I still remember when Gawker posted photos of Taylor Swift and Karlie Kloss maybe kissing in 2014. To be fair, there were “Kaylor” rumors long before then, as Karlie and Taylor had already been inseparable for a while at that point. Things got really interesting in 2016, when there seemed to be a significant cooling off between Karlie and Taylor, then things turned downright icy when Karlie started hanging out with Katy Perry and other snake enemies (at the time). It really was the end of Karlie and Taylor’s friendship or whatever it was, but “Kaylor” still lived in people’s hearts and minds. Well, on Thursday, ahead of the release of 1989 (Taylor’s Version), someone leaked her new album prologue in which she specifically called out the “Gaylor/Kaylor” rumors.

Taylor Swift’s version of her Grammy-winning 2014 album 1989 drops tonight at midnight, but there’s already an apparent leak of the written prologue that accompanies the rerecorded LP. And with it, revelations about Swift’s sexuality are taking the internet by storm. Specifically, if the prologue is indeed authentic, the pop star seems to refute years of speculation about her sexuality with just a few sentences. (A subset of her fans, who dub themselves Gaylors, believe she has long been closeted.)

Tweets purporting to show the 1989 (Taylor’s Version) prologue include paragraphs where Swift writes at length about the slut-shaming she endured earlier in her career.

“Being a consummate optimist, I assumed I could fix this if I simply changed my behavior,” the leaked prologue reads. “I swore off dating and decided to focus only on myself, my music, my growth, and my female friendships. If I only hung out with my female friends, people couldn’t sensationalize or sexualize that—right? I would learn later on that people could and people would.”

Swift diehards are taking this to mean that the pop star is reinforcing the notion that, as has always been her public-facing identity, she is straight. In another purported passage, Swift thanks listeners for following her on her musical journey: “You, who saw the seeds of allyship and advocating for equality in ‘Welcome to New York.’” This, too, is being interpreted as Swift planting a flag in her heterosexuality: The 1989 opening track includes the lyrics, “And you can want who you want / Boys and boys and girls and girls.” By casting this as “allyship,” Swift seems to be saying that she’s a supporter of, but not a participant in, queer culture.

[From The Daily Beast]

Taylor has every right to set the record straight (heh) just as she has the right to keep people guessing. She doesn’t owe anyone her letters, and everyone should let people come out in their own time. Or not come out, as the case may be. Now, do I also think Taylor has spent years having fun with the “Gaylor” rumors, knowing that her obsessive fans would pore over every Easter egg, every clue, every bisexual code? Yeah, she did that too. I remember that thing with her hair dyed a certain way and people were CONVINCED that she was sending visual clues to her bisexuality.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

I still remember when Gawker posted photos of Taylor Swift and Karlie Kloss maybe kissing in 2014. To be fair, there were “Kaylor” rumors long before then, as Karlie and Taylor had already been inseparable for a while at that point. Things got really interesting in 2016, when there seemed to be a significant cooling off between Karlie and Taylor, then things turned downright icy when Karlie started hanging out with Katy Perry and other snake enemies (at the time). It really was the end of Karlie and Taylor’s friendship or whatever it was, but “Kaylor” still lived in people’s hearts and minds. Well, on Thursday, ahead of the release of 1989 (Taylor’s Version), someone leaked her new album prologue in which she specifically called out the “Gaylor/Kaylor” rumors.

Taylor Swift’s version of her Grammy-winning 2014 album 1989 drops tonight at midnight, but there’s already an apparent leak of the written prologue that accompanies the rerecorded LP. And with it, revelations about Swift’s sexuality are taking the internet by storm. Specifically, if the prologue is indeed authentic, the pop star seems to refute years of speculation about her sexuality with just a few sentences. (A subset of her fans, who dub themselves Gaylors, believe she has long been closeted.)

Tweets purporting to show the 1989 (Taylor’s Version) prologue include paragraphs where Swift writes at length about the slut-shaming she endured earlier in her career.

“Being a consummate optimist, I assumed I could fix this if I simply changed my behavior,” the leaked prologue reads. “I swore off dating and decided to focus only on myself, my music, my growth, and my female friendships. If I only hung out with my female friends, people couldn’t sensationalize or sexualize that—right? I would learn later on that people could and people would.”

Swift diehards are taking this to mean that the pop star is reinforcing the notion that, as has always been her public-facing identity, she is straight. In another purported passage, Swift thanks listeners for following her on her musical journey: “You, who saw the seeds of allyship and advocating for equality in ‘Welcome to New York.’” This, too, is being interpreted as Swift planting a flag in her heterosexuality: The 1989 opening track includes the lyrics, “And you can want who you want / Boys and boys and girls and girls.” By casting this as “allyship,” Swift seems to be saying that she’s a supporter of, but not a participant in, queer culture.

[From The Daily Beast]

Taylor has every right to set the record straight (heh) just as she has the right to keep people guessing. She doesn’t owe anyone her letters, and everyone should let people come out in their own time. Or not come out, as the case may be. Now, do I also think Taylor has spent years having fun with the “Gaylor” rumors, knowing that her obsessive fans would pore over every Easter egg, every clue, every bisexual code? Yeah, she did that too. I remember that thing with her hair dyed a certain way and people were CONVINCED that she was sending visual clues to her bisexuality.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

From what I gather, many of you guys will skip The Crown’s final season. I won’t skip it, but I’m leaving myself open to be mad about it. As someone of a certain age, I have to say that The Crown is absolutely getting several things right: the iconography of Princess Diana, the starkness of her final summer, the chaos that surrounded her at every turn in 1997. Netflix released the trailer of Season 6 Part 1:

I said before that the poster of Diana in the turquoise one-piece, sitting on the diving board, gave me chills. I got goosebumps when I saw how The Crown shot it too – from the perspective of the paparazzi trailing the Jonikal that summer. I’m not saying that Peter Morgan did right by Diana by any stretch, but the combination of historical accuracy, amazing art direction and Elizabeth Debicki’s transcendent performance is something else.

I’ve been waiting to see if King Charles throws another tantrum about The Crown this year. I hope he does – he won’t have his mother to hide behind, and 26 years later, I am more convinced than ever that he and the institution had a hand in her death.

Photos courtesy of Netflix/The Crown.

Tara Reid is one of those actresses who tabloids and mean girls have always considered to be fair game. I know she has her demons, but as Britney has reminded us, tabloid culture in the late 1990s/early 2000s was absolutely brutal and a complete double-standard. Over the years, Tara has been scrutinized for her social life, looks, and interviews she’s given while seemingly not-fully sober. She’s not perfect, and she’s had bad public moments (likely a result of her substance abuse issues), but she doesn’t seem like a bad person. One of the most frequent things that Tara gets criticized for is her weight. Over the years, Tara has received unwanted comments about her weight, and periodically, she gives an interview to clap back at the noise. Following her recent appearance on season two of Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test, Tara has faced another round of what she considers to be skinny-shaming and concern-trolling. Once again, Tara is trying to set the record straight.

The Days of Our Lives alum, 47, recently spoke to the Los Angeles Inquisitor and opened up about the constant criticism she receives about her weight.

“If we were overweight then they can’t say anything because that’s bullying. But it’s the same thing if you’re skinny. That’s still bullying too,” [Reid] said.

Reid said her body has been a topic of discussion since the early 2000s when her career kicked off. However, she’s received more criticism lately after appearing in season 2 of Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test. Now she’s hoping to shut down the speculation that she’s suffered from eating disorders once and for all.

“I have no anorexia and never have,” she clarified. “And I definitely don’t have any bulimia. I’m terrified of throwing up, so that’s not gonna happen. And I love food too much. So anyone that says I’m anorexic or bulimic, they’re wrong. So stop it. Leave me alone. Pick on me again on something else, but not on those two things. It’s not right.”

The American Pie star has previously slammed some of the body-shaming she’s gotten over the years. Back in 2021, Reid took to Instagram to shut down the hate she received after posting a photo of herself in a bikini.

“I am not too skinny, I have a high metabolism,” she told her followers. “Anyone with a high metabolism understands it’s impossible to gain weight. All I do is eat. To everyone who wrote something nice and stuck up for me, I love you! And keep spreading that love, it is the only thing that will save this world.”

The actress later told PageSix that she was “doing well” despite the constant scrutiny.

“I’ve always been thin,” Reid said at the time. “So these stories are kind of crazy because it’s like there’s nothing that has changed for forever. This is who I am, this is what I am, this is what I’m [aspiring] to be.”

Reid explained that hopefully her self-love and acceptance will “change the minds of bullies.” However, if not, then she’s “OK with that.”

“I’ve gone through it for so many years that, you know, sometimes I feel bad for them because if they’re that miserable writing things at home, what are they doing?” she said. “That’s negative. You know, it’s hurtful.”

“Love will always beat hate,” Reid added. “It’s just so hard to find love because you’ve got to find it in yourself first.”

[From People]

Honestly, I feel for Tara, because I think she is one of those people who just cannot beat her demons. I get what she’s saying about commenting on weight being a double-standard. Even if she were too thin as the result of disordered eating or drug use, there’s a difference between trying to shame someone publicly for being “too thin” and sitting them down in private to find out if they are okay. Tara infamously had an unfortunate boob job and some pretty bad liposuction done back in 2004 because even though she knew she was skinny, she “wanted a six pack.” She suffered through years of ridicule and was asked about it so many times in subsequent interviews that it couldn’t have been good for her mental health. Honestly, for all of her talk about self-love, something in her words worries me that she still isn’t quite there yet. I hope this is just a case of, “You can’t tell tone over text,” though, and that she really is finally doing better. Also, I just went back and relistened to that wild exchange she had with Jenny McCarthy several years ago, and her bitchy quip, “I hope your tits get even nicer, because they’re amazing. The same guy who did mine, right?” is giving me life right now.

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Carrie Ann Inaba was on The Jennifer Hudson Show this week, presumably plugging Dancing With The Stars which is currently airing its Season 827, after an inauspicious start. Keeping with the dance theme, Carrie fondly spoke about being a backup dancer in her twenties for Madonna — who began her Celebration Tour in London this month after recovering from an emergency stay in the ICU this summer. No surprise, Madge ran a tight ship. Case in point: she deducted $100 from your paycheck for every minute you were late.

“Dancing With the Stars” judge Carrie Ann Inaba reflected on her career on “The Jennifer Hudson Show” Monday and spoke about being hired as a backup dancer for one of Madonna’s tours when she was just 23 years old.

And although Inaba had pretty positive things to say about her experience working with the “Vogue” singer, she did say that Madonna had one outrageous rule that would make many want to express themselves to the HR department.

“Back in the day she was very strict,” Inaba said. “She gave us this one rule — which I’m so grateful she did. It was, for every minute you’re late, you have to pay her $100 out of your paycheck.”

“I ain’t going to lie, I’d be broke,” Hudson said exasperated. “Cause I’m always late.”

Inaba then shared how following that costly rule affected her the rest of her life — and she doesn’t sound traumatized at all.

“I’m never late,” Inaba said. “I’m always early, in fact so much so, that I waste half my day … showing up too early.”

Despite the rule, Inaba told Hudson that it was a dream come true to work for Madonna.

“There was like Michael [Jackson], Prince, and Madonna at the time. Right?” Inaba said. “I got on Madonna’s tour, and I was like, ‘That’s all I need!’”

In fact, after Inaba was done with the tour, she said she “retired” from dancing and went back to school.

“As a dancer, you’re kind of put out to pasture when you’re 25,” Inaba said.

Madonna is currently embarked on her Celebration Tour, so fingers crossed that her current and likely very young backup dancers have plenty of emergency funds in their savings account.

[From HuffPost]

I’d like to start my commentary by commending the author for the line, “Madonna had one outrageous rule that would make many want to express themselves to the HR department.” The lyric inclusion is so unsmooth that it swings back to being fabulous, non? Love it. While $100/minute is a bit excessive, especially considering this tour was a couple decades ago, I don’t think this overall vibe is actually all that outrageous in the performing arts arena. At the Atlantic Theater Company — the group David Mamet and William H. Macy founded — they lock you out if you aren’t there 15 minutes ahead of class or rehearsal. Are these methods harsh? For sure. But Carrie sure sounds genuinely grateful for the standard it set to show up on time. On the other hand, she did retire from dancing right after that tour with Madge, so take from it what you will! I went back to the original interview cause I was dying to find out how much money Carrie had to fork over, but she was cheeky and only said “I learned quickly.” Oh c’mon, Carrie, don’t be a tease. Tell us!

Embed from Getty Images

photos credit: UPPA/Photoshot Photo, Jens Koch, Reflec/Pacificcoastnews.com and Getty

More horror stories about the new Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. [Jezebel]
Remember when The Fall of the House of Usher producers fired Frank Langella and then hired Bruce Greenwood and reshot everything? [Pajiba]
Josh O’Connor looked super-cute in Rome. [JustJared]
I also like Priyanka Chopra’s brand-partnership with Marshall’s. [LaineyGossip]
Eva Longoria did an oversized “menswear” look. [RCFA]
I’m so happy to work from home. [Buzzfeed]
Do you love cute little bags? I prefer a giant tote. [GFY]
Brandy made a Netflix Christmas movie. [Egotastic]
I’ll say something nice about Ed Sheeran – that’s a cute sweater. [Seriously OMG]

Here’s the new Speaker of the House arguing that if women were forced to give birth there would be more “able-bodied workers” and the @GOP wouldn’t cut Social Security.

Mike Johnson wants to criminalize abortions with prison sentences. pic.twitter.com/N5EFggVgBZ

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) October 25, 2023

Well this is certainly explosive. To be fair, we’ve known or theorized about big chunks of Byline Times’ big new exclusive, but it’s legitimately shocking to see everything laid out with a timeline, plus details we’ve never heard before. Byline’s new cover story is “Exploding ‘Megxit’: How Dan Wootton and a Cash-for-Leaks Scandal Split the Monarchy.” Byline lays out the facts, including Dan Wootton paying Prince William’s press secretary Christian Jones and his partner for information about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and baby Archie. When the bribery scheme was uncovered by both The Sun (Wootton’s then-employer) and Prince Harry, all hell broke loose. In 2020, Harry was ready to sue the Sun and name Christian Jones and Wootton’s accomplices. That’s when then-Prince Charles and the whole royal institution made a big gamble: cut off the Sussexes as a way to force them to come crawling back to the UK, humbled and broke. From Byline’s teaser:

King Charles “pushed” the Duke and Duchess of Sussex into commercial deals in the US by withdrawing £700,000 funding for a trial year in Canada over a royal cash-for-leaks scandal sparked by journalist Dan Wootton, Byline Times can reveal. The financial sanction stemmed from a refusal to remove from legal papers the name of a Kensington Palace aide whose partner was receiving money from the then Sun newspaper executive editor, allegedly for stories about ‘Megxit’ and Prince Archie.

It resulted in the collapse of the ‘Sandringham Agreement’ struck under the late Queen in January 2020 to give Prince Harry and Meghan Markle an opportunity to escape the royal press rota in the UK and continue in public service from North America.

Prince Harry and Meghan were forced out of the Sandringham Agreement to continue in public service from Canada when his father pulled the plug on funding. It followed news that a partner of a key aide to Prince William received £4,000 from The Sun allegedly for stories about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex when Wootton was executive editor.

The payments [from The Sun] came to light in anonymous whistle-blower emails claiming to be from admin workers within the Murdoch newspaper publishing empire. They told how the payments had provoked panic at The Sun and claimed senior executives quietly brushed the matter under the carpet. The payments allegedly related to stories about Archie’s nannying and godparent arrangements and Wootton’s January 2020 breaking story about so-called ‘Megxit’.

The Metropolitan Police looked into the alleged leaking but could not go to a judge for a warrant to search royal staff property without knowing the identity of the whistle-blowers. Two internal royal investigations followed – one involving Simon Case, who is today the embattled head of the civil service facing questions over the Government’s response to the pandemic. The palace investigations cleared the aide after he denied being the source of the Archie and Megxit information and told Case that neither he nor his partner were friends with Wootton, although he admitted to knowing the journalist. Byline Times has uncovered new photographic evidence of Wootton, the aide and the aide’s partner at a lavish private birthday party Wootton threw for his close friends in a £1,675-a-night hotel suite.

Prince Harry sent formal ‘letters before action’ detailing the claims about Wootton and the palace to News UK. Sir Clive Alderton – today King Charles and Queen Camilla’s right-hand man – and the former Lord Chamberlain Lord Peel put pressure on Harry to alter the legal papers. When the aide’s name was not removed from the legal letters, the Sussexes were cut adrift financially and left unable to protect themselves despite having a security threat level equal to the monarch.

The royal household had thought the threat of exposure would force Harry and Meghan to return to the UK, where their profile could be controlled preventing them from eclipsing the future King. But it drove a wedge through the Royal Family and set in train events leading to Prince Harry’s book Spare, a string of high-profile commercial media deals, and ongoing bad blood in the British monarchy.

[From Byline]

The most damning information, to me, is the stuff about Charles deciding to withdraw from the “one-year breather” Sandringham deal, which would have had the Sussexes with royal protection and funding so that they could figure things out. We’ve heard variations on why that deal fell apart and when. The idea that the inciting incident was “Harry refusing to back down about naming William’s private secretary as a leaker” is as good a theory as anything else. I suspect that was only one part of why the “deal” fell apart in a matter of two months.

One thing that I absolutely, 100% believe is “The royal household had thought the threat of exposure would force Harry and Meghan to return to the UK, where their profile could be controlled preventing them from eclipsing the future King.” I’ve said that for years, that the Windsors believed that throwing the Sussexes to the wolves and putting them in mortal danger would somehow convince Harry to divorce Meghan and come crawling back to the UK. The Windsors have been reeling for four years that their stupid plot failed so spectacularly.

One question I still have, to this day, is about the intimacy of William’s involvement in all of these schemes. It’s clear that the Rose Hanbury story – which broke around March/April 2019 – sent William spinning and he was actively looking to make any deal he could to protect his own reputation. But for years now, I’ve just been left with the impression that William is no mastermind, he’s an empty suit and the Tories’ useful idiot. It would not surprise me at all if William was truly too stupid to understand most of what was happening with his Tory handlers. Which isn’t to say that William bears no responsibility – he’s a villain, absolutely, and his ignorance, laziness and childishness led to all of this. He was too stupid to hire responsible staff, and instead he gave free rein to his senior staff/Tory handlers to simply “manage” the burying of the Rose Hanbury story by any means necessary.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instar.

Byline Times’ exclusive cover story is all about the connections between Dan Wootton, the Windsors, Kensington Palace and the Sussexit. Wootton worked at the Sun in 2019-2020 when he apparently struck some kind of deal with Kensington Palace, and Wootton began bribing Prince William’s private secretary Christian Jones and Jones’s partner for information about the Sussexes. The Christian Jones stuff is insanely complicated, but Byline seems to have extensive sourcing and evidence to back up their reporting. Jones ended up leaving his position as William’s private secretary in January 2021, a year after he likely leaked the Sussexit exclusive to Wootton. Going back to 2020, Harry already had a good idea about who was leaking from his brother’s office as Harry was preparing to remove his wife and son out of the country. Harry believed that he had negotiated a deal with the Windsors at the Sandringham Summit – a year to cool off and figure out their next moves, with royal protection and £700K in funding from Harry’s father. Then, just a few months into that “year-long breather,” Charles cut off the funding and removed the Sussexes’ royal protection, all over Harry’s refusal to back down off the leaks in Kensington Palace. Some highlights from one “well-placed source with knowledge of the matter” who spoke to Byline:

“They threatened the removal of the funding to try and protect the royal household from a potential courtroom scandal with Jones and Wootton very publicly at the centre. The actual removal of the funding weeks later was about control, and designed to force Harry and Meghan to come back to the senior royal family in the UK where their security would be assured.

“The greater truth is that Harry and Meghan make better headlines than the King and Camilla or William and Kate. The idea of them still being in public service but abroad and out of the control of the institution and dominating the media narrative just couldn’t happen. Senior members of the family wanted them back after the transition period and were ready to continue playing dirty to make this happen. They never thought the trial period would work and tried everything to make it fail, starting with the removal of security and then signing off on a 12-month assault by the UK press on Harry and Meghan and everyone in their orbit.”

“As far as the institution of the monarchy went, the Sussexes had either to be safely in the tent in Britain or cast away and castigated as comprehensively as possible in order to reduce the threat of them eclipsing the rest of the family. It’s no surprise they have endured such a degrading time from such a willing British media, when the same just isn’t true elsewhere in the world.”

“[Harry suing tabloids & newspapers] was deemed highly undesirable by the offices of Prince Charles and Prince William because there was always lots of horse-trading going on with the editors and their correspondents to ensure favourable coverage and protection when scandals broke,” the source continued. “No one wanted that stuff to end up in a courtroom. Harry and Meghan were expendable, but the heirs and their wives were not. It sent a chill through Clarence House [for the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall] and Kensington Palace [for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge]. But the Sussexes – particularly Harry – were very keen to get to the bottom of it all. He wanted to know how their private information kept being spun into negative headlines in the biggest newspapers.

“A view was quickly taken within the royal households that everything needed to be brought under control. The removal of the transition funding, which Prince Charles knew was his son’s only lifeline to keeping safe, was considered a very effective way of trying to bring Harry and Meghan to heel in the UK. But it didn’t work.”

[From Byline Times]

While Byline and their sources insist that the objective was bringing both Harry and Meghan “to heel” back in the UK by putting them and their son in mortal danger, I’ve never believed that anyone in the institution wanted Meghan “back” whatsoever. Pre-Sussexit, the institution’s objective was to force Meghan (and only Meghan) out by any means necessary. They wanted to force a divorce or (worse yet) force Meghan to unalive herself. When it was clear that Harry would do anything to protect his wife and son, including flee the country, the objective was (in my opinion) the same: to create a situation where a broke, divorced/widower Harry crawled back to the UK, begging for help. I also think that Charles and William both would have rather seen Harry dead than thriving in America. That’s also clear from their actions. Anyway, thank god for Tyler Perry.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.

Steve Coogan is a British actor and comedian best known (to me) for Philomena (which co-wrote and produced) and his character acting in movies like Night at the Museum and Tropic Thunder. He’s worked consistently for decades and he’s known as a talented working-class guy who moves easily from dramas to comedies. Well, Coogan is currently promoting his role as Jimmy Savile in the BBC’s The Reckoning, and he spoke to the Off Menu podcast. He ended up blasting the Windsors and their supporters.

Fans of the Royal family are flag-waving idiots, Steve Coogan has said. The actor, best known for his role as Alan Partridge, accused royalists of supporting a “power structure” that holds back working-class people. He said he thought the late Queen Elizabeth II was “alright”, but believes the other members of the family are “problematic”.

Speaking on the Off Menu podcast, he said: “Most people who are into [the Royal family] are flag-waving people who, I think, are kind of idiots because they support a power structure that keeps a foot on the throat of working-class people and I’m just not really keen on that type of people. But having said that, the Queen worked very hard so she was alright – the rest of them, they’re problematic for me.”

His comments come months after the King’s Coronation was watched by more than 18 million people across the country. Thousands lined the streets of London to catch a glimpse of the King on the day, with some royalists turning up a week early in order to secure their spot.

Coogan, who portrays Jimmy Savile on BBC drama The Reckoning, said he was “a bit torn” on the King. He added: “I do like King Charles’s Duchy of Cornwall produce even though I am an anti-monarchist. It’s interesting because I buy that stuff and I go ‘I don’t like having a Royal family but I do like his produce’ so I feel a bit torn.”

[From The Telegraph]

To be fair, I’ve heard that the Duchy Originals food line is pretty good quality, but that’s hilarious. “I hate the monarchy but the king does make a good biscuit so I’m torn up about it.” As for the rest of it, yeah, I agree – stop supporting your oppressors, stop being sycophantic towards these tax-dodging, elitist, shallow-gene-pool freaks. The Telegraph’s huffiness about how many people watched the coronation is particularly hilarious too, given that the coronation had significantly fewer viewers than QEII’s funeral and Diana’s funeral.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

I haven’t read every single part of Byline Times’ cover story about Dan Wootton, Kensington Palace, and the Christian Jones fiasco, but what I’ve read already is pretty explosive, and it’s telling that the British media has clammed up entirely about Byline’s story, just as they refused to cover much of the unfolding Wootton scandal several months ago. Most of the British papers don’t want to touch this because they’re too intimately involved with the trading of royal stories and every single tabloid knew that Clarence House and Kensington Palace would give away negative stories about the Sussexes to protect Charles, William and their wives. For Dan Wootton, the shift in allegiance came in the spring of 2019, right after he reported the now infamous “rural rival” story, linking Rose Hanbury to William and Kate. From Byline:

On 13 March 2019, Wootton published an article in The Sun about an alleged falling out between Prince William and Kate and the Marquess and Marchioness of Cholmondeley, David Rocksavage and Rose Hanbury, whom the paper dubbed Kate’s “rural rival”. For reasons that are not clear, the article was subsequently removed from The Sun’s website, but remained widely
reported elsewhere.

A former friend of Wootton’s told Byline Times that the journalist’s allegiance appeared to quickly shift from one prince to another. “Dan hated Prince William until around May 2019,” they said. “Behind closed doors, he didn’t have a good word for him. He was always talking about his attitude. But Dan never criticised Harry, really. He never seemed to have much interest at all. Then, suddenly in the summer of 2019, he switched. Basically, he was hating on Harry and Meghan. He had previously been obsessed with Prince William. And then he switched to the Sussexes.”

[From Byline Times]

Yep. That spring, Kensington Palace sprang into action as they attempted to contain the Rose Hanbury story and stop the bleeding. William/KP followed two paths of action. One, legal threats, bullying, undercover gag orders, invisible contract stuff. Two, William openly “struck bargains” with media outlets to feed them negativity about the Sussexes. Remember those James Palmer tweets? He was at Foreign Policy at the time (I think he still is.) It was common knowledge within British journalism-circles. And it was obvious from Wootton’s reporting that he had struck some kind of deal with William, not only to get Sussex exclusives, but to embiggen William.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images, Instar, GB News.