Last night was the big LA premiere of Barbie. We are in the final home stretch of promotion now, and Margot Robbie’s stylist Andrew Makamal remains undefeated. Makamal dressed Robbie in Schiaparelli Haute Couture for the LA premiere – surprisingly not “Barbie pink,” but still a classic Barbie look. This was an homage to a 1960s Barbie doll called Solo in the Spotlight Barbie. She looks amazing and she’s been doing these doll-homages throughout the promotional tour.

Ryan Gosling did choose to wear a shade of pink – a pale “Millennial pink” Gucci suit. He looks great.

Issa Rae actually had my favorite look – this is Barbie! I mean, the dress is Marc Bouwer. But she IS President Barbie.

Alexandra Shipp in Miu Miu. Super-cute.

Kate McKinnon wore a Barbie-pink vest and slacks. Even Billie Eilish caught the Barbie bug.

Gal Gadot wore JW Anderson – eh.

Nicki Minaj was there – she’s on the soundtrack and her fans are called Barbz.

America Ferrera in St. John.

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Greta Gerwig in Valentino.

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Photos courtesy of Getty, Backgrid.

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On July 7 at midnight, Taylor Swift released her latest “Taylor’s Version” album–Speak Now. It originally came out in 2010. Taylor dated both Taylor Lautner and John Mayer while she was writing songs for that album, and Back To December is widely believed to be about Lautner. (I have also always maintained the belief that Swift cheated on Lautner when John Mayer came calling. My God, he’s gross.) While there are obviously some exes still on her sh-t list, namely Jake Gyllenhaal, Taylor is friends with her ex Joe Jonas and apparently Taylor Lautner, too, who is married to a woman also named Taylor. It’s confusing. Anyway Taylor Lautner is part of Swift’s new music video for one of her ‘from the vault’ tracks, “I Can See You.” For 2010-era Taylor it’s quite the sexy little track. But the music video treatment is a bank heist where Lautner, Joey King, and Presley Cash conspire to break Swift out of a vault, carrying the Speak Now album with her. It’s clearly meant to be a metaphor for how Swift is taking control of her back catalog by re-recording her masters. It’s kind of a tonal mismatch for me between the mood of the song and the mood of the video, but it’s not my party, as they say. On Friday, Swift brought Lautner, Joey, and Presley onstage at her concert in Kansas City to celebrate the new music video. The Taylors had sweet things to say about each other.

It was Taylor times two at Taylor Swift’s Kansas City Eras Tour performance on Friday evening, when the singer brought ex-boyfriend and good friend Taylor Lautner onstage to celebrate his role in her new music video, “I Can See You.”

Joined by Joey King and Presley Cash, both of whom appeared in Swift’s 2011 music video for “Mean” and appear in the new video alongside Lautner, Swift told the crowd how influential Lautner, 31, was on her life back when the couple dated in 2009.

“He was a very positive force in my life when I was making the Speak Now album, and I want to say he did every single stunt that you saw in that music video,” Swift, now 33, told the massive audience at Arrowhead Stadium. “He and his wife have become some of my closest friends, and it’s very convenient because we all share the same first name.”

The new video shows Lautner, King, and Presley breaking into a vault to steal a Speak Now version of Swift back — a nod to Swift finally owning her own version of the album following the controversial sale of her masters to Scooter Braun.

Lautner echoed Swift’s sentiments, speaking to the singer in front of the crowd.

“I respect you so much. Not just for the singer you are, the songwriter, the performer — but truly for the human you are,” Variety reported. “You are gracious, humble, kind and I’m honored to know you.”

[From Yahoo]

Taylor Lautner’s stunt work in “I Can See You” is pretty impressive, and the music video is cute. It’s not my favorite of the ‘from the vault’ tracks but most of them have been hit or miss for me across Taylor’s re-releases. I wasn’t too excited for this one anyway because of Taylor’s recent antics with Matt Healy–who she may or may not be seeing again on the down low, ugh. Taylor seems to crave chaos and bad boys–no tea no shade, I am that way too. But Healy crosses the line from guy-who-smokes-American-Spirits-and-never-calls-when-he-says-he-will, to flaming racist misogynist! And I just can’t understand why she’d go back to him or was with him in the first place. Back in ye olden days, Taylor Lautner was probably too reliable for her to stay interested, and then John Mayer, in between a breakup-makeup cycle with Jessica Simpson, made his move, like the Pied Piper. It’s sweet that the Taylors are friends now. I’ve been listening to Taylor Lautner’s podcast he does with his wife and he comes across as a compassionate, thoughtful dude.

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For months now, the Heritage Foundation – a neo-conservative American think-tank populated by lunatics – has been trying to force the Biden administration into publicly releasing Prince Harry’s visa application. The idiotic crux of Heritage’s argument is that Harry wrote about his drug use in Spare, so they should be allowed to go on a fishing expedition to see IF Harry lied on his visa application. They have zero evidence that Harry lied, but Heritage is in league with the British media (several members of Heritage are British) to provide outraged content attacking Harry and trying to get Harry “deported” from the US. In June, Heritage’s FOIA request was laughed out of court, but we knew it wasn’t over. These Heritage d-bags were going to continue to make asses out of themselves and they would continue to demand nuisance-hearings about Harry’s visa. So, here’s the latest.

The US Government was last night branded ‘outrageous’ for refusing to reveal details about Prince Harry’s American visa application – on the grounds he had a “right to privacy”. It came as a bid by campaign group the Heritage Foundation to uncover whether he lied about his drug use was rejected for a second time.

Immigration authorities claimed that the prince, who wrote a memoir and did a six part Netflix series about his life, had a ‘right to privacy’. But a US think tank which is seeking the material claimed that the refusal was just a delaying tactic and the idea they were playing games was ‘outrageous’.

If the prince did not tell the truth on his entry forms then he could be removed from the US. DHS initially rejected the application and the Heritage Foundation filed a lawsuit in a court in Washington to overturn that decision.

The letter said that the US’s claims that the Heritage Foundation’s points were just ‘inflammatory allegations’ was just ‘an effort to distract from the record’.

The idea that it was not acting properly in court was ‘outrageous’, the foundation said. The letter said the foundation wanted a quick decision on whether the case would proceed but accused the US of ‘dilatory’ conduct. Instead it has reluctantly agreed to a longer timetable with motions being filed until November and a judge’s decision after that.

In its second refusal, DHS confirmed for the first time that ‘entry and exit records’ for Harry do exist, though it refused to elaborate further.

The department said that even though Harry was a ‘public figure’, that does not mean that he would ‘forfeit all rights of privacy’. It said: ‘Providing the Duke’s entry and exit records would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy’. DHS said that it would only release the material if there was strong evidence of ‘government impropriety’ rather than a ‘bare suspicion of misconduct’ as was alleged.

DHS said: ‘Information that may have subjected a traveler to additional scrutiny at one time has the possibility of being considered untimely and irrelevant at a later date. Given these facts, one person’s CBP entry and exit records, even a famous person’s, is insufficient evidence to undermine public confidence in CBP and its application of equal justice under the law’.

The Freedom of Information application was filed by Nile Gardiner, director of the foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom.

[From The Sun]

In case you missed it, this Sun exclusive was provided by the Heritage Foundation because DHS sent Heritage a letter rejecting their second FOIA request, and DHS told Heritage that what they’re trying to do is insane and a breach of privacy. Think-tanks can’t randomly decide that they have the right to see a private citizen’s visa application or their travel records, which is what DHS’s letter to Heritage says. Instead of going with the headline and story of “DHS laughs at a bonkers Nazi think-tank’s attempt to get their hands on someone’s visa records,” the Sun went with “Exclusive: ‘OUTRAGEOUS’ Fury as ‘outrageous’ US government refuses to reveal details of Prince Harry’s visa application on privacy grounds.” I did laugh at “Immigration authorities claimed that the prince, who wrote a memoir and did a six part Netflix series about his life, had a ‘right to privacy’.” LMAO!! You mean Harry can keep his American visa paperwork private even though HE WROTE A MEMOIR?!!? These people are morons.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

Of all the Old Hollywood leading men, my two favorites are Humphrey Bogart and Cary Grant. If you haven’t seen his movies, Cary Grant comes across like this incredibly suave, debonair guy. And he is rather debonair. But the magic of Cary is that he’s a great comedian. He never takes himself too seriously onscreen. He wears his elegance lightly and gives off an effortless vibe. There have long been rumors that Cary was gay. He lived with another actor, Randolph Scott, on and off for twelve years, and some people believe they had a relationship. He was also married five times, which doesn’t prove anything one way or another but is good context. His only daughter, Jennifer Grant, has consistently denied these rumors for years. Jennifer was asked about it again recently because she’s producing a TV series about her dad, Archie, for ITV, a British TV channel. She is continuing to insist that her dad was not gay–but she also includes the caveat that she ultimately will never know.

“If you’re around your parents a lot, you see them in ways that almost no one else does. And I never saw a hint of that,” said Jennifer, 57. “I think I would have picked up on it — not that I would’ve cared.”

“But I have to speak the truth of the matter: Dad was charming, and he had great friendships, but he wasn’t flirtatious with men,” she continued. “A friend of mine sent me a picture the other day of Gregory Peck, my father and Mervyn LeRoy, and they’re good buddies. But I never got that hint.”

Said Jennifer, “Perhaps earlier in his life he had an affair [with a man]. I’ll never know, but if he did, fantastic. I hope he enjoyed it.”

This is what Jennifer wrote in her 2011 memoir: “Can’t blame men for wanting him, and wouldn’t be surprised if Dad even mildly flirted back. When the question arises, it generally speaks more about the person asking. … Dad somewhat enjoyed being called gay. He said it made women want to prove the assertion wrong.”

[From People]

I personally think there’s probably something to the rumors, though it remains a matter of dispute among Grant’s biographers. But I also think we should not try to make definitive claims about the sexuality of a person who is a) long dead and b) wouldn’t have been able to come out until after they retired. If for argument’s sake Cary was gay or bisexual, being open about it could have ended his career. I also think that coming out is a deeply personal thing, and people should do it in a way that feels right for them, and maybe that means they don’t want to come out at all. It should be completely and totally that person’s choice when and how to come out. Cary was notoriously private and discreet and grew up in a different time. If he was queer, he might have chosen to keep it to himself when he was retired just because he believed it was nobody else’s business. That’s why I’ll never definitively say that Cary (or any celebrity from that time) was gay if he didn’t say it himself, and all we have to go on is speculation. It feels like I’d be taking something from him–his right to come out in the way he chooses–that he didn’t really get in his own lifetime. I’ll finish off by encouraging everyone to watch Cary’s movie Bringing Up Baby if you haven’t already. No matter how sad I am, it never fails to make me laugh.

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Angelina Jolie has been visiting New York pretty consistently in recent months. She’s based herself in Los Angeles for the past seven years, ever since she filed for divorce in 2016 – she ended up buying a mansion which is located pretty close to Brad Pitt’s Los Feliz compound, only Pitt recently sold the compound. So I did wonder why she was making so many trips to New York, hoping that it was possibly about spending time with Jonny Lee Miller. She often brings her kids to NYC, and in late June, she was in the city with Zahara, Pax and Shiloh. So, is she changing her home base? Is she looking for residential real estate? Apparently not – Art News reports that Angelina was looking for commercial space for her new fashion collective, Atelier Jolie. So she decided to rent a very famous address which was once Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work space.

The Manhattan property where Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat lived and worked will be taken over by actress and humanitarian Angelina Jolie. The deal for the property, located at 57 Great Jones Street, was confirmed today by John Roesch and Garrett Kelly, both directors at the real estate agency Meridian Capital Group. Jolie will rent the space for her latest creative venture, Atelier Jolie, under long-term commercial use for eight years.

The interior space features 6,600 square feet of space across three floors. The exterior of the building is adorned in street art, and Jolie will keep it that way as a public tribute to Basquiat, who started his career as one half of the graffiti art duo SAMO.

“[Jolie] wanted to preserve the older art on [the building] and keep that Basquiat feel to the space,” said Roesch.

“She loved the facade of the building and it being tagged up with the street art as a memorial for Basquiat,” Kelly added.

Basquiat rented the second-floor space from Warhol shortly after they first met. Warhol originally bought the building in 1970.

Prior to Warhol’s purchase, the property already had a rich history. Originally constructed in the 1860s, it was purchased by Paolo Antonio Vaccarelli—aka the gangster Paul Kelly—who opened the Brighton Athletic Club there in 1904. The building was subsequently used as a metal works business and kitchen supply company until 1970. Most recently, the property was home to the exclusive Japanese restaurant Bohemian.

Atelier Jolie will serve as a workshop opportunity for under-represented tailors and artisans around the world. Those participating will be able to work and showcase their creations at the 57 Great Jones Street location. Jolie plans to open her new business “as quickly as possible,” according to Roesch. The property was previously on the market with Meridian Capital Group for $60,000 per month for a minimum of 10 years.

[From Art News]

God that’s expensive. I get it, and I get why it’s so expensive, even beyond the physical space of it, but also the pedigree. So, I wondered what Atelier Jolie would actually entail and what kind of business it would be and how it would be set up. We’re getting a better look at all of that – refugee creators will be creating capsule collections and they’ll likely collaborate with existing design houses too. The first collab is with Chloe. Will Atelier Jolie designers actually come into this Basquiat property to work, or will this be more of a show space? Will they show at New York Fashion Week? Time will tell. It’s interesting though. Also: do you think Angelina actually will buy or rent a residential property in New York so she can manage this project close-by?

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

Jonah Hill was with Sarah Brady for several years, although no one really knows when they ended things. They were together as of February 2022, but then in August 2022, Jonah moved on with Olivia Millar. That was when Jonah and Olivia started getting pap’d together. Then in March of this year, we learned that Olivia and Jonah were expecting, and they welcomed their first child together in late May. This is just backstory: Sarah Brady is not the girlfriend who had a baby with Jonah, and Jonah and Sarah probably broke up more than a year ago. Well, now Brady is revealing what it was really like to date Jonah. Turns out, he’s a controlling emotional-abuser who misuses therapy-speak to dictate that his girlfriend shouldn’t be friends with men or pose in swimsuits (she’s a surfer) or model. Sarah Brady went on her IG Stories and posted tons of screenshots of some of the sh-t Jonah texted her during their relationship:

I know there are some younger women who read this site, and let me tell you something: run fast and far away from any man who sends you this kind of list of what they deem “unacceptable behavior.” Run away from men who claim that THEIR boundaries are about YOUR body. Beyond the fact of the emotional abuse and Jonah’s need to control and isolate Brady, the list simply reeks of his insecurity. He’s not man enough to be with a woman who has male friends. He’s not man enough to be with a surfer who models swimsuits. He’s not man enough to date a woman who has wild and fun female friends. Probably because those female friends will tell her: no, honey, this guy is a f–king douche. Jonah Hill is such a disappointment. Absolutely pathetic.

As I look through the other screenshots, from the very start of their relationship, he was controlling and trying to dictate what she posted on her IG, and how she dressed and he really didn’t want anyone to see her (a surfer) in swimwear. They also went to couples therapy together for at least four months and the therapist said some really crazy sh-t to Brady, like how she should just give in to Jonah’s demands that she never talk to other men, and that they needed a safe word for when Jonah was yelling at Sarah.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images, Sarah Brady’s IG.

As someone who follows tennis, I seriously cannot get into pickleball or “padel tennis” as enjoyable sports to follow or watch. They might be fun to play – and I’ve heard from people who have a great time playing those sports – but they’re just not watchable to me and I don’t understand why they’re televised. Well, the Prince and Princess of Wales are both keen tennis players and tennis fans. But they’re getting a bit older, so they’ve reportedly taken up padel tennis. In case you’re wondering about the difference between pickleball and padel tennis, it’s to do with the differences in balls and racquets. The scoring is also different.

Prince William and Kate are hooked on padel tennis and play fiercely competitive matches with pals, The Sun can reveal. The couple gave the world’s fastest-growing sport the royal seal of approval after trying it at courts close to their Windsor home. And the padel-loving pair now regularly play doubles with friends — but on opposite sides.

Wills, 40, and 41-year-old Kate were spotted in recent weeks playing the game at a plush complex with luxury leisure facilities. The all-action game is a cross between squash and tennis using a solid padel rather than a stringed racquet.

Worldwide, it now has 25 million players, including celebs such as David Beckham, Cristiano Ronaldo and Elle Macpherson. Wills and Kate leave their three children at home as they head off for the 90-minute sessions.

One witness stumbled across the royal pair playing with their pals. They said: “I had to look twice as it seemed surreal but they were having a great time. William was on one team with a male friend and Kate was on the other team with a male friend and there was lots of banter and a lot of laughing but both sides fought every point. They looked good at it and did not come across as beginners.”

[From The Sun]

Sure. Kate also completely redid the tennis court at Anmer Hall, but now she’s based (during the week) in Windsor, at Adelaide Cottage, and it sounds reasonable that she would seek out something tennis-ish for fun. God knows, she has to fill her days with something other than work. Same for William. I imagine William is involved in so many recreational sports these days and we barely ever hear about it. I can’t wait to find out who was into padel ball first, meaning who Kate and William are copying.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

The Keke Palmer story ended up being such a huge deal. Her partner/boyfriend Darius Jackson couldn’t handle Keke having a girls’ night out at the Usher show in Las Vegas. Instead of talking to the mother of his child about it directly, Darius ran to Twitter, where he made a small-D-energy tweet about how Keke is a mother and she shouldn’t dress proactively anymore. Granted, some of the worst people in the world took his side (this is Twitter, after all), but it was amazing to see how thoroughly Darius was destroyed online. Black Twitter pulled all of the receipts about his behavior, his sketchy f–king tweets and likes, his casual misogyny and much more. He deleted his Twitter account for a little while but now it’s back up, I think.

More than anything, this one incident showed that Keke is really beloved and people have her back, even when her dogsh-t partner tries to weaponize the internet’s misogynoir against her. But Keke still hasn’t said anything directly about Darius or what he said. She’s made posts about “I’m a Motha!” and talked about how motherhood has changed her life. She also made a TikTok where she’s dancing to a clip of herself saying, “You ain’t stopping what’s going on with me, sweetheart. So if you gon act up, I’m bouta link up.”

With all of the cryptic (or not so cryptic) back and forth on social media about who tweeted what and who deleted their account and what Keke posted when, people noticed something else: Keke and Darius unfollowed each other on Instagram, and Darius removed all of the photos of Keke on his page. I glanced through Keke’s page – I have no idea if she’s deleted some stuff or she never had many photos of Darius to begin with, but I did spy a video or two of Darius on her Insta.

In any case, the vibe is definitely that Darius and Keke broke up or they’re significantly on the rocks. Some have even theorized that Keke dumped Darius BEFORE he tweeted about her trip to the Usher show and that’s why he was acting up. I don’t know, honestly – it would make a lot of sense if Darius’s tweets weren’t the start of all of this but the conclusion of all of this.

Darius Daulton has scrubbed all traces of Keke Palmer from his Instagram.

The pair also no longer follow each other. pic.twitter.com/atDIJDJR3u

— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) July 8, 2023

Who is Keke Palmer’s boyfriend, and does he prove that men from Philly are ‘embarrassing’? We investigate. https://t.co/gTogIvaNY3

— The Philadelphia Inquirer (@PhillyInquirer) July 8, 2023

Noooooo, not #Essence dragging Keke Palmer’s baby daddy as well with scientific facts and figures. pic.twitter.com/bUqombv8D3

— Dana Abercrombie #AmplifyBlackVoices (@sagesurge) July 7, 2023

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Photos courtesy of Getty, Avalon Red.

Phoebe Waller Bridge covers the latest issue of Vanity Fair, mostly to highlight how much her life has changed since Fleabag. She’s been in a Star Wars movie, she co-wrote the last James Bond script, and now she’s partnering with Harrison Ford on Indiana Jones’ last ride – she plays Indiana’s goddaughter, and as it turns out, Harrison is a big Fleabag fan. She also inked a lucrative development deal with Amazon Prime several years ago, but she still has nothing to show for it other than a couple of projects which never got off the ground, although she does talk extensively about a Lara Croft series she’s working on (or was working on before the writers’ strike). Some highlights from VF:

Fleabag changed everything: “Fleabag changed my career, and then suddenly you’re so in the moment. And then years pass, pandemics happen, you do a Star Wars, you do an Indiana Jones. It gets more and more surreal.”

Harrison Ford wanted Phoebe for Indiana Jones: She first heard about the project from Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, who broached the idea at the behest of Ford, who—would you believe?—is a huge Fleabag fan. The two women met for dinner in March 2020. Kennedy told her that James Mangold was on board to write and direct this final Indiana Jones picture, and that he wanted to really lean into what it meant to be an aging adventurer. The idea intrigued Waller-Bridge. “People have this idea of when [a franchise] should end,” she says. “And I always think the interesting stuff comes when you push a little bit beyond the end. What happens after the conversation? What happens after someone gets in a cab and goes home?”

Doing stunt work: “I’ve always been such a lanky, gangly kind of awkward physical person, so I was as surprised as you are. I remember quite early on saying to Jim and Kathleen, ‘So I’ll be doing lots of training for my stunt debut?’ And they were like, ‘I think it would be funnier if you don’t.’ What I love about the character is that she leaps before she looks. And she will just jump on the back of that car not knowing if she’s going to survive or not, and it’s just through her will that she manages to stay on.”

On Harrison Ford: “He made it very clear to me that I was his equal from the first day, and that was very liberating and allowed me to be mischievous and silly.”

She’s not replacing Indy: “There’s no replacing Indiana Jones in any way. But I feel like the character herself—she did feel fresh on the page, and there is a sense of, is there room in the world for someone like this?” She reminds me that Indy was always a flawed, reluctant hero, a professor who’s scared of snakes and gets sore after his punch-ups. “So I do think there’s room for a slightly clumsier, bruised, limping female action star, maybe, in the future.”

Developing a Lara Croft series for Amazon: “God, it literally felt like that teenager in me saying: Do right by her, do right by Lara! The opportunity to have, as we were talking earlier, a female action character…. Having worked on Bond and having worked as an actor on Indy, I feel like I’ve been building up to this. What if I could take the reins on an action franchise, with everything I’ve learned, with a character I adore, and also just bring back some of that ’90s vibe?” The project aroused “big roaring instincts” in her. “And it’s such a wonderful feeling to think you know what to do.”

The industry of reboots and remakes. “I feel like when you’re working in the industry, you’ve got to ride the waves and lean in. There’s room to do something really quite dangerous. And if I can do something dangerous and exciting with Tomb Raider, I already have an audience of people who love Lara and hopefully will continue to. And that is a very unusual position to be in. It’s the old Trojan horse.”

Dropping out of the Mr. & Mrs. Smith series with Donald Glover. “I worked on that show for six months fully in heart and mind and really cared about it—still care about it. And I know it’s gonna be brilliant. But sometimes it’s about knowing when to leave the party. You don’t want to get in the way of a vision.” Creative collaboration is like a marriage, she says. “And some marriages don’t work out.”

Whether she shows her work to her boyfriend Martin McDonagh: “We don’t really share anything beforehand,” she says. Because criticism would be demoralizing? “Probably a bit of that. And also, I just really, really fancy him. So if you show someone something, and you fancy them, it can become this blur.” Having admired his work long before she met him, Waller-Bridge of course wants him to admire her work as well. “It’s really useful being with someone who I think is a genius, it just ups your game. I would always have wanted Martin McDonagh to think of my work as good, whether I was with him or not. I find out now, either way!”

[From Vanity Fair]

In some ways, I do think PWB has kind of “sold out” – she’s an artist with an idiosyncratic, original voice and I’m sure there was a temptation to simply stay in that particular lane of creating TV shows, acting in roles which are Fleabag-like, and doing independent films or whatever. I like that she had zero qualms about taking on wildly different things, going to America, working on big franchises and entering the Hollywood studio system in a big way. I get the sense that she’s bitten off more than she can chew, but she’s enjoying the ride and figuring things out along the way. Which is good – it’s interesting to see someone like PWB operate without some longterm career plan.

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King Charles and Queen Camilla are not going to appreciate any of the reporting and gossip coming out after their big Scottish coronation. It’s looking very much like Kensington Palace went on a briefing spree after William and Kate’s brief jaunt in Scotland, a briefing spree which centers everything on William and Kate, mostly Kate. KP absolutely went to Katie Nicholl, who literally wrote the book on Kate. And now it feels like those same KP sources went to Tom Sykes to drive the point home in explicit terms: Kate is the only one people want to see, Kate is the monarchy’s biggest asset, Kate is more important than Charles and Camilla. Here’s the Royalist’s headline and sub-head: “King Charles and Queen Camilla Are Just Marking Time for Queen Kate. A lackluster ‘Scottish Coronation’ for Charles and Camilla contrasted sharply with flashbulb-filled appearances for Kate. She is managing her own succession with trademark steel.” Ouch, ouch and triple ouch. Some highlights:

Charles & Camilla are not popular in Scotland or anywhere, really: King Charles and Queen Camilla are struggling to command anything like the same kind of respect, let alone love, across the border. A Scottish coronation in Edinburgh this week was not thronged; banks of Republican protesters waving yellow ‘Not My King’ banners were its most prominent feature. The noises of protest could even be heard inside the church while the ceremony was going on; a report in the London Times patriotically tried to make the case that “the demonstrations seemed to become almost part of the occasion.” Up to a point….In short, it is becoming painfully clear that King Charles III (most recent net favorability: 32 percent) and Queen Camilla (most recent net favorability: 4 percent) have lost vast swathes of the public who supported his mother (deathbed net favorability: 70 percent).

Kate the Modern: In contrast to the two wealthy senior citizens who looked like they might be happier on a world cruise than dressed up in absurd and anachronistic “Order of the Thistle” uniforms at St Giles’ Cathedral, Kate Middleton, sitting next to them wearing a chic electric-blue coatdress by Catherine Walker paired with a gorgeous Philip Treacy hat, looked like she increasingly does these days—the one senior royal who actually understands that the world has changed in the past 500 years. William, although bedecked in ludicrous ostrich feathers and medieval bling, at least managed to smile in contrast to his father, who again spent much of the ceremony showcasing his bewildered ‘big baby’ resting face.

Will Charles abdicate, LOL: It seems sadly inevitable that as long as King Charles and Queen Camilla remain on the throne, affection for the British monarchy will dwindle. There is a not-so secret hope among many royal loyalists that Charles will abdicate on or around his 80th birthday, handing the controls to William and Kate while they are young enough to make a difference. The nightmare for the institution is that he chugs along into his 100s (his father lived to 99) refusing to hand over power until death, while the great balloon of monarchy slowly deflates, leaking credibility and influence as it sinks to earth.

Waity & Wills: Kate and William must do little other than wait, and rear their children, which they will do happily for now, having no desire to immediately give up their largely private existence….But if Charles does hang on to the crown until death parts him from it, a time may come when the Waleses tire of waiting. Although the dynamic of the two courts has been largely free of petty feuds so far, there have been some classy power plays from William and Kate’s side. They have, for example, made it very clear that the days of being told what to do by Charles and his office are over.

Charles can’t scold William & Kate any longer: But we are clearly a long way from the time when Charles’s office felt able to “openly scold” Kate and William for “drawing attention away” from him.

Charles the place-filler: Charles may not want to believe it, but for many of his subjects he is just a place-filler between the twin stars of Queen Elizabeth and Queen Kate. There is no doubt that when the moment comes, the reign of King William and Queen Catherine will be radically different to what has gone before. And it seems increasingly clear that it is Kate who is shaping that dramatic shift in tone.

[From The Daily Beast]

Am I crazy or does it seem like the royal rota is trying to egg on Charles and Camilla, trying to get a negative reaction from them, trying to get the king and queen to put William and Kate in their place? That’s what it feels like, and it’s some next-level strategy from the rota, if that’s what they’re really trying to do. Charles hasn’t even been king for a full year, and Kate’s people are already openly briefing the press that her father-in-law is nothing more than a place-filler? Come on. Sykes also mentioned the Chelsea Flower Show debacle, where Kate deliberately scheduled her appearance to pull attention from Charles and Camilla. What goes left unsaid is that immediately after Kate’s flower show stunt, Charles and Camilla slapped back hard, and there was definitely a push of negativity against Kate AND the Middletons. Like, all of the reporting about the Middletons’ shady finances, their fraud and bankruptcy, that all came out immediately following Kate’s flower show stunt. What will the punishment be now that Kate is making Charles’s Scottish coronation into the Queen Kate Show?

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