In recent months/years, there are always conspiracies about Prince William and Kate and the real state of their marriage and whether they would ever divorce. I maintain my belief that they will stay married up until the day that William sees a better option for himself and a way to extricate himself without harming his reputation. Rose Hanbury isn’t the “solution” – I actually feel slightly bad for Rose, she’s a well-connected aristocrat living in a palatial estate and she has no desire (from what I can see) to upend her life to be the next Princess of Wales. She’s constantly being dragged into these conversations basically because she allegedly f–ked William out of boredom. So, William and Kate will stay married, and they will likely continue to live separate lives.

I also believe that William began distancing himself from the Middletons several years ago, specifically in May/June 2021. That was when he ordered Kate to stay away from the Diana-statue unveiling and the Middletons went on the attack against William. Remember this unhinged piece from 2021? Yeah. I wonder if that’s what’s happening again, because all of sudden, the Middletons want to remind everyone that they are central to the well-being of the monarchy. They are the keen linchpins! From Richard Kay’s piece in the Daily Mail, “The Middletons are at the heart of our new royal order… This may have been his father’s day, but the prominence given to William’s in-laws shows that they are now absolutely central to the future wellbeing of the Royal Family.”

The Middletons were in the seventh row at the Abbey: Given that they are grandparents of the next king but one, it was understandable that Kate should want both her mother, a former flight attendant who was brought up in a council flat, and her father, a one-time aircraft despatcher, close at hand. What was surprising was the presence of her brother and sister when pressure of space meant so many more familiar names were absent from the guest list.”

The Middletons are the future of the monarchy: Beyond this very visible picture of dizzying social mobility that the Middletons represent, their presence — more than perhaps anyone else’s at Saturday’s ceremony — is a very clear sign about the future direction of the monarchy. Charles may be on the throne but by including William’s in-laws and in such a conspicuous position in the Abbey, there was a tacit acknowledgement of the role the Middletons are undoubtedly going to play. So while this was his father’s day, it was also the beginning of a new royal order.

Prepare yourselves for more Flop Tours: The King and Camilla will lean heavily on William and Kate in the years ahead. Indeed, it is already possible to look not too much further into the future to see the day when the King and Queen step back from overseas tours, for instance, just as Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip did. This would mean the Prince and Princess taking on those visits to distant Commonwealth countries and far-flung realms, in the way that Charles did when he was Prince of Wales, easing the burden on his parents. When that happens — and in the case of the Queen, who finds international travel gruelling, this may be sooner than people realise — it will be Mike and Carole Middleton who are called on to help out by taking care of Prince George and his siblings Charlotte and Louis.

The Middletons love to help out: Kate’s parents have been ‘brilliant’, according to friends, at stepping in and helping out, always willing to drop everything at a moment’s notice. Mrs Middleton’s decision to step back from the day-to-day running of her online party paraphernalia business will free up still more time. Carole has always been just ‘Granny’ to Kate’s three children although they have, of course, been told everything about their other grandmother, Princess Diana.

William needs the Middletons now that Harry is gone: The split with Prince Harry, whose graceless contribution to his father’s Coronation saw him leave for the U.S. directly after the Abbey service, is another significant factor in placing Carole and Mike front and centre as the new royal order takes shape. Even without the disgraced Prince Andrew, Charles has continued to enjoy the active support of his sister Anne and brother Edward in picking up the royal slack. There is no such back-up for William, who had always hoped that his brother would be at his side, not just when he was Prince of Wales but also King. With the prospect of any kind of reconciliation fast disappearing, William has no one but Kate to support him through the challenges ahead.

William needs to ease his burden: And, since Charles has admitted he would have struggled to cope without Camilla to encourage and reassure him, there is an understanding between father and son that anything William can do to ease the burden will be granted. That’s where the Middletons come in.

Bill Middleton: After his and Kate’s wedding in 2011, William was more determined than ever to transpose the Middletons’ way of doing things into his own marriage. It shows most clearly in the way their three children have been raised. It helps, of course, that they are not the offspring of a damaged marriage.

Harry changed William & Charles’s relationship: Harry’s decision first to quit Britain and royal life and then to use his exile to mount attacks on his father, stepmother, brother and sister-in-law brought about a rapid rapprochement between Charles and William. The relationship between the two had not truly been close for years: William often felt he and Kate were simply there to inject an X-factor into royal life. Father and son have short tempers. But now there was cause for a joint enterprise — both Charles and William feared that Harry’s real and imagined complaints about royal life and the treatment of Meghan was doing serious damage to the royal brand.

[From The Daily Mail]

“There is an understanding between father and son that anything William can do to ease the burden will be granted…” What is this burden you speak of? Is the burden in the room with us now? Because William does f–k all and he’s always been lazy as hell, but sure, I’ll buy that Charles lets William do whatever he wants. This is an old-school “promise to be keen” layered into a story about how Carole and Mike are the linchpins of the monarchy because… they’ll look after their grandchildren when William and Kate are making asses out of themselves overseas. As I said, William will stay in this marriage until he sees an easy way out, which may never come. He was once close to the Middletons but in recent years, he’s seemingly kept them at arm’s length. For good reason. I think the Middleton operation has gone tits-up in several different ways, not just Party Pieces on the brink of bankruptcy, but… it feels like there are other shoes left to drop.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

In the past three years, Prince Harry has lost and buried (entombed) two beloved grandparents and watched his father’s hat ceremony. He celebrated his grandmother’s historic reign and he showed up for the unveiling of a statue of his mother. His family has tried everything, every trick, every guilt trip, every manipulation to get Harry to come back and they’re all out of “reasons.” The Windsors and the British media are now stuck in the toxic reality they alone created, with the charismatic Sussexes pushed out, exiled and smeared, and only the charisma vacuum white royals remaining. Which goes a long way towards explaining why Camilla Tominey would piss out this column: “If William wants to be the King’s liege man, he must forgive Harry.” Ah, yes, that’s the only thing keeping Harry away! William won’t forgive him! Some highlights from Tominey’s latest overwrought piece:

Liege man: When the Prince of Wales pledged to be the King’s “liege man of life and limb” at the Coronation on Saturday, the 74-year-old monarch could not hide his emotion as he was kissed on the cheek by his eldest son. “Thank you, William,” he replied, conscious, perhaps, of the huge gulf that now exists between his two “darling boys”.

William’s coronation concert speech: It was also helpful for Prince William to describe his father as someone who “always understood that people of all faiths, all backgrounds, and all communities, deserve to be celebrated and supported”, not just in light of growing calls for the royals to make slavery reparations but also in response to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s racism claims.

On the Windsors’ racism: It is no secret that both the King and the Prince of Wales are disappointed that the Duke and Duchess felt the need to make such high-profile and damaging allegations. Yet still, the King found it in his heart to raise a toast to the fourth birthday of Harry and Meghan’s son Archie on Saturday – just hours after his youngest son had hot-footed it to Heathrow Airport straight after the two-hour service at Westminster Abbey to be reunited with his family in Montecito, California.

Charles has been in communication with the Sussexes: While the King may be willing to forgive, with palace insiders confirming there had been “genuine cooperation” with the Sussexes in the lead-up to the Coronation, there remains little hope of reconciliation with Prince William who was “absolutely horrified” by what Prince Harry wrote about him and his wife Kate in his bombshell autobiography, Spare. The Duke is expecting an apology – but the Prince wants one first. But if Prince William is to fulfil his role as his father’s liege man of life and limb, he may be required to rise above for the sake of the Crown.

William needs to be less wrathful: For what we learned from Sunday night’s speech was how pivotal the Prince and Princess of Wales are going to be to the success of the reign of Charles III. Regardless of his own hurt feelings, Prince William, who has a reputation for being rather stubborn at times, cannot stand in the way of a royal rapprochement if it’s in the best long-term interests of the monarchy. That is the sort of personal sacrifice required of someone whose coat of arms carries the motto “Ich dien” (I serve).

The bigger man: He certainly couldn’t be in a better place both personally and professionally to be the bigger man. Supported by the calming influence of his level-headed wife and mellowed by his three children, William has grown in stature precisely because he has proved himself to be such a safe pair of hands when dealing with the various crises that have faced the House of Windsor in recent years….If Prince William wants to be seen as the son the King can rely on then that must start – however hard – with repairing his broken bonds with his brother. Just as the King has his eldest son’s support, the Prince of Wales has the support of the King.

William must forgive: Prince William knows better than anyone the pain the King is going through over what Prince Harry has done. But if he really wants to prove that he has as much of his late grandmother in him as his father, then he is going to have to summon QEII levels of magnanimity to ensure the Carolean era characterises the Royals as a nuclear family, rather than a thermonuclear one.

[From The Telegraph]

As always, the royal rota treats the Windsors like they’re in control of every situation, especially the Sussexes. Like the Sussexes’ exile is entirely the Windsors’ call, and if the Windsors wanted the Sussexes back, then the Sussexes would jump to it. Even in Tominey’s fantasist scenario where William extends a meaningful olive branch to his brother, nothing would change. Let’s also be real: that would never even happen. William is too stupid, too short-sighted, too incandescent with rage to actually be the bigger man. Oh well!

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Avalon Red.

Here is the solo portrait of Queen Camilla, taken on Saturday at Buckingham Palace, just after she was crowned at Westminster Abbey. It was taken in the Throne Room, which is apparently adorned with what I originally thought was blackamoor art, but is actually just bronze art (?) which looks a lot like blackamoor art. Camilla and photographer Hugo Burnand decided to feature this art in the background of Camilla’s solo portrait. It’s… a choice. It’s on-brand for Camilla, let’s say that. Speaking of Camilla’s brand, now that she’s officially Queen Side-Chick, she’s getting her media allies to write about how she’s a brilliant truth-teller and the power behind the crown. Some highlights from this weird piece in the Telegraph:

Making the title her own: She now wears the crown and has dispensed with the Consort suffix, so the next task for the Queen is to make that title her own in a nation that automatically associates it with Elizabeth II. It will require a combination of patience and planning for Queen Camilla, and she will need to tread a fine line between staying in the public eye and overexposure.

She’ll try to be like Prince Philip: There is no job description for the consort of a monarch, but the Queen already has a touchstone on whose example she will draw: the late, great Prince Philip. Those who know her say that like Philip, she will continue to speak her mind, and will not be afraid to express an opinion on important issues of the day.

Tone it down: “The trick for her is not to think that she needs to tone it down,” said one former adviser. “She will have a voice, as she showed recently in her comments to authors following the Roald Dahl controversy, and that follows in the rich tradition of royal consorts.”

Camilla’s instinct for storytelling: She also has a far better grasp than other members of the Royal family of how actions and words will be interpreted through the lens of newspaper and television reports, because she has “an instinct for storytelling”, just as journalists do, and so she knows what reporters are likely to pick up on (for the same reason, she knows how to avoid Prince Philip-style gaffes).

No fundamental changes: Her advisers are not telling her to make any fundamental changes to the way she operates. She has already had remarkable success in winning over the public, and her image-makers believe the extra media coverage she will receive as a result of her elevation will do the amplifying for her.

She’s not stuffy or formal: Contrary to what Prince Harry might think, it is not a calculated move on the part of the Queen, according to those familiar with the workings of Buckingham Palace. It is just that she is practising the advice she gave to those authors, and being true to herself.

[From The Telegraph]

Way to give up the game: “Contrary to what Prince Harry might think”!! Ah, so this whole article was a response to Spare, got it. Sounds like Camilla IS calculated and she’s thinking a lot about her side-chick brand and how millions of people despise her. Perhaps that’s why she posed in front of the blackamoor art as well – she’s trying to be the new Prince Philip, the man who couldn’t stop saying and doing racist sh-t constantly. Camilla was like: I’ll do my duty and fulfill my role as the family racist, that’s my job! And “instinct for storytelling” is a particularly unique euphemism for “Camilla leaks sh-t about everyone in the family as a way to gain power.”

Photos courtesy of Hugo Burnand for Buckingham Palace, Cover Images and Avalon Red.

J. R. Moehringer was Prince Harry’s ghostwriter for Spare. Before now, we never heard from Moehringer about what it was like to work with Harry, how collaborative the process was or whether Moehringer acted more as an editor or a co-writer. Now we know, thanks to this wonderful piece Moehringer wrote for the New Yorker, “Notes from Prince Harry’s Ghostwriter.” The piece starts out with Moehringer explaining a 2022 argument he had with Harry over Zoom about one passage in the book, about Harry’s military training, and Harry fighting to include his own snappy comeback to the line-crossing moment when his “interrogators” brought up his mother. They went back and forth about one line, both men growing furious and exasperated with each other until the moment when Moehringer was sure Harry was about to fire him. Then Harry accepted JR’s call and said “I really enjoy getting you worked up like that.” Here are some highlights from the piece:

This is amazing: The ghostwriter for Julian Assange wrote twenty-five thousand words about his methodology, and it sounded to me like Elon Musk on mushrooms—on Mars. That same ghost, however, published a review of “Spare” describing Harry as “off his royal tits” and me as going “all Sartre or Faulkner,” so what do I know? Who am I to offer rules? Maybe the alchemy of each ghost-author pairing is unique.

How he got the gig: Then, in the summer of 2020, I got a text. The familiar query. Would you be interested in speaking with someone about ghosting a memoir? I shook my head no. I covered my eyes. I picked up the phone and heard myself blurting, Who? Prince Harry. I agreed to a Zoom. I was curious, of course. Who wouldn’t be? I wondered what the real story was. I wondered if we’d have any chemistry. We did, and there was, I think, a surprising reason. Princess Diana had died twenty-three years before our first conversation, and my mother, Dorothy Moehringer, had just died, and our griefs felt equally fresh.

What enticed him about ghosting for Harry: Harry had no deadline, however, and that enticed me. Many authors are in a hot hurry, and some ghosts are happy to oblige. They churn and burn, producing three or four books a year. I go painfully slow; I don’t know any other way. Also, I just liked the dude. I called him dude right away; it made him chuckle. I found his story, as he outlined it in broad strokes, relatable and infuriating. The way he’d been treated, by both strangers and intimates, was grotesque.

Ghosting in privacy: Harry and I made steady progress in the course of 2020, largely because the world didn’t know what we were up to. We could revel in the privacy of our Zoom bubble. As Harry grew to trust me, he brought other people into the bubble, connecting me with his inner circle, a vital phase in every ghosting job. There is always someone who knows your author’s life better than he does, and your task is to find that person fast and interview his socks off.

His first travels to Montecito: As the pandemic waned, I was finally able to travel to Montecito. I went once with my wife and children. (Harry won the heart of my daughter, Gracie, with his vast “Moana” scholarship; his favorite scene, he told her, is when Heihei, the silly chicken, finds himself lost at sea.) I also went twice by myself. Harry put me up in his guesthouse, where Meghan and Archie would visit me on their afternoon walks. Meghan, knowing I was missing my family, was forever bringing trays of food and sweets.

Harry’s candor: In due time, no subject was off the table. I felt honored by his candor, and I could tell that he felt astonished by it. And energized. While I always emphasized storytelling and scenes, Harry couldn’t escape the wish that “Spare” might be a rebuttal to every lie ever published about him. As Borges dreamed of endless libraries, Harry dreams of endless retractions, which meant no end of revelations. He knew, of course, that some people would be aghast at first. “Why on earth would Harry talk about that?” But he had faith that they would soon see: because someone else already talked about it, and got it wrong.

Then someone leaked the news of the book: Whoever it was, their callousness toward Harry extended to me. I had a clause in my contract giving me the right to remain unidentified, a clause I always insist on, but the leaker blew that up by divulging my name to the press. Along with pretty much anyone who has had anything to do with Harry, I woke one morning to find myself squinting into a gigantic searchlight. Every hour, another piece would drop, each one wrong. My fee was wrong, my bio was wrong, even my name. One royal expert cautioned that, because of my involvement in the book, Harry’s father should be “looking for a pile of coats to hide under.” When I mentioned this to Harry, he stared. “Why?” “Because I have daddy issues.” We laughed and got back to discussing our mothers.

The British media’s unhinged reaction to Spare: When the book was officially released, the bad translations didn’t stop. They multiplied. The British press now converted the book into their native tongue, that jabberwocky of bonkers hot takes and classist snark. Facts were wrenched out of context, complex emotions were reduced to cartoonish idiocy, innocent passages were hyped into outrages—and there were so many falsehoods. One British newspaper chased down Harry’s flight instructor. Headline: “Prince Harry’s army instructor says story in Spare book is ‘complete fantasy.’ ” Hours later, the instructor posted a lengthy comment beneath the article, swearing that those words, “complete fantasy,” never came out of his mouth. Indeed, they were nowhere in the piece, only in the bogus headline, which had gone viral. The newspaper had made it up, the instructor said, stressing that Harry was one of his finest students.

Spare is rigorously fact-checked: Within days, the amorphous campaign against “Spare” seemed to narrow to a single point of attack: that Harry’s memoir, rigorously fact-checked, was rife with errors. I can’t think of anything that rankles quite like being called sloppy by people who routinely trample facts in pursuit of their royal prey, and this now happened every few minutes to Harry and, by extension, to me.

The TK Maxx thing: In one section of the book, for instance, Harry reveals that he used to live for the yearly sales at TK Maxx, the discount clothing chain. Not so fast, said the monarchists at TK Maxx corporate, who rushed out a statement declaring that TK Maxx never has sales, just great savings all the time! Oh, snap! Gotcha, Prince George Santos! Except that people around the world immediately posted screenshots of TK Maxx touting sales on its official Twitter account. (Surely TK Maxx’s effort to discredit Harry’s memoir was unrelated to the company’s long-standing partnership with Prince Charles and his charitable trust.)

Stalked by British reporters & paparazzi: Days earlier, we’d been stalked, followed in our car as we drove our son to preschool. When I lifted him out of his seat, a paparazzo leaped from his car and stood in the middle of the road, taking aim with his enormous lens and scaring the hell out of everyone at dropoff. Then, not one hour later, as I sat at my desk, trying to calm myself, I looked up to see a woman’s face at my window. As if in a dream, I walked to the window and asked, “Who are you?” Through the glass, she whispered, “I’m from the Mail on Sunday.”… I called [Harry]… Harry was all heart. He asked if my family was O.K., asked for physical descriptions of the people harassing us, promised to make some calls, see if anything could be done. We both knew nothing could be done, but still. I felt gratitude, and some regret. I’d worked hard to understand the ordeals of Harry Windsor, and now I saw that I understood nothing. Empathy is thin gruel compared with the marrow of experience. One morning of what Harry had endured since birth made me desperate to take another crack at the pages in “Spare” that talk about the media.

Harry was happy that people were reading the book: He appeared, marching toward us, looking flushed. Uh-oh, I thought, before registering that it was a good flush. His smile was wide as he embraced us both. He was overjoyed by many things. The numbers, naturally. Guinness World Records had just certified his memoir as the fastest-selling nonfiction book in the history of the world. But, more than that, readers were reading, at last, the actual book, not Murdoched chunks laced with poison, and their online reviews were overwhelmingly effusive. Many said Harry’s candor about family dysfunction, about losing a parent, had given them solace.

The book party: There were several lovely toasts to Harry, then the Prince stepped forward. I’d never seen him so self-possessed and expansive. He thanked his publishing team, his editor, me. He mentioned my advice, to “trust the book,” and said he was glad that he did, because it felt incredible to have the truth out there, to feel—his voice caught—“free.” There were tears in his eyes. Mine, too.”

Freedom: “I couldn’t help obsessing about that word “free.” If he’d used that in one of our Zoom sessions, I’d have pushed back. Harry first felt liberated when he fell in love with Meghan, and again when they fled Britain, and what he felt now, for the first time in his life, was heard. That imperious Windsor motto, “Never complain, never explain,” is really just a prettified omertà, which my wife suggests might have prolonged Harry’s grief. His family actively discourages talking, a stoicism for which they’re widely lauded, but if you don’t speak your emotions you serve them, and if you don’t tell your story you lose it—or, what might be worse, you get lost inside it. Telling is how we cement details, preserve continuity, stay sane. We say ourselves into being every day, or else. Heard, Harry, heard—I could hear myself making the case to him late at night, and I could see Harry’s nose wrinkle as he argued for his word, and I reproached myself once more: Not your effing book.

Meghan is so thoughtful: “But, after we hugged Harry goodbye, after we thanked Meghan for toys she’d sent our children, I had a second thought about silence. Ghosts don’t speak—says who? Maybe they can. Maybe sometimes they should.

[From The New Yorker]

You can tell how much Moehringer likes Harry, but even more than that, he respects Harry and the ordeal Harry has been through since birth, through the “contract” with the British media, a contract which has calcified to a global hate campaign against the redhead who escaped to America. I would love to know all of the people in Harry’s life who spoke to JR and who he found the most helpful. I would imagine a few former palace employees were among them. While Moehringer doesn’t say this explicitly (he doesn’t have to), he’s also describing how Meghan didn’t have the first thing to do with the book, unlike all of those reports from the British media. This was Harry and JR, toiling away via Zoom and in person, constantly editing and rewriting and figuring out which parts to include. Anyway, I hope JR and Harry are working on a second book!

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Avalon Red, Backgrid.

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Jana Kramer said she and ex Mike Caussin are good co-parents. I think I just blacked out there for a minute – did Jana admit to a working relationship with Mike? Yes, yes she did. After all these years of airing the disfunction of their marriage and the vitriol of having to breathe the same air post-divorce, Jana said they have finally found a way to co-exist. And it’s all a result of over-scheduling the kids. Apparently, the children have so many activities, it takes both parents to get each child to their appointed rounds. And it’s proven to be the thing that makes it work for Jana and Mike.

Jana Kramer has some relationship advice you’re unlikely to hear from any marriage counselor.

“Little tip: Maybe get divorced in the summertime,” the singer-actress joked to E! News, pointing out the unexpected silver lining of filing to end her marriage to Mike Caussin in April 2021.

Because while she remembers just how daunting those early weeks were as she navigated caring for now-7-year-old daughter Jolie and 4-year-old son Jace without the former NFL tight end by her side, she was able regain her sunny outlook.

“That first month when I got divorced, I was just like, ‘How are my kids even getting to school? I can’t even function,’” Kramer, 39, recalled in an exclusive chat with E!. “But I think the summer helped me. We were able to be outside and enjoy the sun and the warmth, so that was nice. You just kind of get into a flow. And now I don’t even know how it was before. You just make it work.”

And though she and the 36-year-old athlete couldn’t move past their marital issues (one huge sticking point: Kramer’s claim that Caussin cheated on her with more than 13 women), they’ve managed to channel their inner Tim Gunn when it comes to their children.

“I have an amazing coparenting situation with my ex,” the 39-year-old shared, describing a recent call they had to discuss the kids’ jam-packed calendar of activities.

“It’s like, ‘Okay, when Jace has baseball, Jolie’s got soccer,’” the One Tree Hill alum explained of working through their joint responsibilities. “I didn’t think we’d get to that place and we’re there. It’s like, ‘No, we’ve got this. We’ll figure it out.’ I think that piece has been really nice.”

[From E! News]

Honestly, I’m happy for Jana and Mike. Most people only ever want a couple to get it together for the kids. I know plenty of divorced couples who probably wouldn’t mind never speaking to their ex again, but they work it out enough so their kids don’t have to be caught in the crossfire. And I think the hostility between those couples dies down because of their mutual love for the children. I don’t doubt Jana appreciates having the extra pair of hands, but maybe seeing Mike stick around for his kids has made her hate him less. Good for them. If you can only get your sh*t together in one area, it should be co-parenting.

In other news, Jana’s got a new guy. I know, how did we miss this? It wasn’t for lack of trying, I’ll tell you that. Because Jana and Scottish soccer hottie Allan Russell have already gone red carpet official. She claims they are taking it slow, and that this one is different. But they are all over her IG in loved up shots and she’s already talking about “when you know you know.” I hope so. I don’t wish bad things for Jana. I just think she rushes in too quickly and without opening her eyes. But who knows. She’s in a better place with Mike, her kids look happy, maybe she’ll take a beat and get to know Allan before she loses herself completely.

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Buckingham Palace finally released the official coronation portraits on Monday. These were taken on Saturday, after the Westminster Abbey crowning service, and each photo was taken by Hugo Burnand. One of King Charles solo, one of Queen Camilla solo, one of king and queen together, and one of… the working royals and no one else. A few notes about the Charles pics… like, the crown is crooked, right? Am I imagining that? Is it some optical illusion? And Charles just looks like an old man in king drag. The whole thing (Camilla included) is absolutely giving off drag-queen vibes, like these are just ostentatious costumes. I’m pretty sure Camilla is half in the bag too.

As for the working-royal portrait… the palace made a note of everyone included, because I’m sure the average Briton has absolutely no idea. I remember when QEII died and there were those young, Cockney-accented podcasters wondering if Charles was QEII’s husband or her son, because they really didn’t know. So, from left to right: The Duke of Kent, The Duchess of Gloucester, The Duke of Gloucester, Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, The Princess Royal, The King, The Queen, The Prince of Wales, The Princess of Wales, The Duchess of Edinburgh, Princess Alexandra, The Duke of Edinburgh.

A few things. Sophie and Edward are literally holding up Princess Alexandra, who is 86 years old (bless her heart) and 56th in the line of succession. It should also be noted that Camilla really did ban the other women from wearing tiaras or headpieces – Alexandra, Sophie, Anne and the Duchess of Gloucester are all wearing no headpieces or just simple fascinators. Kate was likely banned too, which is why she pitched a fit and had McQueen make her sparkly bedazzled headpiece. Some have suggested that Kate changed dresses in between the Westminster service and the portraits. I don’t think so – I think it’s the same dress, but I do think she added the diamond necklace when she got to the palace.

Kate and William are the youngest people in Charles’s slimmed-down monarchy at 41 and 40. The next-youngest is Sophie at 58 and Edward at 59. The rest of them are in their 70s and 80s. The Good Ship Windsor will face some rough seas in the coming years, my goodness.

Last thing, and I honestly didn’t even see this at first, full disclosure – look at Camilla’s solo photo and what’s behind her. Those are blackamoor art pieces at Buckingham Palace, placed in the Throne Room. And Camilla wanted that to be part of her official crowning portrait.

Photos courtesy of Hugo Burnand for Buckingham Palace.

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**SPOILERS FOR BARRY**

The last season of Barry is underway. There are only three episodes left in the series. When the trailer for this season came out, we had theories about what was going to go down. But episodes four and five showed us: We. Had. No. Idea. Proceed only if you are okay knowing what happened.

So episode four was bonkers. Barry had escaped from prison and there was an intense manhunt for him as the cast found out he’d escaped. Everyone who wasn’t Barry was so wrapped up in his escape, it wreaked havoc on their lives. But the real WTF moment was the end when Barry and Sally were in some pastoral setting with their son at the end of the episode. Some theorized it might be a dream but no, episode five confirmed, this is where we are now in Barry’s timeframe. Ep. Five began eight years in the future and Barry and Sally are parents to John. Barry has found religion while Sally waits tables for money and drinks away her demons. Whew boy. So folks asked Bill Hader – what the what? Why the jump without explanation? Bill said the eight years of how’d they get there bored him, so he just skipped over it.

Barry star Bill Hader didn’t care how Barry and Sally got to where they were going; his only concern was that they were there.

Written and directed by Hader, the fifth episode of Barry’s final season confirms that the ending of episode four was anything but fantasy. It’s now been eight years since Barry and Sally (Sarah Goldberg) decided to run away together and the couple, who are now known as Clark and Emily, are living with their son, John (Zachary Golinger), in the middle of nowhere. Barry is suddenly a man of faith who perpetually stays at home to school his son and shelter him from the truth of who his parents actually are. Meanwhile, a wig-donning Sally is working as a server at a diner, and she routinely drowns her sorrows in a bottle to get through the days. She may have had dreams of being a working actor, but her real-life role as Emily is a nightmare in every way.

In an era where so many stories obsessively show their work and over-explain every last detail, Hader was indifferent to the idea of spelling out how Barry and Sally evaded what was likely a nationwide manhunt for the hitman-turned-fugitive, as well as how they set up their new identities and residence.

“I didn’t find [watching them be on the run in real time] very interesting. In season one, he has a daydream about he and Sally and a boy taking a family picture, and so I was like, ‘Well, maybe that’s what he wants,’” Hader tells The Hollywood Reporter. “So, it was more about them being there. It’s been eight years, and this is where they’re at. That was just more interesting to me.”

[From Yahoo!]

The longer interview in The Hollywood Reporter has a lot more about what’s behind the episode. There’s a Whitey Bulger connection and it talks about the imagery and why Barry’s suddenly religious. Honestly, I respect Bill’s take on the jump. I find shows and films sometimes take too much time trying to explain something fantastical when the audience has already agreed to an absurd premise. Barry is about a hitman who tries to change his life and become an actor. So much of the show asked us to bend reality already so, yeah. Just say it’s eight years later and they eluded the manhunt. We know Barry’s clever. The ‘how’ would have bored me too and taken too much time. Granted, the sudden introduction in ep four was jarring, but it was a different approach, so I appreciate that.

The real question is where do they go from here? Bill said that they evaded the police didn’t interest him but that doesn’t mean they are ultimately successful. There’s always a chance he’s discovered and now Sally’s an accomplice. And there’s apparently a whole story about Cousineau’s personal journey in that time. There is actually a lot to pack in to the last three episodes, even with the eight-year gap.

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One of my favorite things from coronation weekend was the collective Deranger freakout over Prince Harry’s lovely three-piece Dior suit, and Dior’s social media person making multiple posts about the suit. Keep in mind, I’ve wanted the Sussexes to have a brand ambassadorship for years now. I think they would do well with an ambassadorship with Dior, and I absolutely want Meghan to do a handbag ambassadorship, with Tod’s or Valentino or some high-end label. So I was already primed to enjoy the fact that Meghan and Harry are wearing high-end labels. It would not bother me at all if Meg and Harry are already doing some yet-to-be-announced sponsorship with Dior.

That’s what was bothering a lot of royalists this weekend – the idea that Harry might be getting paid to show up at the coronation in a Dior suit. To be fair, I don’t think he was being paid. I think if Dior had Harry under contract, they would just say that. It’s far more likely that Dior was simply proud to have dressed Harry for the Chubbly and they wanted to take credit for their work. But really, none of this is actually “about” Harry’s designer contacts. The same royalists who were crying and throwing tantrums about his Dior suit were crowing about how he’d been “banned” from wearing his military uniform. They wanted to punish him, to see him wear sackcloth and ashes, to look and be poor. But they can’t admit that, so they make everything about “why didn’t he wear a British label!??!”

Prince Harry’s Dior suit he wore for the Coronation could have been a rebellious move as he and Meghan Markle make a deal with the brand, experts claimed today. The Duke of Sussex looked smart in the bespoke three-piece suit designed by Dior’s artistic director Kim Jones especially for his appearance at Westminster Abbey.

But royal fashion expert and celebrity stylist Miranda Holder said Harry’s choice of a French brand showed he ‘did not get the fashion memo or was in a petulant mood’ as most other guests wore British labels, adding that his decision ‘spoke volumes’.

Brand and culture expert Nick Ede added that now the Sussexes are no longer working royals, they can ‘have an arrangement with one of the biggest fashion houses in the world’ and Dior would have ‘jumped at the chance’ to work with them.

Ms Holder told MailOnline: ‘Harry’s brief appearance at the Coronation was always going to be controversial, every second that he was under the watchful eye of the many cameras, every move he made would be ruthlessly scrutinised, and due to him not wearing any sort of ceremonial uniform, his style choices would be at the top of the list.’

She said most guests appeared to have ‘got the memo to support the best of British brands at such a uniquely patriotic occasion’. Ms Holder spoke of the ‘sea of exquisite British couture’ from the Alexander McQueen that ‘graced’ Kate Middleton and Charlotte, to the poppy red Emilia Wickstead coat worn by actress Emma Thompson which she decorated with her MBE.

But she continued: ‘It seemed however that Harry did not get the fashion memo – either that, or he was in a petulant mood. The Prince turned up looking smart if somewhat apprehensive in an immaculate Dior suit, a potentially rebellious move on his behalf. Harry would have been well-versed in the protocol of supporting domestic businesses, and the message doing so would convey. In true royal family style, Harry, like his late grandmother, is a true expert in visual representation, and his decision to wear a French designer to this historic occasion spoke volumes. The message was clearly, ‘I’m here, but I’m doing this my own way’, a firm assertion that his newfound independence was not going to change, that he would run alongside the royal pack rather than within it.’

[From The Daily Mail]

While Dior is a renowned French label, the current creative designer is Kim Jones, a British man. It’s a lot like Meghan choosing Givenchy for her wedding gown – really, she chose an English designer working for a French label. Anyway, I continue to enjoy how Harry had them gagged. They didn’t know why they were mad about or why, but they knew they were irate and incandescent with rage. He wore Dior! It’s French! Dior posted about it! Why didn’t he wear a British designer! Is he being paid!! I watched in real time as Tom & Lorenzo fought with those unhinged Derangers on Twitter. It was glorious.

Tailoring fit for royalty.

Dior is honored to have dressed Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, for the coronation of King Charles III in a custom design by Kim Jones. Seen arriving at Westminster Abbey, gain an insight into the savoir-faire of his three-piece suit next. pic.twitter.com/rg4r0ER4Ym

— Dior (@Dior) May 6, 2023

Sample the #DiorSavoirFaire behind the suit worn by Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, to the coronation of King Charles III. In the ateliers, the wool and mohair tailcoat, vest and trousers custom designed by Kim Jones were constructed with traditional hand tailoring techniques. pic.twitter.com/DzlovY11IV

— Dior (@Dior) May 7, 2023

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

Kaley Cuoco and Tom Pelphrey just welcomed their baby daughter on March 30 and celebrated their one year anniversary a couple of weeks ago. They’re loving new parenthood, which is clear from their posts about their daughter. Tom gushed about Matilda and Kaley to E! News and now it’s Kaley’s turn to gush about Tom. Kaley talked to People at an event last weekend about how natural and hands-on Tom is as a dad.

Kaley Cuoco is loving every moment spent watching Tom Pelphrey be a dad to their newborn daughter Matilda.

The actress, 37, chatted with PEOPLE at the Rock4EB event in Malibu, California, on Saturday evening — which benefits the fight to find a cure for the rare skin condition epidermolysis bullosa.

When asked to describe what has surprised her most about seeing her boyfriend in his new role as a father, Cuoco said, “I cannot believe how natural he is, how much he loves it.”

“I mean, when we were in the hospital, he did everything — every diaper, he’s the swaddle king,” she continued. “All the nurses said, ‘Oh my God, you’re the best guy swaddler we’ve ever seen.’ ”

Noting that Pelphrey, 40, “just loves” Matilda, Cuoco added, “She looks exactly like him. And he has a very distinct voice, so when he talks to her, she’s like 360. Her head turns around, and she’s like, ‘I know that voice.’ It’s very sweet.”

Calling herself “kind of a stay-at-home mom,” Cuoco told PEOPLE on Saturday, “Tom’s working and I’m chilling and playing with the baby.”

“I never thought I would have kids, so this is very special,” she added. “Neither of us thought we would be here.”

Though she noted that there are “so many things people tell you,” and that she was told to “read books” before welcoming her daughter, Cuoco admitted, “I didn’t read s—.”

“Tom and I are very natural and we kind of go with the flow,” she said. “We found that [Matilda] really tells us what she wants when she wants it, and we’re not stuck on any weird schedule.”

The Flight Attendant star also detailed that Matilda is a lover of people and animals alike. “We have friends over every day that hold her and feed her, and so she’s never weirded out by a stranger,” she said. “The day we brought her home, we have five dogs, and we let those dogs bark and lick her and run all over the place, and she has never even flinched at the sound of a dog.”

[From People]

By Kaley and Tom’s own account, it sounds like he was super nervous and trying to prep and plan before the baby came, and ended up getting the hang of it and feeling comfortable really quickly. Which is the most any of us can hope for, but it probably doesn’t happen that way for everyone. Anyway, I’m glad Tom is an involved dad and seems as devoted to Kaley and their daughter as she is to him. Kaley is clearly someone who loves love, so it’s good she has a partner that seems to match her in that regard. It seems like they’re all on the same page and just chilling right now, but the dog thing might be a little too relaxed. I think it’s great they’re socializing the baby with people and I know Kaley and Tom love their dogs, but I cringed at the thought of the dogs licking the baby. Hopefully it was her just her foot and not her face. Kaley said she’s being “kind of a stay-at-home mom” right now while Tom works, but she’s clearly still on maternity leave since she just had the baby not even six weeks ago. Her Peacock series with Chris Messina is premiering on June 8, so we’ll probably see her again soon.

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Here’s the full-length trailer for Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. Remember, this is being released the same day as Barbie. [Mashable]
T&L’s coverage of the coronation. [Tom & Lorenzo]
Review of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. [Pajiba]
The late Freya the Walrus got a sculpture in her honor. [Dlisted]
Oh hey Sam Rockwell! [LaineyGossip]
Why didn’t Prince Louis go to the coronation concert? [Just Jared]
Jayne Mansfield’s pink bathroom was insane. [OMG Blog]
I love Priyanka Chopra’s top here. [Go Fug Yourself]
The NYT did one of those Nazi-whitewashing pieces about Elizabeth Holmes and it’s just insane that they keep doing this. [Jezebel]
I hate to admit this, but I love Lisa Rinna’s onesie. [Egotastic]
Awkward moments during the coronation. [Buzzfeed]
Who was the best-dressed at the Met Gala? [RCFA]
John Cleese compared King Charles to Donald Trump. [Towleroad]