On the 54th anniversary of Stonewall, we stand together with the LGBTQI+ community in the fight for freedom and equality. pic.twitter.com/7wazUvHWVb

— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) June 28, 2023

VP Kamala Harris listened to Kylie Minogue’s “Padam Padam” before she visited the Stonewall Inn for Pride Month! [OMG Blog]
The last “Birthday Sluts” of Dlisted. We’ll miss you so much!! [Dlisted]
Margot Robbie’s Barbie promotion fashion is amazing. [LaineyGossip]
Justice Kentaji Brown Jackson ripped into Clarence Thomas. [Jezebel]
Review of Indiana Jones & the Dial of Destiny. [Pajiba]
This is one of the Fug Girls’ best headlines ever. [Go Fug Yourself]
Jennifer Lawrence filmed a Dior commercial in NYC this week. [Just Jared]
Someone spent $650K on the clown doll from The Poltergeist. [Seriously OMG]
Lily Rose Depp looks terrible on the cover of Vogue Australia. [Egotastic]
Therapists share instant “red flags” in relationships. [Buzzfeed]
Hayley Atwell’s glam squad actually did good work in Seoul. [RCFA]
Russia is ramping up attacks on LGBTQ people. [Towleroad]

Here are more photos from the Princess of Wales’s visit to the newly reopened Young V&A Museum on Wednesday. I covered the photos of Kate’s arrival, but I didn’t see these pics until late Thursday – Kate was inside the interactive museum for kids for a while, getting a lot of photo-ops with the children there. The photos… um… I guess Kate’s favorite Photoshop-happy photographer Chris Jackson wasn’t available? Yikes, maybe it’s just the lighting.

In any case, the pics remind me so much of Kate’s Chelsea Flower Show stunt, where she had “diverse” children bused in for a picnic and a photo-op and the kids were not into it at all. To be fair, there were some kids at the museum who seemed to like her and they even hugged her (ten bucks says those kids were palace plants). The other kids seemed unimpressed though. I truly have no idea why Kate doesn’t try to do more photo-ops with seniors – seniors enjoy Kate’s whole deal and they think she’s cute. Children are not into it.

Meanwhile, I wanted to drop this little Ephraim Hardcastle blurb in somewhere – while it’s likely that Kate and William will eventually send Prince George to Eton, what are they thinking about for Charlotte’s education?

With Prince George apparently soon to be measured for his Eton top hat and every likelihood brother Louis will follow suit, whither Princess Charlotte? My source whispers that Windsor-based Kate and William would like to keep Charlotte close to home and are considering St George’s School, opposite Ascot racecourse. She could board or be a day girl. It is the alma mater of Princess Beatrice, the Duke of Gloucester’s daughters and, curiously, Winston Churchill. It was a boys’ school until 1904.

[From The Daily Mail]

Wait… didn’t Kate go to Marlborough College and isn’t that school in Berkshire? Didn’t Kate have a great time there? Why wouldn’t Kate want Charlotte to go to her alma mater? St. George’s School is all-girls, while Marlborough is co-ed. The school conversations have gotten very weird, haven’t they? I think Kate really did have a dream of sending her kids to the same school for as long as possible, but she’s no longer getting her way. Why does Charlotte have to be kept “close to home”?

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

Buckingham Palace confirmed this week that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex had formally vacated Frogmore Cottage, six months after King Charles “evicted” them out of spite when Prince Harry’s memoir was published. The palace did not confirm whether or not Meghan and Harry were reimbursed for the $3 million-plus they put into the property, but the palace seemingly indicated that the Sovereign Grant got a good deal out of the eviction. Well, now that Harry no longer has an official residence in the UK, wouldn’t you know that he’s no longer eligible to be a counsellor of state. While I think Charles evicted the Sussexes out of short-sighted spite, this was obviously a huge bonus as well.

Prince Harry is set to lose a major royal role after being evicted from Frogmore cottage, an expert has revealed. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex today returned their keys to King Charles — six months after getting their eviction notice. Their remaining possessions at the pile were shipped to their California mansion just ahead of tomorrow’s deadline. They will no longer have a UK home and may have to rely on hotels or friends if they visit.

However, the fact that the couple have no British residence also means Harry will miss out on an important royal role. Royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams told The Sun: “Losing their UK home without a replacement is a huge deal. The most important aspect as far as Harry is concerned is that it means he can no longer act as a counsellor of state. That’s hugely important because in theory he had the right, in the event of the king being incapacitated, to do this.

“Although he is no longer a working royal he still had this right – and by not having a UK residence he has now thrown this opportunity away. But of course it does seem that Harry, and Meghan, don’t care at all about the UK. They have no interest in their popularity or taking on roles here – they just care about their US audience. But it means if they don’t have a UK residence when William ascends to the throne then he will be unable to support his brother – not that he does that now.”

[From The Sun]

“…And by not having a UK residence he has now thrown this opportunity away…” He literally paid an exorbitant amount of money to renovate a dilapidated shack and he was fully up to date on the lease when his father evicted him, his wife and their children from a perfectly secure home, a home which had been gifted to him by QEII. But sure, it’s Harry’s fault! While I’m sure Harry is probably hurt by this, it’s all part and parcel of Charles’s cruelty and the family’s need to eradicate the Sussexes from the royal narrative. Except they can’t – the Montecito royals are still THE story in the UK.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

Originally, Omid Scobie’s new book, Endgame: Inside the Royal Family and the Monarchy’s Fight for Survival, was supposed to come out this summer. This week, Scobie announced that it will come out in November. Some of us were concerned that Endgame was being rewritten or buried, but it turns out that Scobie wanted to write new chapters about King Charles’s coronation, which happened in May. I get that – the coronation ended up being such a non-event, which in itself is newsworthy. Anyway, you can tell that Endgame is going to be an important book in the royal narrative because the royal establishment has already launched a completely unhinged smear campaign on Scobie. Richard Fitzwilliams huffed and puffed to the Daily Mail:

Commenting on MrScobie’s announcement, royal biographer Richard Fitzwilliams said: ‘He’s writing about the royal family and he’s also Harry and Meghan’s unofficial spokesperson, some sensational details are bound to follow. However, how well sourced are they? No reputable royal source would talk to Omid Scobie. His book, co-written with Carolyn Durand, Finding Freedom, which the Sussexes were discovered to have cooperated with despite their denials, was badly written and pathetically inadequate. His new book is entitled Endgame. Some might think the title refers to the current state of the Sussexes’ affairs…Much of Endgame is not likely to be taken seriously. It is likely to be a sensational attempt to cash in on the Sussexes’ rift with the royal family. I suspect it will be trusted as much as anything from the Sussexes’ corner should be.’

[From The Daily Mail]

So that’s the talking point – that Scobie is a “Sussex cheerleader” and that the book’s narrative is completely Sussex-based. Like… if that is true (it’s not) then people will be even more likely to pick up the book! All of the other royal books crash and burn. Finding Freedom was a huge bestseller, and Spare is one of the biggest publishing successes in years. Clearly, people are interested in “the Sussex narrative.” Speaking of, Tom Sykes at the Daily Beast also got “friends of Prince William and King Charles” to throw tantrums about Scobie and Endgame:

Friends of Prince William and King Charles have predicted the royals will “keep calm and carry on” in the face of what is likely to be a highly critical new book about the royals, entitled Endgame, by Omid Scobie, the journalist whose sympathetic biography of the Sussexes Finding Freedom rocked the royal establishment.

While Finding Freedom was told almost entirely from the Sussexes’ point of view, The Daily Beast understands that the new book will not be framed by their perspective. It is also likely that the Sussexes, smarting from a dip in popularity some ascribe to their non-stop bitching about the royals, would not welcome another volume portraying them as still looking back in anger. Scobie described it in his article as “an unfiltered investigation into the current state of the Royal Family.”

One might imagine being the focus of Scobie’s new book would make the royals nervous, but a friend of Prince William told The Daily Beast that the prince had made a point of not reading the first book by Scobie and would not read the second. They added that he had not watched the Netflix series the couple made nor had he read Harry’s book Spare. “The idea that William is going to be distracted from his work by even thinking about Omid Scobie’s new book is fanciful,” the friend said. William’s office declined to comment.

A friend of the king’s took a similar line, saying the king had “seen it all before” in terms of negative books about him being published and added, “He will keep calm and carry on.” The king’s office also did not comment in response to questions from The Daily Beast about Scobie’s new book.

While the royals believe that not responding to criticism is the quickest way to get it to evaporate into the ether, Scobie is a different class of threat to anonymous tittle-tattle in the newspapers, precisely because of his close relationship with Team Sussex. The palace is unlikely, privately, to be particularly happy that he has a fresh book coming out given that Scobie and his publishers clearly expect it to make another season of headlines.

[From The Daily Beast]

LOL at the comments from William’s “friend” – William hasn’t read Spare or watched the Netflix series or read Finding Freedom, yet William and Kate have constantly reacted to everything within those projects. Anyway, you can tell that Scobie will receive the full Sussex treatment in the British media and royal media. Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace are terrified about what stories Scobie will publish, and they’re even more terrified that Scobie is more believable than their hagiographers.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

Kim Cattrall explained how she did a cameo on And Just Like That – the president of HBO called her and she got whatever she wanted. [Buzzfeed]
Kanye West is facing new antisemitism allegations. [Dlisted]
Zendaya & Tom Holland singing Beyonce’s “Love on Top” together. [LaineyGossip]
Aubrey Plaza is doing print ads for Loewe. [Tom & Lorenzo]
Everyone’s raving about The Bear Season 2. [Pajiba]
Ranking celebrities’ most absurd Architectural Digest home tours. I love this! Dakota Johnson doesn’t deserve to be on the list though. [Jezebel]
Ryan Gosling & Simu Liu brought their Kenergy to Canada. [JustJared]
Teyonah Parris & John Boyega look great together. [GFY]
Someone on a reality show was part of a “history-making meth bust”? [Starcasm]
Anheuser-Busch needs an LGBTQIA+ Czar or something? They need definitely need a gay publicist, because the company continues to bungle this. [Towleroad]
Margot Robbie wore Herve Leger to promote Barbie. [RCFA]

.@KimCattrall speaks on her scene in the new season of ‘And Just Like That…’ where she reprises her iconic role as Samantha and tells @TheView: “It’s very interesting to get a call from the head of HBO saying, ‘What can we do?'” https://t.co/cVclFZQmjA pic.twitter.com/Sam3mX9b81

— The View (@TheView) June 28, 2023

Basically, the same January week in which Prince Harry’s Spare was published, King Charles told the Sussexes that they were being evicted from Frogmore Cottage. The same Frogmore Cottage given to them by QEII, the same property for which they paid over $3 million for renovations and lease agreements. The British media was gleeful about the punishment from Charles – everyone, it seemed, loathed the idea of Harry, Meghan and their children having a safe, secure and entirely paid for home in the UK. So now the eviction is complete – Frogmore Cottage stands empty on the Royal Windsor estate.

Harry and Meghan have finally cleared out Windsor’s Frogmore Cottage and returned the keys to King Charles — six months after getting their eviction notice. Their remaining possessions at the pile were shipped to their California mansion just ahead of tomorrow’s deadline. They will no longer have a UK home and may have to rely on hotels or friends if they visit.

It comes amid renewed scrutiny of royal spending. Five-bed, Grade II-listed Frogmore — given a £2.4million makeover by the Sussexes — is now set to be rented out. Aides will not say whether Prince Andrew will leave 31-room Royal Lodge to move in. It is understood the Duke of York is resisting and has a 75-year lease on his current home.

The Sun understands the Sussexes would have to reach a “private agreement” with Charles if they wanted to stay at any royal homes again.

At the annual Sovereign Grant account briefing on royal finances, Sir Michael Stevens, Keeper of the Privy Purse, said: “We can confirm that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have vacated Frogmore Cottage. We will not be going into any detail on those arrangements here. Safe to say that, as has previously been stated, the duke and duchess have paid for the expenditure incurred by the Sovereign Grant in relation to the renovation of Frogmore Cottage, thus leaving the Crown with a greatly enhanced asset.”

Several royal properties are now empty. They include Buckingham Palace and the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester’s former apartments at Kensington Palace. Others at St James’s Palace have been offered to Prince Andrew as a London crash pad.

[From The Sun & The Independent]

“The duke and duchess have paid for the expenditure incurred by the Sovereign Grant in relation to the renovation of Frogmore Cottage, thus leaving the Crown with a greatly enhanced asset.” The Windsors are tacky grifters and they’re all going to hell. Charles better cut Harry and Meghan a check for the full cost of what they put into that dilapidated shack. Charles is such an utterly dogsh-t father and grandfather, my god. Anyway, y’all know that William and Kate have always had their eye on Frogmore Cottage – it will be fascinating to see who moves in.

Photos courtesy of Netflix, Avalon Red, Backgrid and Cover Images.

Prince William became the Duke of Cornwall the moment his grandmother passed away and his father became king. With the Cornwall title comes the spoils: the Duchy of Cornwall is a billion-dollar real estate portfolio which operated as a straight-forward business when then-Prince Charles held the Cornwall title. I have believed for some time that Charles took pains to William-proof the Duchy so that the heir wouldn’t run the Duchy into the ground, and that William couldn’t loot the funds for his own harebrained schemes. Well, as part of the Windsors’ annual financial disclosures and Sovereign Grant reporting, we now know that William… doesn’t want to disclose much about what he’s doing with the Duchy money now that he’s got his hands on all of it. From The Independent:

Duchy money: Prince William received a private income from the Duchy of Cornwall of nearly £6 million this year, but was criticised for not publishing an annual report in his first year as heir to the throne. The Duchy generated record profits of £24.048 million in 2022-23 – up £1.02 million from £23.024 million the year before, a jump of about 4.5%, the estate’s own accounts showed. Usually William would be entitled to the full £24 million as his private income, but his finances have been complicated after he became heir to the throne half way through the financial year. The King, as the former Prince of Wales, was entitled to £11.275 million of the surplus before his accession, while William, who spent about six months of the last financial year as the Duke of Cornwall and Prince of Wales, to £12.773 million, Kensington Palace said.

No report this year: The annual figures were published on Thursday, in the same week William launched Homewards, his five-year drive to eradicate homelessness in six locations around the UK. As the Prince of Wales, Charles released a separate annual Clarence House review each year, detailing his broad income and expenditure of the Duchy money. But Kensington Palace said that the past year had been a transitional one following the death of the late Queen and as such they would not be releasing a report this year – William’s first as the heir apparent. “Their royal highnesses have been working through with their Duchy and household team their plans and priorities for the Duchy and the household in the years to come, and how these support their work and charitable priorities, such as The Royal Foundation and its programmes,” a Kensington Palace spokesman said. “And it’s why the household is not publishing a partial annual report.”

Graham Smith from the Republic chimes in: “William has some explaining to do because a change of monarch and heir is no excuse to row back on what little transparency there is. There is absolutely no reason why William’s household cannot provide a full set of accounts for this financial year. As the recipient of public funds from the state-owned Duchy he should be reporting his income and expenditure. As Duchy profits appear to be growing to a record £24m it’s time we demanded the return of the Duchies (of Cornwall and Lancaster) to the people and for revenue to be spent on local communities.”

William also received money from his father last year, before QEII died: William will also have received money from his father for the funding of his official duties and his private life when he was Duke of Cambridge for the first six months of the 2022-23 financial year. Charles’s bill for the activities of William, Kate and their family, and other costs including capital expenditure and transfer to reserve, was £4.38 million 2021-22. But the figure has not been disclosed this year, nor has any tax bill for Charles relating to the Duchy.

KP did disclose the gender & racial background of staff: Kensington Palace did disclose the gender balance of its staff for the first time – 64% female and 36% male. And it disclosed that William and Kate’s household is made up of 50 people, but a breakdown of their roles was not given. Some 16.3% of their staff are from an ethnic minority background, compared with 13.6% last year.

[From The Independent]

Okay, so I think I’m getting this right – basically, the Duchy of Cornwall had to do two sets of accounts, one for when Charles was the heir and one for when William became the heir. The Duchy itself is releasing information about what money went to Charles and what money went to William, but William will not do the same kind of disclosure as to how the Duchy-surplus money is spent by his office. Am I getting that right? While Charles would give the public a somewhat general audit of how his income was being spent, Kensington Palace will not do that this year, and William has zero commitment to doing those kinds of disclosures in the future. William is such a secret squirrel – he always has been. I’m also curious about KP’s fifty-person staff, which is now 16.3% ethnic minority…

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

I’m still reeling from the toxicity of the Sussex-Spotify breakup. It genuinely seems like Spotify leaked the split to the Wall Street Journal, forcing Archewell to rush out a confirmation of the end of the Sussexes’ contract, then Spotify’s executives ran a smear campaign on the Sussexes… all while saying nothing about their antivaxx golden goose, Joe Rogan, as Rogan made an ass out of himself within the very same newscycle. It was a lot. Now Us Weekly reports that the Sussexes are bothered by the “cheap shots” but they’ve got tons of other stuff in the pipeline.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are ready to move forward after their Spotify deal fell through — but they aren’t too pleased with how news broke of their exit from the platform.

“Spotify was supposed to release a statement saying how great it was to work with Meghan, but they didn’t,” a source exclusively reveals in the new issue of Us Weekly, adding that the team behind the scenes “had been pushing Harry and Meghan for more content over the last year.”

According to the insider, the royal couple “weren’t delivering” on what Spotify needed before the deal came to an end earlier this month.

The Suits alum, 41, got word “a while ago” that her “Archetypes” podcast was being scrapped, a second source tells Us. (Spotify exec Bill Simmons later called out Meghan and Harry, 38, for being “f–king grifters” as the deal fell apart.)

“It seems to be one assault after another these days, with people lining up to take cheap shots at them,” the insider says. “Quite frankly, both she and Harry are sick and tired of it.”

Despite their deal ending in disappointment, the duo already have their sights set on a new chapter with “a ton of exciting things in the pipeline,” the second source adds. “[They’re] ready to come back stronger.”

[From Us Weekly]

Some of you have shared a theory that Spotify was actually trying to strike a new deal with the Sussexes, but Harry and Meghan wanted out, and they wanted to negotiate a new deal with Ari Emmanuel’s help. Some or all of that may be true – Spotify was definitely acting like your toxic ex who went around claiming that he dumped you. But I’m also sick of people lining up to take “cheap shots” at the Sussexes and I wish they would do more to combat this stuff. I get that they don’t want to answer every single unhinged story, but this was a different situation – Bill Simmons, a Spotify executive, was on the record calling them “f–king grifters.” They would have been well within their rights to clap back publicly and on the record.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Spotify.

The way it works is that Supreme Court hears their docket of cases for a whole session, then the session ends and the justices go off on their holidays and their decisions are released then. Clarence Thomas is probably sitting on a billionaire Republican donor’s yacht right now, fingering some Nazi memorabilia. Today, SCOTUS announced their decision in a pair of cases involving affirmative action in college admissions. The Supreme Court overturned the use of affirmative action. Congrats to American colleges and universities, you get to admit thousands of Beckys with bad grades, all while marginalizing the Black and brown kids who want to be doctors and scientists. As you would guess, Clarence Thomas, a shining beacon of affirmative-action employment, wrote the majority opinion dismantling affirmative action in colleges.

The Supreme Court on Thursday effectively overturned the use of affirmative action in college admissions policies, a practice that allows universities to consider a prospective student’s race along with factors such as academic merit, athletics, and extracurriculars. The court’s 6-3 ruling came after it heard arguments in a pair of challenges to affirmative action policies in place at the University of North Carolina and Harvard University.

ln its ruling, the court determined that race-conscious admissions violates the equal-protection clause under the U.S. constitution: “While this Court has recognized a ‘tradition of giving a degree of deference to a university’s academic decisions,’ it has made clear that deference must exist ‘within constitutionally prescribed limits.’ [The universities] have failed to present an exceedingly persuasive justification for separating students on the basis of race that is measurable and concrete enough to permit judicial review, as the Equal Protection Clause requires.”

In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas argued, “Far from advancing the cause of improved race relations in our Nation, affirmative action highlights our racial differences with pernicious effect. In fact, recent history reveals a disturbing pattern: Affirmative action policies appear to have prolonged the asserted need for racial discrimination.”

Meanwhile, in a dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor cited data showing that, “Racially integrated schools improve cross-racial understanding, ‘break down racial stereotypes,’ and ensure that students obtain ‘the skills needed in today’s increasingly global marketplace . . . through exposure to widely diverse people, cultures, ideas, and viewpoints.’ ”

“More broadly, inclusive institutions that are ‘visibly open to talented and qualified individuals of every race and ethnicity’ instill public confidence in the ‘legitimacy’ and ‘integrity’ of those institutions and the diverse set of graduates that they cultivate,” Sotomayor added.

Long a tool used to to help remedy historical discrimination and create more diverse student populations, proponents have argued affirmative action helps increase opportunities to underrepresented groups, including people of color. Opponents argue that the practice unfairly strips white people of those same opportunities and amounts to racial discrimination.

[From People]

Imagine writing this with a straight face: “Affirmative action policies appear to have prolonged the asserted need for racial discrimination.” Clarence “Reverse Racism!” Thomas. Mr. Why Are You Being Racist To Becky With The Bad Grades??? While I’m sure a lot has changed since my college days, it feels like most universities and colleges genuinely want to keep their affirmative-action admissions policies in place – rarely were these cases about a college arguing that their policies were unfair, it was always about some wealthy white bigot crying that they can’t go to Harvard because of all of the “quota admissions.” I wonder if universities will find work-arounds in their admissions process, or if universities are just going to be for white kids exclusively now.

Wow. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissent. pic.twitter.com/ica3ED6LZq

— Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) June 29, 2023

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Instar.

Angelina Jolie wrote a powerful essay about nurses & racial bias. [LaineyGossip]
Tom Hanks’ niece had a full meltdown on the show Claim to Fame. [Dlisted]
Hayley Atwell absolutely needs to fire her hair stylist. [RCFA]
Would you book the Barbie Dreamhouse Airbnb? [OMG Blog]
Cultural vandal David Zaslav is wrecking all of these beloved cultural institutions for nothing. I can’t even see how it’s being done for profit? [Pajiba]
Check out Naeem Khan’s resort line. [Go Fug Yourself]
Idris Elba & Archie Panjabi? I’m there. [Just Jared]
David Corenswet, before he was Superman. [Seriously OMG]
Really, so much of 2016 was a horrible fever-dream. [Jezebel]
April Love Geary is enjoying her vacation. [Egotastic]
Stories about people with Main Character Syndrome. [Buzzfeed]
Kevin Spacey is on trial this week in London. [Towleroad]