Jada reveals that Rock tried to ask her out while she was married to Will!

She hasn’t spoken to Chris Rock since the 2022 Oscars: “[Do I have] any desire to talk to Chris? Here’s my desire: I just hope that all the misunderstanding around this can be cleared up and that there can be peace… I talk about this in the book, I think that there might be some misunderstanding between Chris and I as far as the 2016 Oscars. I think that he might’ve taken offense, which I meant no harm in offending. That wasn’t my intention. But I do think that there’s a big misunderstanding there.”

When she and Will boycotted the 2016 Oscars during the #OscarsSoWhite movement: Chris, who was hosting that year, made jokes about Jada in his monologue. And, in his Netflix comedy special earlier this year, Chris claimed that Jada told him he should quit the hosting gig out of solidarity. Jada admits to “not really recognizing the level of pressure [Chris] might’ve been under” at the time. “I probably should have called him and gone, ‘Hey, are you okay? And just know that although I’m speaking out about the Oscars, I do wish you the best and I just want you to know that,’ me taking the time to have called him and said that, just to touch base. But his feelings might’ve been hurt,” she says. But, Jada adds, “All we can ever do is just look at our part and see where could I have done something that would’ve seemed as if… Whatever misunderstanding might’ve been created, what could I have done to avoid that misunderstanding? The one thing that I think about is that call.”

Chris apologized after that, in 2016: Jada says Chris, 58, called her afterward in 2016 and she thought they’d moved on. “He apologized and I apologized to him as well,” she says. “So I actually thought that we were good, that the hatchet was buried between us. And we hadn’t talked since then, until 2022 came.”

Chris tried to talk to her after the slap: “Chris came down to the end of the stage and tried to apologize to me. He said, ‘I didn’t mean you any harm.’ I said, ‘I can’t talk about this now, Chris. This is some old s—.’ I thought this was [about] the Oscar 2016 and … their stuff that they had before I even came into the picture in the late ‘80s. I’ve got to leave that to Will and Chris to talk about, but they got their stuff for sure.”

On Chris’s joke about her baldness/alopecia: “I mean, that’s what comedians do,” says Jada. “I would just have to say that I am not really here to make any judgment on how people decide to express themselves and express their art. I’ll say that several times I’ve had my feelings hurt, for sure. I’ve had my feelings hurt a lot by Chris. But at the end of the day, too, being in the spotlight, it comes with the territory.”

Chris asked her out once: “I think every summer all the reports would come out that me and Will were getting a divorce. And this particular summer, Chris, he thought that we were getting a divorce. So he called me and basically he was like, ‘I’d love to take you out.’ And I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ He was like, ‘Well, aren’t you and Will getting a divorce?’ I was like, ‘No. Chris, those are just rumors.’ He was appalled. And he profusely apologized and that was that.”

[From People]

I would assume that there’s much more to the story of Chris’s obsession with Jada, but she probably doesn’t want to feed into his ego. Like, Chris, Jada and Will have all known each other since the late ‘80s or early ‘90s. Jada appeared on Chris’s defunct talk show back in the day. Reportedly, Rock wanted to be with Jada in the ‘90s. I’m just saying, I think there were probably more instances where Rock tried to shoot his shot and Jada turned him down or just didn’t realize what he was doing. All of his nastiness and horrible energy makes him seem like he feels jilted, or like he’s overcompensating for Jada brushing him off for years. Anyway, I’m not saying anyone deserves to be slapped, but there’s just so much backstory to that one moment.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

On Friday, Hamas terrorists began their coordinated assault on Israelis, raiding the kibbutzim near the Gaza border and launching rockets into Israel, some of which made it to Tel Aviv. Israel’s “Iron Dome” defense system was seemingly overwhelmed by the attack. The Israeli death toll has gone past 1000 – this is the deadliest attack on Jewish people since the Holocaust, and many of the dead are women and children. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu has retaliated to the terrorist attack by waging war against Palestinians, shutting off water, electricity and supplies to Gaza and engaging in widespread bombing. Thousands of Palestinians have been killed or injured in the Israeli bombardment since Hamas launched their terrorist attack.

This is a huge political and humanitarian disaster, made much worse by misinformation, disinformation and every single person, business and group feeling the need to chime in with their “take.” I simply wish more celebrities and non-political public figures would send thoughts and prayers to Palestinians and Israelis and leave the nuanced conversations to historians, diplomats, humanitarians and foreign policy experts. Or better yet for celebrities, say nothing – there’s absolutely no reason why the world needs to know what Kylie Jenner thinks about Israel and Palestine. There is no way to “win” at this moment from a celebrity-PR perspective.

Adding to the ongoing catastrophe is a series of grotesque political realities: Netanyahu was warned about the Hamas attack in advance and did nothing; political support for Netanyahu seems quite fragile all of a sudden; Israel’s defense capability looks weak and unprepared, despite billions in foreign aid for decades; Donald Trump was likely the source of information about Israel’s military weaknesses, and Trump likely told Russia, Russia told Iran and Iran told Hamas.

Enter Prince William and Kate. I’m actually surprised that they didn’t release a half-assed statement over the weekend, but I suspect they were banned from making any statement before King Charles. Charles waited until Wednesday to address the situation, then William and Kate went after him. Keep in mind, William visited Israel in 2018 and declared that he would make “peace in the Middle East” his “lifelong project” and he would “forever honour my commitments” to the people he met. He literally never mentioned Israel or Palestine again in the next five years, but better late than never.

King Charles, Prince William and Kate Middleton are voicing support for Israel after the surprise attacks by Hamas militants killed over 1,000 civilians last weekend. On Wednesday, the Prince and Princess of Wales released a statement on social media. The message marked the couple’s first comment on the Oct. 7 attack. The violence by Hamas, which the U.S. classifies as a terrorist organization, prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to declare the same day that his country is “at war.”

“A spokesperson for The Prince and Princess of Wales said, ‘The Prince and Princess of Wales are profoundly distressed by the devastating events that have unfolded in the past days. The horrors inflicted by Hamas’s terrorist attack upon Israel are appalling; they utterly condemn them.”

“As Israel exercises its right of self defence, all Israelis and Palestinians will continue to be stalked by grief, fear and anger in the time to come. Their Royal Highnesses hold all the victims, their families and their friends in their hearts and minds. Those The Prince of Wales met in 2018 overwhelmingly shared a common hope — that of a better future. In the midst of such terrible suffering, The Prince and Princess continue to share that hope without reservation.”

Though King Charles’ words of support for Israel amid the rapidly developing situation were not released to the royal family’s Royal.UK website or Royal Family social accounts, a spokesperson for Buckingham Palace shared a statement on Wednesday.

“This is a situation His Majesty is extremely concerned about, and he has asked to be kept actively updated. His thoughts and prayers are with all of those suffering, particularly those who have lost loved ones, but also those actively involved as we speak,” the spokesperson said on the King’s behalf. “His Majesty is appalled by and condemns the barbaric acts of terrorism in Israel.”

PEOPLE has also learned that Charles, 74, spoke to President Herzog of Israel and King Abdullah of Jordan on the phone on Wednesday afternoon. Charles welcomed Herzog to Highgrove House during the president’s visit to England in 2021, and King Abdullah attended the May coronation with his wife, Queen Rania.

[From People]

Kensington Palace’s statement is mostly boilerplate, treading water stuff. Which, honestly, is fine with me. William is not a decision maker here nor is he a global statesman. He has no role to play beyond the boilerplate. Charles actually has relationships with many of these leaders, although I would assume that Prime Minister Sunak had to give permission to the king to call certain people and what could be said during the calls. Notice that Buckingham Palace didn’t say that Charles spoke to Bibi.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

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Ryan Reynolds first came onto my radar because of his relationship with Alanis Morrissette. I thought he was hot (I did!) but was probably one of those men who know they’re attractive and therefore act like immature jerks. He just gave me those vibes. Fast forward 20 years and the more I learn about this now grown-up, mature Ryan Reynolds, the more I like him beyond his looks. He seems like he’s got his sh-t together and is in a good place as a family man and supportive friend. Earlier this week, Ryan accepted an award from Bring Change to Mind, Glenn Close’s organization dedicated to raising awareness for mental illness. At the awards, he spoke about how different he thinks parenting is nowadays, thanks to more “self-awareness” that his parents’ generation didn’t have.

“I think it’s more about talking to them about everything,” the actor, 46, tells PEOPLE at the Bring Change to Mind Revels & Revelations 11 event in New York City on Monday. “It’s genuine when I say I take a huge interest in their days and how things are going.”

Reynolds also opened up to PEOPLE about how he and his wife Blake Lively stress the importance of “self-awareness” to their four kids as well as sharing details of their daily routines.

“For me, the best time of my day is walking them to school and walking them back,” he says to PEOPLE at the event. “I think as parents, we are so much better equipped to handle the rigors of childhood through our kids now than when I was a kid. It’s just totally different now. People are much more self-aware. And that’s the thing we sort of hang our hat on the most is self-awareness with our kids. Not be happy, not be anything, just be self-aware and welcome everything in.”

The Deadpool star was honored with the Robin Williams’ Legacy of Laughter Award at the event. Actress Glenn Close and her family established the organization Bring Change to Mind in 2009 to fight the stigma of mental illness.

[From People]

I’m an Elder Millennial. I know that generational talk is a touchy subject, but I think Ryan gives a fair assessment. There’s more awareness and less stigma placed on certain things nowadays, like a child’s mental health, “non-traditional” gender roles, and neurodiversity. While we still have a long way to go in getting society as a whole to support our more vulnerable children, particularly in the LGBTQ+ community, so many parents are making progress and acquiring better parenting tools because they are aware that those tools are out there. I think each generation improves upon the last one, and that’s how it should be. I’m sure my children’s generation will still have plenty to go to therapy for and therefore continue to do better by their own children.

As far as Ryan’s focus on doing the school run, I do find that with my kids, there are three times during the day that they’re most open and likely to share: on the way to school, on the way back home from after-school, and right before I leave their rooms at bedtime. The one thing that holds true through all generations is that kids will legit say, do, and need everything just to avoid going to sleep.

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