My new favorite thing this week is watching all of the international press outlets go “hey, there’s going to be a coronation on Saturday, we should do a piece about how the British monarchy is in crisis and everyone hates the new king and queen.” Just article after article, column after column, poll after poll of that. Especially in the British commonwealth. Stephen Marche wrote a “view from Canada” of the “absurd” coronation for the Guardian, and I just wanted everyone to enjoy some highlights:

Charles the Third: “Say it out loud and try not to snicker: “The coronation of Charles the Third.” In a time of post-post-colonialism, of anti-racist iconoclasm, a time in which the very notion of gender as a legitimate distinction is contested, and Christianity has been reduced to a scandal management system with costumes, a 74-year-old British gentleman will ride a fancy carriage to an old church where a few other elderly British gentlemen in gilded dresses will declare him emperor, patriarch and head of state because God says so.

An unpopular event: The coronation cannot be described as a popular event. In April, various polls gauging the public mood around Charles’s ascension found that only 15% of the British population were “very interested” in the coronation. In Canada, where I live, the majority of citizens are in favor of severing ties with the monarchy altogether (up to 70% in Quebec). The crown itself seems embarrassed by all the fuss. The coronation ceremony has been curtailed, and will last a little over an hour, we’re promised, as opposed to the three hours allotted for Queen Elizabeth II.

The economy: For Canada, the absurdity of the coronation is basic: we are not a British colony, but we have a British king. For the British, the national pride supposed to underlie a coronation has been exposed and harried: UK GDP cut by 4%, a lost £100bn a year in output, the pound losing a fifth of its value, all since Brexit. It’s hard to celebrate when inflation is at 10.1% and the Bank of England has to raise interest rates again, especially when it costs £100bn.

The vanity of the British people: As of April, only 34% of Britons still believe that Brexit was the correct decision. And underlying the recognition of their error is a dawning realization of the failure at its root: the British people – not the press, not the politicians – failed to understand their place in the world. Nostalgia and vanity, and ultimately self-deceit, led them into a calamity which seems, at the moment, impossible to recover from.

A preposterous king: This week, on his fancy carriage ride, Charles will be surrounded by many preposterous objects. He’ll be holding the world’s largest diamond on the end of a stick. He’ll be wearing a hat with a ruby that Henry V wore into battle. He’ll be sitting on a chair over the Stone of Destiny, a stone English kings stole from the Scots almost a millennium ago. The real absurdity will be deeper, for both Canada and Britain. Charles is a symptom of twin identity crises: the man represents us, but it’s hard to think of anyone less representative. I mean, it’s all fun and games, but his face is going to be printed on my money.

[From The Guardian]

I love this line: “the British people – not the press, not the politicians – failed to understand their place in the world. Nostalgia and vanity, and ultimately self-deceit, led them into a calamity which seems, at the moment, impossible to recover from.” I keep thinking about just that, while it’s easy and convenient to blame the reactionary right-wing British press machinery for causing all of this, the fact is that the British public has gotten it wrong. It’s the icky little truth which everyone tries to ignore. Hannah Rose Woods wrote a guest column for the New York Times which included this too:

Britain in 2023 is a country on the edge of Europe that is grappling with its imperial past and confronting an uncertain future. Since the Brexit campaign in 2016, invoking the “greatness” of Britain’s history — by name-dropping the Battle of Agincourt or Winston Churchill, for example — has become rote for politicians on the right who want to articulate a vision of Britain’s future outside of Europe. And, perhaps precisely because Britain’s future outside of Europe seems to rest so much on its past, there is an increasingly hard and humorless edge to conversations about British history: a patriotism that will admit no criticism. Attempts to re-examine Britain’s imperial history have been dismissed as “trying to do Britain down,” promoting “a woke agenda” or “cringing embarrassment about our history.”

But this slimmed-down coronation is still set to cost the British taxpayer millions — though the exact figure will not be made public until after the event, it is reported to be around $125 million. For many, that the coronation is happening at all is a sign of a country in denial and clinging to past grandeur. For others, any concession to the present is too much to bear.

[From The NY Times]

It’s like a international therapy session, really. About a populace’s collective denial about what is really happening to them and what all of this actually looks like to the rest of the world. Woods is absolutely right about the way British people speak and think about their country’s history too, which is also something America is grappling with. Although, to America’s credit, we’re having a lively national debate about our history and Black history. Is the UK having a similar national conversation?

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Instar, Buckingham Palace.

The Writers Guild went on strike this week and no one knows how long the strike will last. The last WGA strike (in 2007-08) lasted 14 weeks and had a profound effect on television, films, awards shows and Hollywood unions at the time. Back then, people understood why the WGA went on strike, but the aftermath wasn’t great – the WGA ended up weakened overall, and the strike was a big reason why we’ve seen a proliferation of reality programming in the years since. This year’s strike feels a lot different – younger people are more pro-union, there’s a better cultural understanding of just how much money writers make for studios, networks and streamers, and there’s a better understanding of just how big “the pie” is, and the unions want their slice. Keep in mind, SAG-AFTRA is standing with the WGA because the actors also know that they’re getting screwed out of a lot of money too.

So, it absolutely feels like there’s a lot of momentum on the WGA’s side and hopefully that means that studios, streamers and networks will come to the table. One of the immediate effects of the strike is that all of the late-night shows – so dependent on the writers’ room – have shut down. Most of the late-night hosts are also WGA members, like Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers. There was some talk about how Fallon wasn’t doing enough for his striking writing staff, but the trade papers report that both Fallon and Seth Meyers met with their people and assured the writers that they would get paid and still have healthcare (for now).

NBC late night hosts Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers will help cover their staff’s pay during the Writers Guild of America strike.

Staffers for Fallon’s Tonight Show and Meyers’ Late Night learned in meetings Wednesday morning that NBC will cover two weeks of pay for workers on the two shows. Fallon and Meyers will personally pay their teams for a third week; health insurance for employees of both programs is guaranteed through September, per a source close to the two shows. NBC didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Along with other late night shows, The Tonight Show and Late Night were among the first productions to shut down after the WGA began picketing on Tuesday.

According to tweets from Tonight Show staffer Sarah Kobos, the three weeks of pay weren’t initially guaranteed: “At a meeting Jimmy wasn’t even at, we are told NBC decided to stop paying us after this week and end our health insurance after this month if the strike is ongoing,” Kobos wrote Tuesday. “They won’t even tell us if we will technically be furloughed. Just active employees who aren’t paid.” Kobos then shared news about the extended salary and healthcare coverage guarantees Wednesday morning.

Meyers, speaking on Late Night on Monday, said: “I love writing. I love writing for TV. I love writing this show. I love that we get to come in with an idea for what we want to do every day and we get to work on it all afternoon and then I have the pleasure of coming out here. No one is entitled to a job in show business. But for those people who have a job, they are entitled to fair compensation. They are entitled to make a living. I think it’s a very reasonable demand that’s being set out by the guild. And I support those demands.”

[From THR & Deadline]

Fallon went to the Met Gala on Monday and I saw a clip of him answering questions about the strike on the carpet (I’m including it below). Fallon honestly didn’t sound like he had given the strike much thought at that point, but I guess people got to him over the next 24 hours. I’m glad NBC is guaranteeing two weeks of pay, and that both Fallon and Meyers are promising a third week, if that’s what it takes. I hope that the relevant parties can come to the table and work sh-t out a lot faster than in the last strike. We’re honestly living through a golden age of television/streaming/content – the writers are merely asking to be paid fairly for what they’re bringing to the table.

Last night a lot of A-list celebs were asked if they support the writers’ strike.

Jimmy Fallon said, “I wouldn’t have a show if it wasn’t for my writers, I support them all the way.”

Who else supports the strike? Thread. pic.twitter.com/EjlRWiRXd3

— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) May 2, 2023

Screencap from Late Night with Seth Meyers, photo courtesy of Cover Images.

Oh, the royal rota was in a tizzy on Wednesday because Omid Scobie appeared on ITV’s This Morning and he fact-checked some of the royal stories going around, specifically about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Scobie has been hard at work on his latest book, Endgame, so he hasn’t been writing his weekly Yahoo column. He’s mostly been keeping his exclusives to himself. While it’s always been clear that Scobie has an “in” with the Sussexes, he is not their “de facto spokesperson,” especially since they genuinely have a spokesperson at Archewell. If they wanted to release information, they would do so themselves. What Scobie is good at doing is simply offering a more realistic and well-sourced perspective on what’s happening in Sussex World. Some highlights from Scobie’s interview:

How much Prince Harry communicates with his family: “Obviously this is the first time he has seen his family face to face since the release of [Harry’s memoir] Spare. But I don’t think people know there has been a somewhat regular pattern of conversation between him and his father since the release of that book.” Scobie said that while they had not “discussed the details and the points that he wanted to go into,” Harry “has had contact with his dad.”

Harry spoke to his father about the Frogmore eviction: “They lose the keys to that any week now, and he would have spoken to his father about that.”

Harry’s relationship with William: “There has been minimal contact since the queen’s funeral.”

Why Meghan is skipping the coronation: Scobie dismissed claims that Meghan had decided not to attend the coronation due to it being on the same day as son Archie’s birthday, saying she was instead motivated by a desire not to overshadow proceedings. He said: “She is aware just how much of the spotlight goes on her when she sets even a foot near the story. It’s portrayed as intentional. Should she come over and just stand next to her husband, the commentary and the narrative of the day would have been very different…[The family] would rather the attention didn’t go onto her. If you look back at some of Harry and Meghan’s biggest problems, it was all down to the fact that the attention was always on them at times when it shouldn’t have been.”

Why Harry waited to confirm his attendance at the coronation: “There was never any question on whether he would want to come or not. It was a question at one point on whether he would be invited, I think. From what I understand, the Sussexes had to wait for some time to really get the confirmation whether they were 100 percent welcome at this event… [but] for Harry there was certainly no question about [attending]. Ultimately he is fifth in line to the throne. He is a councillor of state. There is a serious constitutional reason for him to be here, and he takes that seriously, even though he’s not a working member of the royal family.”

[From The Daily Beast & Page Six]

Somehow, Scobie’s version of Meghan’s reasoning makes the Windsors and the British media sound even more pathetic. Like, Meghan decided not to come because everyone is obsessed with her and can’t stop focusing on everything she does. And that’s the truth too, which makes it so funny, and of course Scobie would describe it that way. As I’ve said dozens of times already, the tone was set on the day QEII passed away, when Charles banned Meghan from Balmoral and then briefed the media about that ban for the next four days!! QEII was dead and the first thing everyone was focused on was “where’s Meghan, are we snubbing Meghan, what’s Meghan doing, how does she feel about being snubbed?!?!” Unhinged.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

King Charles hosted his first Buckingham Palace garden party on Wednesday. His mother would be shocked! During QEII’s reign, garden party szn started in maybe mid-to-late May. Never the first week of May! I get why Charles wanted to host his first garden party before the coronation though, especially since there seemed to be exceptionally good weather on Wednesday, unlike the drizzle, downpours and thunderstorms forecasted for coronation day. Speaking of, depending on when the thunderstorms are scheduled to appear on Saturday, the big fly-past by the Red Arrows will likely get canceled. The working royals were supposed to appear on the fakakta balcony and all watch the flypast. Now they’ll just have to stand there and gawp at each other.

For the garden party, Queen Camilla wore a familiar-looking Bruce Oldfield coatdress. She recycled this – I remember that she wore the dress last Easter, specifically for the 2022 Royal Maundy service. The “stripes” are what I remember – it’s very unflattering and circus-tent-esque. Her hat doesn’t match and neither do her shoes. Usually, QEII wore lighter colors for her garden parties, and she expected royal women to dress similarly. Pinks, pale greens, powder blues. Not navy and white. Oldfield has also designed Camilla’s coronation dress/gown. I’m curious what that will be. I’m picturing something shapeless and off-white. Meanwhile, Charles had the wording of the official coronation prayer changed so that now his side chick will be officially called Queen Camilla:

The King has directed a change in the wording of official prayers for the royal family, replacing “Camilla the Queen Consort” with “Queen Camilla” from the day of the coronation.

A Royal Warrant was issued on Wednesday, three days before Charles and Camilla are set to be crowned in Westminster Abbey. It indicates that, with effect from May 6, every prayer for the royal family in any form of service authorised for use in the Church of England should use “Queen Camilla” instead of the words “Camilla the Queen Consort”.

Charles is, as monarch, the Supreme Governor of the Church, and the change also amends the prayer for the royal family in the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer.

The prayer will now read: “Almighty God, the fountain of all goodness, we humbly beseech thee to bless Queen Camilla, William Prince of Wales, the Princess of Wales, and all the Royal Family: Endue them with thy Holy Spirit, enrich them with thy heavenly grace; prosper them with all happiness; and bring them to thine everlasting kingdom, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

[From The Independent]

Deep sigh. I guess he couldn’t change it to Queen Side Chick, First of Her Name, Homewrecker Extraordinaire, She Who Leaves Bodies In the Streets.

Also: The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh were also in attendance at the garden party. Charles really made Sophie and Edward disappear after he gave them the DoE titles.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn announced their breakup almost a month ago exactly, but we were led to believe that the split happened several weeks prior. I also felt like Taylor and her team were definitely driving the post-split narrative, especially the part about Joe not being able to handle Tay’s enormous fame. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop – surely, it would not be this easy? Well, I have no idea if this story is real, but if it is, things just got messy. The Sun reports that Taylor Swift is seeing Matt Healy, frontman for The 1975. Taylor and Matty have known each other for years and Taylor is a fan of The 1975, even appearing on stage at a concert with the band (back in January) and wearing the band’s t-shirts. If this is happening, she’s been leaving Easter eggs about it for months?

Megastar Taylor Swift is dating another Brit — The 1975 frontman Matty Healy. Taylor and Matty are ready to go public with their romance in Nashville, Tennessee, where the US singer ­performs this weekend. It comes a month after it was revealed US singer-songwriter ­Taylor, 33, had split from actor Joe Alwyn, 32, after six years.

A source close to Taylor said: “She and Matty are madly in love. It’s super-early days, but it feels right. They first dated, very briefly, almost ten years ago but timings just didn’t work out.

“Taylor and Joe actually split up back in February, so there was absolutely no crossover. Both Matty and Taylor have been touring over the past few weeks, so it’s been a lot of Face-Timing and texting but she cannot wait to see him again. But as two international megastars, they understand the pressures of one another’s jobs better than anyone, and are incredibly supportive of their respective careers.

“They are both massively proud and excited about this relationship and, unlike Taylor’s last one — which was very much kept out of the spotlight, deliberately — she wants to ‘own’ this romance, and not hide it away. Taylor just wants to live her life, and be happy. She’s told pals Matty is flying to Nashville over the weekend to support her on the next leg of her tour.”

Eagle-eyed fans have already been speculating the US singer — whose famous British exes include Joe, Harry Styles, Calvin Harris and Tom Hiddleston — is seeing Matty.

[From The Sun]

Their ages make perfect sense – Taylor is 33 years old now (!!) and Matty is 34. As I said, they’ve known each other for years, so there’s an element of “friends first” at play. Now, all that being said, Healy has also dealt with his fair share of controversies in recent years. In 2020, Healy posted some pro-Black Lives Matters messages on Twitter, then he attached links to one of his songs to those messages, like… he was trying to monetize his BLM-allyship. He’s also made some really problematic statements about race, including just back in February of this year, when he mocked Ice Spice’s race/ethnicity and simultaneously mocked the accents of non-native English speakers. He’s also got a reputation of being mean and rude to fans AND he kisses fans during concerts and a lot more. Like, Taylor is seeing a guy with his own controversial reputation.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images, Backgrid.

On Wednesday morning, senior royals went through a coronation rehearsal at Westminster Abbey. Princess Anne, King Charles, Queen Camilla and the Wales family were all in attendance. Photographers even got pics of Prince William and Prince Louis, and I’m simply going off reporting that Kate, Charlotte and George were there as well. George will be a page at the coronation, and one of the youngest pages in history, so I’m sure his parents wanted to make sure that he knows what to do and all of that.

You’ve got to wonder if William needed some rehearsal time too. William is the only one in the family who has to go up to King Charles and make a public oath as heir to the throne. William has to recite these words: “I, William, Prince of Wales, pledge my loyalty to you and faith and truth I will bear unto you, as your liege man of life and limb. So help me God.” I can just picture his tightly balled rage-fists when he makes that pledge. There still isn’t confirmation about what Kate will wear either, and whether she’ll get to borrow a tiara.

After the rehearsal, the Wales family got the f–k out of there and they weren’t seen for the rest of the day. Meanwhile, Charles and Camilla did a garden party at the palace later in the day. William and Kate had to rest up, the poor, overworked sausages! They’ve got an event together today at the Dog & Duck Pub in Soho. It’s being billed as their first appearance of “coronation week.”

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

Now this is the kind of energy we need. 85-year old Jane Fonda is here to tell us women “that life gets better with age.” Maybe she’s telling everyone that but I’m feeling the feminine energy this morning. Jane is promoting Book Club: The Next Chapter, the sequel to Book Club that also stars Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen, Mary Steenburgen, Don Johnson, Craig T Nelson, and Andy Garcia. I actually really enjoyed the first one and the trailers for this one look fun. The premise is Jane’s character is marrying Don Johnson, which was a surprisingly sexy and fabulous paring in the first film. The ladies go to Italy and kookiness ensues, but in a fun and Italian way. So I’m in. It makes sense, then, that People would want to explore starting over with Jane in her cover article. Not only is her character getting married in the movie, Jane has recently gone into remission for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma just last year. With everything she’s been through in her long life, Jane says she’s, “the happiest I’ve ever been.”

Jane Fonda says getting older is not something to fear but something to celebrate. At 85, the legendary star is busier than ever and calls this chapter of her life “the happiest I’ve ever been.”

The Oscar-winning star has four films out this year, including the comedy Book Club: The Next Chapter, in theaters May 12. Fonda says filming the sequel to her 2019 rom-com hit Book Club with friends Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen in Italy was “a dream come true.”

“It’s everything I imagined women’s friendships can be,” Fonda says of their bond. “When I was younger, there was this assumption that women were kind of catty and four stars working together wouldn’t work because they’d be competing, and it’s just not true. We’re friends and we love working together and we help each other when we need to.”

She adds that one of the many perks of getting older is learning what really matters in life.

“A bad thing happens, and you think, ‘Well, that’s happened before, and I’m fine. I’ll get over it.’ You know what’s important. I spent a lot of time like a canoe with no paddle being carried in the current. As I got older, I learned I’m going to put an oar in the water and steer.”

[From People]

Jane is really into her female friendship these days. I get it, she put so much of herself into her marriages, she probably didn’t get to explore too many women-led relationships in the past. I’ve seen a couple of interviews with Sally Fields, Diane Keaton and other co-stars who said Jane simply would not leave them alone. They loved her, but they were more stay-at-home, not-respond kind of people and Jane kept at them to spend time and do stuff together. Every homebody needs that person. I do. I need that friend to get out and spend real time in the world (and if she’s reading, we’ll plan to go see this film). I need to listen to my person too, because female friendships are truly wonderful but they need nurturing.

I like Jane’s point about reaching an age that fear is manageable because we’ve faced so much already. It’s true. Each decade comes with a bit more peace. I don’t think life is going to get easier by any stretch, but it will likely be less scary because of what we’ve overcome.

Here’s the trailer for Book Club: The Next Chapter

Embed from Getty Images

Photo credit: People, Getty Images and Cover Images

Bill Nighy’s rep denies that Nighy is dating Anna Wintour, but everyone in their orbit swears that they’re dating, so IDK. [Dlisted]
A horror movie about a killer kite? [Seriously OMG]
Bradley Cooper, Irina Shayk and maybe Gisele Bundchen too. [LaineyGossip]
Why is there so much “anti-woke” legislation? [Pajiba]
Zaddy Pedro Pascal has such nice legs. [Go Fug Yourself]
Miranda Lambert talks about her husband. [Just Jared]
Texas really is Gilead at this point. [Jezebel]
More photos of Vanessa Hudgens at the Met Gala. [Egotastic]
Stories about when adults realized they had survived childhood trauma. [Buzzfeed]
All of the Valentino looks at the Met Gala. [RCFA]
The difference between Chinese takeout in the UK & America. [Starcasm]
HIV wonder drug could treat Alzheimers too. [Towleroad]

It’s really extraordinary to watch the British media complain about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s Montecito money moves “pulling focus” from the coronation, all while the same British media is trying to focus on all of their Sussex slander, which they’ve specifically timed for the coronation. Like, it’s not a coincidence that the White Markles gave a TV interview timed for the weekend before the coronation. It’s also not a coincidence that the Heritage Foundation timed their unhinged “lawsuit” about Prince Harry’s visa application for this week, just days before the coronation. As we discussed previously, the right-wing fascists at the Heritage Foundation are very focused on getting their hands on Harry’s visa application, because… Harry wrote about doing drugs in his memoir. That’s the whole basis of their FOIA request to Immigration, that’s the whole basis for their attempts to have Harry deported. Harry smoked some pot. Again, this was timed for this week on purpose.

A right-wing think tank with close ties to former president Donald Trump wants a federal court to order the public release of Prince Harry’s immigration records because they believe his past admissions of drug use make him ineligible to enter the United States.

The Heritage Foundation on Monday filed suit against the Department of Homeland Security in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, just over a month after the group made a Freedom of Information Act request for information on how the Duke of Sussex was admitted into the US when he and his wife, American ex-actress Meghan Markle, decamped there after leaving the UK in 2020.

Although immigration records are generally exempt from release under the Freedom of Information Act because of strict privacy laws governing the handling of personal information, the pro-Trump group argues that Harry, whose full legal name is Henry Charles Albert David George Mountbatten-Windsor, should not be afforded the same protections because of the “immense public interest” in his current status.

“Widespread and continuous media coverage has surfaced the question of whether DHS properly admitted the Duke of Sussex in light of the fact that he has publicly admitted to the essential elements of a number of drug offenses in both the United States and abroad … Intense media coverage has also surfaced the question of whether DHS may have improperly granted the Duke of Sussex a waiver to enter the Country on a non-immigrant visa given his history of admissions to the essential elements of drug offenses,” the group said in its’ lawsuit.

The Heritage Foundation added that “media coverage” of its’ previous Freedom of Information request has supposedly “surfaced the question of whether DHS’ decision to admit the Duke of Sussex into the United States should be reconsidered in light of the Duke of Sussex’s most recent admissions to the essential elements of numerous drug offenses”. The group is framing its’ demand for information as part of an effort to shed light on whether the Biden administration is properly enforcing US immigration law.

[From The Independent]

“…Given his history of admissions to the essential elements of drug offenses.” Ah, the “essential elements.” But no actual drug arrests? No court-mandated drug rehab? No admission of drug addiction? Because those are the things which could actually affect Harry’s visa and/or green card application, not Harry writing about how he tried cocaine once when he was a teenager. American immigration officials are going to see a white, wealthy British man married to an American citizen, with two American anchor babies, and they’re going to laugh at this dumbf–k lawsuit.

Photos courtesy of Netflix.

The Duchess of Sussex announced that she signed on with WME last week. There’s been some talk within the Sussex Squad about whether we could see an immediate change in how Meghan was discussed, analyzed and gossiped about within the British media. From what I’ve seen, most of the British media figures were simply surprised that their years-long campaign to smear Meghan has fallen flat. You have to remember, most of these people live in their own echo chambers too, just like the Windsors. They believe they can create their own alternate universe where “everyone hates Meghan and Harry” and “Hollywood shuns the Sussexes” and “Harry will eventually have no choice but to return to the UK.” They honestly believed that, and the WME news was reality crashing down on them.

Since the WME news came out, they’ve been testing out new narratives, trying to ensure that they still have some kind of power over Meghan and how she’s viewed. The Telegraph’s piece over the weekend was full of bizarre and offensive lies, antisemitism and misogyny. So, they’re seeing if any of that sticks. Meanwhile, Dan Wootton got the call and the palace talking point: Meghan’s moves last week were bad because she should have let the coronation have all of the attention! Wootton doesn’t even realize how pathetic he sounds, crying about “why is Meghan forcing everyone to talk about her??!?!?!” Some lowlights from Wootton’s latest Mail column:

Ah, good, compare Meghan to Diana: It was a predictable script taken straight out of Meghan Markle’s masterclass in ‘how-to-get-everyone-talking-about-me-again’ Hollywood PR 101. After months of purposefully shunning the spotlight, allowing her hapless husband Harry to shoulder the backlash against his grotesque and unnecessarily nasty royal shaming tell-all Spare, the Duchess of Woke has viscerally exploded back into public consciousness, with a three-step campaign seemingly taken straight from the Princess Diana playbook.

Even Wootton admits that Meghan doesn’t have to coordinate with the palace: Now, of course, Meghan is her own woman who is no longer part of the Royal Family and has no need to coordinate her media activities, something she hated doing with a passion while part of the Buckingham Palace set-up. But it is no coincidence that this trio of major interventions occurred just one week before the Coronation of King Charles III, the most important day in her father-in-law’s life.

Strategic Meg: It seems Meghan strategically timed her almost total disappearance from the spotlight for four months – a lifetime in Californian terms – in order to make maximum impact when she did emerge at this critical juncture. Even the Sussex Squad must concede there was absolutely no reason why any of these trio of PR events had to take place in the past week.

Shameless Meg: This is nothing short of a desperate and shameless bid to steal attention from the new King in his Coronation week because, I believe, she’s jealous she won’t be part of it. Having decided it is just too risky to join her husband at the Coronation, given the likelihood she would be booed by the royalist heavy crowds in London this Saturday, there was no opportunity for Meghan to re-emerge via the first Coronation in 70 years, as she may have initially planned. So now she’s doing it her own way: Guerrilla style.

[From The Mail]

Hilariously, I also kind of think that the WME news last week was probably timed specifically, but she probably thought “well, we can’t announce it in early May, because that’s way too close to the coronation, I don’t want to pull focus.” That’s why it’s so funny – the WME news came out, what? Nine or ten days before the godforsaken struggle-chubbly. The Sussexes went to the NBA Playoff game twelve days before the coronation too. Did no one tell Meghan that she wasn’t “allowed” to do anything or go anywhere for a full 30 days before the coronation? That’s why people like Dan Wootton and Camilla Tominey are screaming, crying and throwing up – because Meghan is the story, no matter when or where she shows up, and they all know it.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instar, Backgrid.