King Charles, the Prince of Wales and the Princess of Wales are all out and about right now. They hosted a special lunch at Buckingham Palace today for the “Realm Governors General” and various prime ministers. Basically, all of the visiting heads of government arrived early for the coronation and the king gave them a free lunch, in exchange for interacting with Jazz Hands and Incandescent With Rage.

I don’t have an ID on Kate’s dress but it doesn’t look like a repeat, although the style is very familiar. She loves that silhouette. She got a fresh blowout for the lunch and honestly, her hair looks better today than it’s looked in months. King Charles looked the same as he has since his mother passed away: joyful, happy as a clam. It’s finally HIS moment. I am curious why Queen Camilla wasn’t around for the lunch. Maybe she had a hair appointment or a fitting.

After the lunch, Charles did a walkabout outside of the palace to thank people for coming out. Was Camilla with him? I don’t think she was. But William and Kate walked around for a while too, wearing the same outfits from the lunch.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

President Biden appointed a lot of new ambassadors to replace Trump’s cronies. The current American ambassador to the UK is Jane Hartley, a Democratic donor and political ally of President Biden. She came into the ambassadorship in early 2022, having also served as an ambassador during the Obama administration. While she’s a Democratic fundraiser and donor, she knows what she’s doing. Biden wouldn’t have appointed some know-nothing crony to such an important ambassadorship. Despite his Irish pride, President Biden understands the need to have a mature diplomat in that position in London. Which makes it ridiculously funny that every time Ambassador Hartley is interviewed in the British media, she’s fielding questions about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, not Ukraine, not Brexit, not relations with the European Union. Back in January, there was a kerfuffle because the ambassador refused to answer a question about the Sussexes:

Jane Hartley, US ambassador to the UK, has just sidestepped a question on television from @bbclaurak about whether the furore over Harry and Meghan has damaged relations between the two countries. But she praised the King for his work, particularly The Prince’s Trust.

— Richard Palmer (@RoyalReporter) January 29, 2023

LMAO. Even if Ambassador Hartley was like “yes, maybe the Sussexit did lead to a PR crisis for the monarchy,” what the hell was she supposed to do about it? Tell President Biden to launch missiles at Montecito?? Well, it got even funnier this week when Ambassador Hartley once again spoke to the British media and OF COURSE they asked her about Meghan and Harry. British people are going to do this to every American from now on, right?

The US ambassador to Britain has said she hopes Prince Harry and Meghan will support the King this weekend. Ambassador Jane Hartley also played down fears that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s complaints about the monarchy have taken away support for King Charles in her homeland.

Speaking to Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel, hosts of The News Agents podcast, Ms Hartley suggested the Sussexes were getting very little mainstream media attention in the US.

When asked how much support they have in the US, Ambassador Hartley said she had not been home so may not have the “total sentiment” but added: “I’ve said this before, every family has their issues. You should come to our Thanksgiving dinner sometime with my extended family. Everybody has an opinion, and everybody speaks it clearly and loudly. And you know, I just hope that for this Coronation, there’s support for the King. That’s what I would want from them.”

Asked if she believed the Sussexes had taken away support for The King in the US, she replied: “If you look at our media, look at our New York Times, look at our Washington Post, they’re not getting that much coverage, to be very honest with you. The coverage right now is really about the Coronation. The coverage right now is about what the UK is doing with us in terms of Ukraine. The coverage right now is the alliance that President Biden has put together. So, you’re not seeing them in mainstream media, if you want to know the truth in my view, and once again, I’m here, I’m not there.”

She defended President Biden after former President Donald Trump said it was “disrespectful” of him not to attend the Coronation. “I could not disagree more. I think what was behind it was truly just scheduling and logistics,” she said.

“The President has been here four times. And the President has committed in a great phone call with the King, which I don’t want to talk about, that he will come again to the UK before the end of the year, when he and The King will have some much more private time together. So, I think that whole thing is ridiculous if you want to know the truth.”

[From The Daily Express]

“Look at our New York Times, look at our Washington Post, they’re not getting that much coverage, to be very honest with you. The coverage right now is really about the Coronation…” The Times and WaPo have been covering the coronation stuff, but they’ve been increasingly critical, as have other American outlets. The American press is aghast by the expensive medieval pageantry and historic unpopularity of the new queen consort especially.

And again, you have to understand the question asked of the ambassador and the mindset of British journalists, who operate in partnership with the monarchy and Tory government. The British media is not “adversarial” in the way the American media sees itself. The British media believes that if the Sussexes aren’t getting wall-to-wall, full-throated support in the American media, that means that the Sussexes are “unpopular.” When really, Harry and Meghan can do whatever they want, whenever they want, and the British media is going to be gagged no matter what. Just the sheer fact that Ambassador Hartley continues to field questions about the Sussexes is proof enough that the Sussexes are the story.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

SPOILERS for this season of Ted Lasso.

It’s felt like a dirty secret, something no one wants to admit over the past month: the third and final season of Ted Lasso is bad. I enjoyed the first two seasons, and even applauded some of the more unconventional storylines, because I believed in the show and I believed that Jason Sudeikis knew where he was going. But this third season has left me questioning if Sudeikis and the other writers have any f–king idea how they’re going to end this show. The Atlantic’s David Sims feels the same way. Sims wrote a piece called “Ted Lasso Has Lost Its Way,” and I just wanted to do a few highlights from the piece:

Midway through watching “Sunflowers,” a nearly feature-length episode of Ted Lasso that juggles five separate plotlines, I wondered aloud, “When exactly did this show turn into a prestige drama?” Yes, the script still has plenty of jokes—though few of them deserve more than a low chuckle, and many characters are little more than caricatures. But as it’s continued to draw viewers and accolades for Apple TV+, this Emmy-winning comedy has pivoted further and further away from the genre to which it supposedly belongs, devolving into ham-fisted, novelistic nonsense.

…Ted Lasso’s first season earned its massive hype; it was a well-crafted workplace sitcom that built out its central character’s leadership strengths step by step, methodically depicting how Ted’s emotional intelligence more than makes up for his lack of tactical acumen. The show’s propensity for “niceness” was radical and surprising, somehow allowing it to generate laughs while dodging conflict.

Season 3, which debuted on Apple TV+ in March and is rounding into what may or may not be a series finale, is a pure example of the excesses that can flourish on streaming television. The show has no time slot to worry about, and none of the formal or thematic constraints of network television. Perhaps that’s why its episodes have settled into such supersize lengths, with “Sunflowers” running an ungodly 63 minutes. Its storytelling feels similarly slack, with characters taking whole seasons to have the slimmest emotional realizations.

Now, in Season 3, these supplementary characters have all become the stars of their own shows. Ted Lasso is no longer a workplace sitcom but a universe of workplace sitcoms, drifting from a football club to an upstart PR firm to another (more evil) football club to a pair of local restaurants. Scenes are devoid of jokes and filled with dopey, self-important monologuing on the issues of the day. Rather than have any conflict, characters offer endless hugs and wan smiles, all under the watchful mustache of Mr. Lasso, whose retinue of dad jokes feels noticeably phoned in.

[From The Atlantic]

I agree – and while I don’t mind the longer episodes, it feels like the show is just doing these longer episodes because they’ve stupidly split up all of the characters and feel the need to give everyone their own “moments” and storylines. Which would be fine if those storylines felt organic and there was some kind of masterful story being told. Instead, we get Keeley off in her own universe, suddenly having a relationship with a rich, judgemental, love-bombing a–hole. We get Roy and those red strings. We get Jason Sudeikis working out his Olivia Wilde mess on-screen.

In the first two seasons, you could also depend on Coach Lasso’s baseline managerial competence too, only that’s gone away now. Like, I get the criticism of “Lasso is actually a terrible football coach,” but in the first two seasons, he proved himself to be an inspired and intuitive manager, the kind of person who understands what people need and how an organization (or team) should operate. The “slump” of the team seemed to be the characterization of the real-world slump of the writers’ room.

Joanna Robinson mentioned something on Twitter this week, a rumor she heard that “they threw out 2/3 of the season and had to shoot it over again (it was supposed to come out last fall) which would explain things like Rupert and Zava fully disappearing from the plot. But it would not explain why the second pass is this messy.” Extensive reshoots and tossed scripts would explain some of this. But I’m also not convinced that Sudeikis knows how to land this plane.

Photos courtesy of Instagram/AppleTV, Backgrid and Avalon Red.

Throughout Prince Harry’s Spare, there’s a palpable love from Harry to his father. While Harry at times describes Charles in unflattering ways, throughout the book, you can absolutely feel how much Harry cares for his garbage, dogsh-t father. Months after Spare’s publication, palace “sources” even admitted as much, basically saying that King Charles felt like he dodged a bullet and that Spare could have been a lot worse for Charles. Of course, the official position from Buckingham Palace is that Harry is persona non grata, that Charles is deeply hurt that Harry exposed Camilla’s machinations, that the entire family feels “betrayed” by Harry (after they betrayed him). Well, now one of the king’s closest friends has gone on the record about Harry’s “cruelty.” Yes, HARRY was the cruel one, according to these people.

The man said by some to be the king’s best friend has given an astonishing interview, excoriating Prince Harry for “hurtful” behavior of “the cruelest” kind toward his father. The extraordinary interview with Sir Nicholas Soames was released by Times Radio at 5 p.m. local time on Wednesday, just as the country was entering the final furlongs of coronation preparations and with Harry due to arrive in the country any hour for the coronation on Saturday.

The explosive allegations matter because Soames, while not explicitly named as a surrogate for the king, had likely been authorized to speak by the king’s office, and appeared to have a talking point that Harry’s behavior, in publishing a memoir and giving interviews that have attacked the family, had deeply wounded and upset the king.

While the royals have tried hard to starve Harry of the oxygen of publicity so far, Soames’ pre-emptive strike on his character represents a rare moment of naked PR realpolitik from the palace. The days of pretending Harry isn’t happening to this coronation will come to a shuddering halt the moment Harry, who is expected to step off a plane from L.A. sometime Friday and make a beeline for his soon-to-be-vacated home Frogmore Cottage, is spotted on British soil.

Soames’ comments matter. A grandson of Winston Churchill, he is a sufficiently close friend of Charles, who he has known since he was 12, that he asked Charles to be his best man at his wedding and served as equerry to him. He described himself as “entirely partial” in the interview, saying, “I love him and admire him very, very much indeed.”

Soames told Times Radio, in the course of a 30-minute interview praising the king, “In respect of Prince Harry, I just think it’s the most tragic. I mean, I can’t put myself in the position where my own son, if he did something like that to me, it would just be the cruelest… and one would mind.”

He added, “Of course, the king was very, very sad,” and said the situation was “tragic,” adding, “But, we all have families. We’ve all lived through it. But it was a terrible blow.”

Soames loyally supported the king’s decision to invite him, however, saying, “I think it would have been a great pity if Prince Harry hadn’t come to his father’s coronation. And he is coming and I just hope that we can keep all this in proportion. This day is about the king and the queen, not about Prince Harry.”

Soames was asked later in the interview how Queen Camilla felt about Harry but dodged the question saying he hadn’t discussed it with her, returning instead to how Harry’s public attacks on the family had affected Charles, saying, “Of course it was hurtful, you could see it, written all over his face. Put oneself in his position. It was just painful beyond words.”

[From The Daily Beast]

“While the royals have tried hard to starve Harry of the oxygen of publicity so far” – the palace has been openly briefing their press allies about all things Sussex for months. The palace happily put the Sussexes front-and-center during all of the coronation hoopla because it was a distraction from how grim, drab and uncharismatic the rest of the Windsors are. There’s an acknowledgement, somewhere, that Harry and Meghan are the stars. “The days of pretending Harry isn’t happening to this coronation will come to a shuddering halt”– again, the palace has made everything about Harry. They even authorized King Charles’s BFF to speak ON CAMERA about Harry just before the coronation.

Photos courtesy of Instar, Avalon Red.

Love, love, love all of the thinkpieces about the British monarchy ahead of the coronation. I acknowledge that some of the predictions of gloom and doom are palace-approved – they want to set the bar very low (in hell) so that King Charles at least meets expectations. But mostly, it feels like every editor gave carte blanche to their reporters to write anti-monarchy screeds and the result is column after column, report after report of why this coronation sucks and King Charles is showing everyone why he’s a crappy king. The Daily Beast published one such screed from royal historian Clive Irving, and it’s all about how King Charles is dreadfully out of touch.

King Charles III’s coronation shows a man who has lost the plot: Piece by piece as they are disclosed, the details of Saturday’s crowning in Westminster Abbey show a monarch seriously out of touch with his subjects. Whether this reflects his own insularity or the work of courtiers trying to pump up the pomp and circumstance as part of a re-branding based on a kind of zealous flag-wrapped nationalism is unclear. It may well be a combination of both, in which Charles is being willingly manipulated into a more assertive role as head of state than his mother thought right.

The oath of allegiance: Nothing more clearly warned of this that his agreeing to the idea of making a brazen break from the protocols of Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953. In place of the tradition of requiring only aristocrats to pay homage to the throne, at the same point in the cathedral ritual all of his subjects will be invited to take a personal vow of allegiance to him, “in heart and voice to their undoubted king”—a move with more than a whiff of the “dear leader” in North Korea.

Republican rhetoric or the actual national mood? Comments from republicans reflect that people are only now discovering that the king’s personal wealth has soared to almost obscene levels while their own, at best, has barely moved in 15 years. The coronation occurs at a time of rising destitution – former Prime Minister Gordon Brown listed 7.5 million households in fuel poverty, 14 million living in damp or substandard housing, 400,000 children without a bed of their own, and nearly 10 million people cutting back on food for want of the ability to pay for it.

People are mad about the coronation quiche: It is against that background that Charles and Camilla chose quiche for the traditional coronation dish to be served at street parties—Elizabeth II’s was coronation chicken. They offered a recipe for it: “a crisp, light pastry case and delicate flavors of spinach, broad beans and fresh tarragon.” It is in such banal details that the condescension of the king and queen consort is revealed and becomes most offensive—in effect, this is the “let them eat quiche” coronation.

Viceroy Charles: Today, King Charles seems to struggle most with the loss of that public deference to the throne. He’s always believed in the simple superiority of royal rank, no matter that in his case it is automatically bestowed, not earned. As soon as he puts on a uniform, with a carapace of medals and heavy with trimmings of gold braid, he seems reinforced in his own sense of stature, if not exactly a commander-in-chief, an imperial viceroy with a striking resemblance to his uncle and mentor Lord Louis Mountbatten.

The vanities of the king: Of course, the king’s merits have yet to be fully tested. The missteps of the coronation could be just a bump in the learning curve. But calling for blind allegiance not simply to him but to the Windsor “heirs and successors” is a cringe-making demand that reaches back to the vanities of George III.

[From The Daily Beast]

Not a reference to Mad King George! Oh well! I’ll admit, I didn’t think the coronation quiche was that big of a deal. It made Charles look sort of elitist, but he’s a king, isn’t elitism part and parcel? The more pressing concern is absolutely how much personal wealth Charles has inherited and how little transparency there is around any part of the financial aspect of the monarchy. I also think it’s telling that Charles and his advisors really bungled the whole national-oath-of-allegiance thing. You knew it was bad when even the die-hard royalists were criticizing it and saying that they would never make that pledge.

Oh, and South Africans want the Star of Africa back.

Some South Africans are calling for Britain to return the world’s largest diamond, known as the Star of Africa, which is set in the royal sceptre that King Charles III will hold at his coronation on Saturday https://t.co/1qH9cJ6SUx pic.twitter.com/ceYDn5uFSy

— Reuters (@Reuters) May 4, 2023

Photos courtesy of Instar, Avalon Red.

In case you’re curious about this site’s plans for tomorrow morning’s coronation, just know that the Chubbly starts at 5 am EST. So… no, we won’t cover it live, but we’ll have a Chubbly Open Post going up in the morning, followed by some coverage later on Saturday and probably into Sunday. Considering the weather is supposed to be pretty awful in London tomorrow, I imagine the arrival photos at Westminster Abbey will be pretty grim. Speaking of grim, the Mail is obsessively detailing Prince Harry’s travels into the UK and the private plane they believe he used. This level of detail could have been better spent on Rose Hanbury or the king’s hidden fortune.

Prince Harry may have already landed in the UK for his 24-hour visit for King Charles III’s Coronation – leaving his wife and two children at home. This morning a private jet from Van Nuys airport in California landed at Farnborough, the airport closest to Windsor Castle. Van Nuys is just an hour from Harry and Meghan’s Montecito mansion, but it is not yet known if he was on board.

It the duke has used a fuel-guzzling private jet instead of a commercial flight, it will raise yet more questions about Harry’s campaigning on climate change, an issue which he said at the UN last year had left him feeling ‘battered and helpless’.

Tonight Harry is expected to spend a final night at Frogmore Cottage after his father decided to evict him and his American wife just days after the release of his memoir Spare.

The Duke of Sussex will see his father King Charles III crowned at Westminster Abbey. But there is speculation he will have no formal role in the service and may even be sat several rows back from his brother William and other working royals.

Royal commentators have considered whether he will even be allowed to fit within the processions to the Abbey. They have also suggested that he could face ‘uniform humiliation’ as he may not be allowed to wear his military garb. It is understood the duke will only be in the UK for around 24 hours so he can get home for his son Archie’s fourth birthday, which is the same day as the Coronation.

The aircraft that landed at Farnborough is a 2019 Gulfstream G550 fixed-wing two-engine business jet with 20 seats on board. A new Gulfstream G550 costs $62million, while preowned models retail from $14million. It is owned by NantWorks, a California-based parent company of firms in the biotech, healthcare AI and mobility industries. The founder of NantWorks is Patrick Soon-Shiong, a surgeon and pharma billionaire who owns shares in the LA Lakers with his wife. He is believed to be close to the Bidens. NantWorks has worked with Global Citizen, with Harry and Meghan attending one of their Vax Live events to promote Covid-19 vaccine efficacy worldwide. Dr Soon-Shiong has also supported Global Citizen, opening a plant and health facility that aims to produce by 2025.

[From The Daily Mail]

The Mail’s editors are not alright. They can’t even decide what they’re mad about. Harry is using a private jet! Harry won’t be allowed to wear his uniform! Harry is only staying for 24 hours even though we’ve made it perfectly clear that we want him to stay longer so we can treat him like sh-t! Harry has rich friends! Harry is being evicted! Jesus H. I hope Harry is surrounded by good energy and he makes it through this 24-hour mess.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

There has been a lot of hilarious focus on just how many aristocrats were snubbed for coronation invitations, but did you also know that King Charles snubbed his extended family? It’s true. Not just Pamela Hicks and India Hicks (the daughter and granddaughter of Charles’s mentor Lord Mountbatten), but it looks like the second-cousins and third-cousins haven’t been invited either. It looks like these names were left off the invite list: Lord Nicholas Windsor, son of the Duke of Kent, Lady Amelia Windsor, granddaughter of the Duke of Kent, and Kenouska Mowatt, Princess Alexandra’s granddaughter. I bet Prince Michael of Kent’s children, Lady Gabriella Kingston and Lord Frederick Windsor, are also not invited.

They have been welcome guests at every major royal occasion throughout their lives, but a generation of Windsors have been surprised to discover that they are not invited to King Charles and Queen Camilla’s Coronation. I can disclose that the grandchildren of Queen Elizabeth’s cousins – including Lady Amelia Windsor, who was named as the ‘most beautiful member of the Royal Family’ by Tatler magazine, and the King’s godson Lord Nicholas Windsor – will not be at Westminster Abbey on Saturday.

And friends claim some of them are ‘furious’ at the snub. ‘They can’t understand why they haven’t been invited when they were invited to every other state occasion,’ one pal tells me.

In a reference to Prince Harry’s attacks on the Royal Family, the friend adds: ‘They have never put a foot wrong and been the souls of discretion yet have been cast out. It’s not right.’

Zenouska Mowatt, granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth’s cousin Princess Alexandra, confirms that she is one of those not invited. ‘I’m not going to the Coronation, but I’m really looking forward to watching it [on television],’ she tells me. She was on the balcony of Buckingham Palace on the last occasion that Meghan Markle was, at Trooping the Colour in 2019. Zenouska, 32, was so close to the Queen that Her Majesty made a point of being photographed with her at Windsor Castle in March last year when she was in failing health, six months before her death.

The Queen was pictured inspecting a collection of china made by the luxury goods business Halcyon Days, for which Zenouska works. ‘It was a really lovely event,’ she tells me at a Coronation celebration at the Garrison Chapel in Chelsea, West London. ‘Everyone had very fond memories [of the Queen]. She was a very kind individual. Any time anyone spoke to her, she would make them feel like one in a million.’

She says her mother, Marina Mowatt, 56, who became known as the ‘royal rebel’ in the Eighties when she became pregnant outside marriage, is invited tomorrow, as well as her grandmother. Zenouska insists that she holds no grudges about not being invited herself. ‘It’s going to be fantastic and everyone is so excited,’ she says.

Some of the royals not invited are attending their own party. ‘I’ll be with family anyway,’ she says. ‘My street is doing a street party.’

She will be in good company. Last month, I disclosed that most of Britain’s 24 non-royal dukes had not been invited to the Coronation, as well as lower ranks of the nobility. The Duke of Rutland was one of the many left dismayed and bewildered. ‘I have not been asked,’ he told me, saying he did ‘not really understand’ why. ‘It has been families like mine that have supported the Royal Family over 1,000 years or thereabouts.’

[From The Daily Mail]

I feel like this will become more of a slow-burning issue once we see all of the people who were invited and where they’ll be seated. Like, those dukes, earls, viscounts, lords and royal-adjacent second cousins are going to be massively pissed when they see the extended Middleton and Parker-Bowles clans featured prominently. I bet there will also be some salty tears shed when they see how King Charles has prioritized diversity window-dressing – God knows, Charles despises his mixed-race relatives (including two of his grandchildren), but he’s going to make an effort to put a few Black people in the second row, I’m sure.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Carrie Fisher, whose death I still have not recovered from, received a posthumous star on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood yesterday. How that honor eluded her in life, I’ll never know. But appropriately, on May the 4th, General Leia joined Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and her mom Debbie Reynolds on the famous path. None of Carrie’s siblings attended the ceremony. The reason I know that is because Joely, Tricia Leigh and Todd Fisher all complained about it ahead of the event, pointing the finger at Carrie’s daughter, Billie Lourd, for not inviting them. Joely and Tricia Leigh issued a joint statement on Instagram, calling Billie’s decision “misguided” and claimed they’ve only been loving and supportive to mean ol’ Billie. Todd went straight to TMZ and said, “It’s heartbreaking and shocking to me that I was intentionally omitted from attending this important legacy event for my sister, Carrie.” So after having her uncle and aunts completely pulled focus from what was supposed to be her mom’s honor, Billie spoke up. She issued an official statement saying her uncle and aunts all capitalized off her mother and grandmother’s deaths while she was grieving, with no warning to her. And now, she said, there is no feud, there simply is no relationship. Here is Billie’s full statement:

I have seen the postings and press release issued by my mother’s brother and sister. I apologize to anyone reading this for feeling the need to defend myself publicly from these family members. But unfortunately, because they publicly attacked me, I have to publicly respond. The truth is I did not invite them to this ceremony. They know why.

Days after my mom died, her brother and her sister chose to process their grief publicly and capitalize on my mother’s death, by doing multiple interviews and selling individual books for a lot of money, with my mom and my grandmother’s deaths as the subject. I found out they had done this through the press. They never consulted me or considered how this would affect our relationship. The truth of my mom’s very complicated relationship with her family is only known by me and those who were actually close to her. Though I recognize they have every right to do whatever they choose, their actions were very hurtful to me at the most difficult time in my life. I chose to and still choose to deal with her loss in a much different way.

The press release Todd Fisher gave to TMZ and the posting Joely Fisher placed on Instagram, once again confirms that my instincts were right. To be clear — there is no feud. We have no relationship. This was a conscious decision on my part to break a cycle with a way of life I want no part of for myself or my children.

The people who knew and loved my mom at Disney and Lucasfilm have made this star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame to honor her legacy possible. This moment is about Carrie Fisher and all that she accomplished and what she meant to the world. I’m going to focus on that. May the 4th be with you.

[From Yahoo]

Billie is pretty clear in her statement, there’s not much to add. Obviously, the Fisher siblings are trying to whitewash their complicated relationship with Carrie now that she can’t correct them. I didn’t read any of their books, but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn Todd absolutely exploited her death for his own benefit. I don’t know much about Tricia Leigh, but Joely I always thought was pretty solid with Carrie. However, they all clearly broke Billie’s heart when she was trying to process the loss of Carrie and then Debbie. To shame her for this publicly is all the evidence I need to tell me Billie made the right choice.

You’d think Billie’s statement would be the end of it but Todd just can’t help himself. He issued a rebuttal because an opportunist is gonna opportune:

We made every attempt to speak with Billie’s team regarding the invitation prior to making any public comments. Keeping the focus on Carrie Fisher, let’s put our differences aside for the hour long ceremony and move on from there. I was told It was a no go and why would I want to heighten level of emotion for his niece, going further to say if I showed up, she would not.”

I never capitalized on either Carrie or my mother Debbie’s deaths, and in no way meant to hurt Billie, and that is the truth. Billie’s father was well aware months in advance of my book, which, was a loving and truthful homage to the incredible lives, not deaths, of Carrie and mom and the 60 plus years I spent with them both.

[From Yahoo]

Isn’t it Billie’s call to say whether Todd hurt her or not? Because clearly, he did. And passing the buck to Billie’s dad does not absolve anyone of blame, here. Lord, I had no idea how much Billie went through on top of the pain of losing the two most important women in her life. Of course I didn’t, because she was classy enough to keep her dirty laundry out of the press, unlike the Fisher kids who obviously grieved in dollar signs.

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Photo credit: Cover Images, Getty Images and via Instagram

Here are more photos from the Prince and Princess of Wales’s tube-ride and visit to a Soho pub on Thursday. Several things occurred to me as I was looking through these photos again. One, whenever Kate repeats one of her old coats, I’m reminded of the fact that she used to be much more enamored with buttons. She’s honestly been phasing out a lot of her button-intensive fashion, but every now and then, we get a button throwback. I wonder if post-coronation, we will see a glorious return to BUTTONS. Secondly, Kate’s wig isn’t even the same color as the rest of her hair, which makes me wonder if she got a new hairpiece for the coronation. A Coronation Wig.

Many people are excited to see what Kate wears for the coronation. I’m still confused about the dress code, and I’m sure I’m not alone. For the regular people in attendance, the dress code is basically business-dressy and I expect the women to dress like they would for a royal wedding? But I think the dress code is genuinely different for royal women. No one can “overshadow” Queen Side Chick, and there’s so much talk about Kate not wearing a tiara. But will she wear a gown or will she wear a coatdress or what? Well, People Magazine has an exclusive but these people don’t have any new info:

Kate Middleton might not have an official role at King Charles and Queen Camilla’s coronation, but all eyes will be on the Princess of Wales — and what she’s wearing.

“I think Kate will wear something thoughtful that will in some way show her loyalty to King Charles,” Bethan Holt, fashion director at the Daily Telegraph tells PEOPLE. “She will recognize this as a huge moment, and I think we’ll see something that sets her apart from the crowd. It’s quite nice for her in a way that she can really make this her own, as every time she’s on a tour, either the Queen or Diana has been there before — and there’s an expectation,” Holt says.

So what will Princess Kate wear? “McQueen would be the obvious choice, although I think it would be interesting if she went for a younger designer or an unexpected name,” says Holt, author of The Duchess of Cambridge: A Decade of Royal Modern Style. Holt adds, “While tradition would lean towards a full-length ivory gown, so many rules have changed. She might just surprise us!”

While the coronation robes of both King Charles and Queen Camilla have been confirmed, there has been no mention of a robe for Kate — although in 1902, the then-Princess of Wales, later Queen Mary, did wear one for her father-in-law King Edward VII’s coronation. A modern twist might be a gown incorporating a cape, a style Kate has worn numerous times before.

“A cape would be amazing. She wore a beautiful Jenny Packham caped dress at a state banquet last autumn with jeweled detailing that would make a great template,” says Holt.

“I’m really hoping to see references in Kate’s coronation outfit to her role as Princess of Wales,” Lauren Kiehna of The Court Jeweller tells PEOPLE. “The incorporation of symbolic jewelry, like Queen Alexandra’s Three Feathers Brooch, or the inclusion of national symbols like the leek or daffodil embroidered on her dress, would be a lovely nod.”

[From People]

See, I don’t think Kate will wear a white or ivory gown. I doubt she’ll wear white and I doubt she’ll wear anything full-length – I think that style is being reserved for Queen Camilla. Kate will want to stand out though. Maybe red? And no, she won’t go with some new, young designer. She’ll go with one of her old faithful designers – the house of McQueen or Catherine Walker.

Incidentally, it’s still amazing to me that Kate still doesn’t have a private secretary. I know she’s lazy and she does next to nothing, but it’s absolutely bizarre that she can’t keep senior staff. She’s been without a private secretary since last September!!

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

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