The Princess of Wales did a “surprise” event today in Windsor, just a short distance from the Royal Windsor Estate, which is where Kate lives in Adelaide Cottage. For now. These Windsor “events” always reek of last-minute busywork from William and Kate – they also did a surprise visit to a local Windsor food bank. And much like that food bank visit, Kate showed up empty handed to today’s visit to a local baby bank.

Kate has done some appearances at baby banks before. These baby banks provide clothes, diapers and other essentials to parents with babies or small children. Kate has three kids – surely she has some old kids’ clothes which she could have donated? Surely she could have made a quick stop at a grocery store to load up on diapers to donate? Of course not. Kate was merely there for the photo-op, to inspire others to donate, I guess. That’s why Kensington Palace didn’t put any information about the visit – or information about where and how to donate – on their social media accounts as of this writing, which is more than an hour after her visit. Not even an Instagram Story. It’s not even the bare minimum. Update: the KP team did eventually post about the visit on their socials. They even tagged the baby bank… in the third tweet.

Kate’s outfit looks familiar because we’ve seen her wear versions of this before, soon after she saw Meghan pair black trousers with an off-white blazer. Meghan looked like she was wearing a smart suit with a feminine twist. Kate looks like a 41-year-old wearing a cheap costume to approximate something she saw on Meghan.

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Families in need throughout the area can rely on The Baby Bank here in Windsor, providing everything from new-born starter kits to buggies, beds & blankets. pic.twitter.com/WSRCrRjw5O

— The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) April 24, 2023

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

In the 2021 Oprah interview, the Duchess of Sussex repeatedly stated that she had written letters and emails to various people within the British monarchy. These people, from QEII to Charles to William and Kate and all of their staffers, had a good idea what was going on with Meghan in 2018-19 because she was telling them and leaving a written record. There has been precious little follow-up on all of the receipts Meghan left behind when she and Harry fled that island. Well, after Meghan and Harry’s Oprah interview aired, it looks like Charles wrote to Meghan to express his disappointment with her for… speaking publicly about how poorly she was treated. Not only that, but Meghan wrote a letter to Charles in response. We know this because *someone* leaked the existence of those two letters to the Telegraph. Some highlights:

The Duchess of Sussex expressed her concerns about unconscious bias in the Royal family in a letter to the King, The Telegraph can reveal. It is understood that the correspondence was sent in the wake of the March 2021 Oprah Winfrey interview, in which the Duchess alleged that a member of the Royal family had speculated about the colour of her unborn son’s skin. A source has said that the Duchess feels she has not received a satisfactory response to her concerns.

It is understood that her letter was sent in reply to one from the King. He is believed to be the only senior member of the family to make contact with the Duchess after the interview. Then Prince of Wales, he is understood to have expressed sadness over the chasm that had emerged between the two sides of the Royal family. He is said to be disappointed that the Duke and Duchess felt the need to make such high-profile and damaging allegations.

In the interview, the Duchess told Winfrey that there had been “concerns and conversations about how dark his [Archie’s] skin might be when he’s born”.

A source claimed that the letters make clear the identity of the senior member of the family who made the comment. It is understood that both the King and the Duchess acknowledged that the individual’s remark was not made with malice.

The Duchess is believed to have thanked the King for his words. The Duchess’s letter is also said to suggest that she had never intended to specifically accuse the individual involved of being a racist, but was raising concerns about unconscious bias. One royal source suggested that while the exchange was warm in tone, it had not eased the tension between the two sides.

The Duchess is understood to feel that concerns she has raised, which crucially include the way in which bullying complaints against her were handled and the allegation that neglect by the institution led her to feel suicidal, have still not been resolved.

Royal sources indicated that they had never expected the Duchess to fly over for the [coronation], aware that her private correspondence with the King had not been enough to prevent further mud-slinging from the Sussexes.

The Palace is also aware of the Sussexes’ frustration that initial email correspondence about the Coronation made no reference to their children and their potential involvement. The omission only fuelled their feeling that their family plays second fiddle to the Waleses.

[From The Telegraph]

First off, it looks like recollections did NOT vary after all. They all knew who said what and there were open conversations within the family about everything Meghan and Harry discussed in the Oprah interview. Secondly, the Telegraph removed a very telling line from the original report. After the sentence “The Duchess’s letter is also said to suggest that she had never intended to specifically accuse the individual involved of being a racist, but was raising concerns about unconscious bias,” the original article then had this line: “However, it is understood that she does still consider the comment to be racist.” That was removed after several hours, likely following a call from Buckingham Palace, which was the source of this piece. I’m not sure what game Charles, Camilla and their courtiers are playing, but my guess is that C&C wanted to shout “not it” ahead of the coronation, specifically about the “royal racist” question.

In any case, this is the palace-sanctioned version of BOTH letters. They probably expected Meghan to say something about Charles’s letter at some point in an interview or on the Netflix series, but she didn’t. She kept it private for two years before BP leaked it. Hilariously – or less so – there were some busy little palace bees working on a Friday evening after the Telegraph’s exclusive came out. Suddenly, all of the royal reporters were parroting the same talking point, which was that Meghan leaked the existence and content of both letters. To the Telegraph? LOL, no. IF Meghan wanted to leak something, I trust that her contacts in the American media are much more likely to get the info. Now, who issued the “Meghan leaked it” talking point? I think it came from Buckingham Palace as well, but others believe it came from Kensington Palace, especially since the content of the letters would seem to suggest that either William or Kate was saying sh-t about a Sussex baby’s skin color. Valentine Low, Richard Palmer, Emily Andrews all tweeted out almost identical “Meghan leaked it” tweets within an hour of each other.

On Saturday, the Sussexes’ spokesperson issued this statement, below. Valentine Low also tweeted that the Sussexes’ lawyers and the palace’s lawyers have sent legal notices around. Huh. My theory? Harry called the palace and said “if you don’t clean up your own f–king mess, I’m not coming and I’m telling everyone why.”

Given that legal letters have been sent by the Sussexes’ lawyers as well as the palace’s since the story was published, it seems I was wrong in assuming that it came from the Sussex camp. Sorry to all about that. But even more intriguing!

— Valentine Low (@valentinelow) April 22, 2023

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instar, WENN.

I’ve always loved Djimon Hounsou. He’s an actor who does a lot with his smaller roles, and the two which always stuck with me were Gladiator and In America. He was Oscar-nominated for In America and Blood Diamond (I always thought he should have won for In America). He’s currently promoting Shazam! Fury of the Gods, which appears more and more to be a “good paycheck” for a number of actors who simply needed the work. Djimon was recently interviewed by the Guardian, and he spoke at length about the lack of respect he still gets within the industry and how he’s never really gotten a big paycheck.

Moving to France at the age of 12: “It’s a different environment that taught me so much, but it also ripped me apart. I was extremely lonely. There was nobody I could connect to. You’re in a completely foreign environment, an environment that is seen to not care much for your kind.”

Moving to Paris in his teens: Acting work was hard to come by (“I felt the racism was quite heavy out there back then”). Before long, his student visa had expired. “Not only am I homeless, but I’m also illegal. It was almost impossible to live and to find a job in France at the time. So that’s how I ended up on the streets.”

A chance encounter led him to model for Thierry Mugler. “He immediately saw me and was like: ‘This is who we’re looking for. This is the man.’” It was an alien, stressful environment. Mugler’s assistant took pictures of Hounsou in different outfits, including some leather underwear. Did he feel uncomfortable? “Oh, for sure, I was very uncomfortable and not sure if this was a disservice to my manhood. But at the same time, certainly, Thierry Mugler could feel I was very timid about this setting and was a gentleman who put me at ease.”

Moving to LA: “I certainly didn’t feel like I belonged in that [fashion] world,” he says. So, at 22, he moved to Los Angeles, despite his limited English. “All I knew how to say was: yes, hello, good morning, thank you, yes sir,” he says. A visiting friend mocked his Hollywood ambitions. “‘Acting? But you realise you don’t speak the language?’ For somebody else to point it out was like a slap in my face. I was so hurt; from that point on, I refused to tell anybody my dreams.”

Not being Oscar-nominated for Amistad. “Yeah. Maybe I was early. If my movies had come out today I definitely would have gotten an Oscar already.”

His supporting-actor nomination for Blood Diamond in 2006: “I felt seriously cheated. Today, we talk so much about the Oscars being so white, but I remember there was a time where I had no support at all: no support from my own people, no support from the media, from the industry itself. It felt like: ‘You should be happy that you’ve got nominated,’ and that’s that.”

Whether he still finds the industry limiting: “I’m still struggling to try to make a dollar! I’ve come up in the business with some people who are absolutely well off and have very little of my accolades. So I feel cheated, tremendously cheated, in terms of finances and in terms of the workload as well. I’ve gone to studios for meetings and they’re like: ‘Wow, we felt like you just got off the boat and then went back [after Amistad]. We didn’t know you were here as a true actor.’ When you hear things like that, you can see that some people’s vision of you, or what you represent, is very limiting. But it is what it is. It’s up to me to redeem that.”

He still has to take smaller roles: He does it to assert himself as a “man of today” and “to prove that I can speak the language. I may not speak perfectly like an American with an American accent, but I don’t need to be all-American… I still have to prove why I need to get paid. They always come at me with a complete low ball: ‘We only have this much for the role, but we love you so much and we really think you can bring so much.’ Viola Davis said it beautifully: she’s won an Oscar, she’s won an Emmy, she’s won a Tony and she still can’t get paid. [She added a Grammy in February.] Film after film, it’s a struggle. I have yet to meet the film that paid me fairly.”

[From The Guardian]

This is so painful, and it reminds me of Ke Huy Quan’s story too, the sudden shooting stardom and then a whole lot of silence, a lot of blank looks on auditions, not a lot of respect for what these immigrant actors who have already shown what they can do. Seriously, go back and watch In America – it’s a shame he didn’t win for that film, and it really was a brilliant showcase for his talent. It’s about race too and what kinds of immigrants are given work in Hollywood. Anyway, I came out of this interview so depressed. He’s so talented and I hope this interview wakes up some directors to cast him! He also hopes he can return for the second Gladiator movie and I hope he gets that.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Ryan Gosling and his post-Barbie hair went to a Tag Heuer event and I barely even recognized him. Whose idea was this hairstyle? [RCFA]
Oh, did Sydney Sweeney dump her fiance for her costar Glenn Powell? [Dlisted]
Yung Miami covers The Cut. [LaineyGossip]
I disagree – most of Ted Lasso Season 3 has been a bummer, but I loved this week’s episode and it felt like a love letter to Amsterdam. [Pajiba]
Reem Acra’s bridal collection is not my jam, but it’s okay. [Go Fug Yourself]
Michelle Obama looked great on the Tonight Show. [Tom & Lorenzo]
The Nicki Minaj-Kim Petras collab is here. [Just Jared]
The Republican lawmaker who voted to eject the Tennessee 3? He just resigned after sexually harassing an intern. [Jezebel]
Iggy Azalea is still, somehow, a thing. [Egotastic]
Wild historical facts – the Great Pyramids used to be white. [Buzzfeed]
Station 19 confirmed for a seventh season. [Seriously OMG]
Madison LeCroy’s new side-hustle sounds like something Emily in Paris would have come up with (and I say that as a compliment). [Starcasm]
Tennessee has been sued over their ban on transgender healthcare. [Towleroad]

Embed from Getty Images

While I arguably have a reputation as a “Taylor Swift hater,” there are legitimately parts of Taylor Swift’s life and business which I admire greatly. She is, in my opinion, one of the savviest businesswomen in the music industry. Does she have great advisors? Sure. But Taylor has shown us time and time again that she’s in those meetings, she’s negotiating for herself, and she knows her own worth. Not only that, she’s not afraid to say that she doesn’t know something or to ask questions. Which brings me to this: Taylor managed to avoid FTX, unlike dozens of other celebrities. As it turns out, Taylor was the only one in those meetings asking the right questions.

Taylor Swift’s inquisitiveness saved her from jumping on the doomed FTX bandwagon. More than a dozen celebrities, including NBA star Stephen Curry, NFL player Tom Brady, supermodel Gisele Bündchen, tennis legend Naomi Osaka, and popular TV show Seinfeld co-creator Larry David are named in a November 2022 class action lawsuit filed in Miami. The complaint blames FTX and its paid brand ambassadors for actively participating in the “offer and sale of unregistered securities in the form of yield-bearing accounts,” as well as abetting fraud “designed to take advantage of unsophisticated investors from across the country, who utilize mobile apps to make their investments.”

Swift avoided getting dragged in FTX’s collapse because the singer did her due diligence, and asked one important question: “Can you tell me that these are not unregistered securities?”, according to South Florida attorney Adam Moskowitz. Moskowitz, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit, discussed the case in this week’s episode of The Block’s The Scoop podcast.

$100 billion: How much FTX was willing to pay the celebrated singer-songwriter. They had reached the late stages of negotiating a sponsorship deal a little before the crypto exchange crumbled last November. A report in Rolling Stones cites an anonymous source saying Swift “would not, and did not, agree to an endorsement deal,” but smaller-scale partnerships, like a ticketing arrangement involving NFTs for her Eras Tour, was on the table. But she turned that down, too.

[From Yahoo]

I’m sorry, they offered her $100 BILLION to endorse FTX? That alone would have made me sit up and ask some questions, because that number makes zero sense. Hey, Taylor, will you endorse Celebitchy as a blog for eleventy trillion dollars? What’s that?? You want to see if I actually have the money? ZOINKS! Still, it’s sad to see the list of names of celebrities who didn’t even do even a cursory investigation into what was going on. Good for Swift for avoiding it entirely. And she avoided the NFT sh-t too! LOL.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

Have we decided if the recent rash of Karriett Tubman-themed stories are coming from Queen Camilla’s operations, or whether they’re Kensington Palace’s attempts to make the Princess of Wales look sympathetic? I truly believe it’s both – Kate’s own press operation often makes her look terrible, but I do get the sense that the knives are out for Kate within the family. I bring this up because there’s a new sub-genre – a micro-genre, if you will – of royal reporting specific to the lead-up for the coronation. The micro-genre is “Kate is the reason why Meghan isn’t coming” and/or Kate is so, so pleased that Meghan isn’t coming. While there’s always been an oversized focus on the Kate-vs-Meghan dynamic, this feels interesting – centering Meghan’s absence on Kate specifically. From Entertainment Tonight:

How the Windsors feel about Harry & Meghan: “Relationships between Harry and Meghan and the family are still very tense,” a source tells ET. “The family will be cordial because the King wants his son at his Coronation but there will be no meaningful conversation as there’s still a lack of trust given the revelations in his book and the Sussexes Netflix documentary and the allegations in the Oprah interview.”

Surprise at Meghan’s absence: Another source shared that the family is still surprised that the Duke is attending without his wife. Adding, “There were still several members of the family who expressed surprise she had decided to stay home.”

Kate’s relief: Royal expert Eloise Parker, said Prince William and Kate Middleton feel a sense of “relief” that Meghan will be home. “I think there’s bound to be some relief from William and Kate that Meghan won’t be attending the coronation simply because less emphasis is going to be on them, who’s looking where, who’s lip reading, what’s going on between them. There’s such a fever of interest in these relationships and the truth is we’re never going to see a Real Housewives moment between these women. Everything is going to be kept firmly under wraps and I think for Kate, the fact that Meghan isn’t attending, helps her keep it that way.”

[From ET]

“The truth is we’re never going to see a Real Housewives moment between these women”– are you joking? We’ve already seen dozens of “Real Housewife” moments, mostly because Kate has no pokerface. Kate wearing white to Meghan’s wedding was a Real Housewife moment. Kate not being able to keep her sh-t together at the Commonwealth service in 2020 was a Real Housewife moment. Kate menacing Meghan on the Windsor walkabout was a Real Housewife moment. Kate telling everyone that Meghan made her cry for YEARS was a Real Housewife moment. Meghan telling Oprah that Kate made her cry was also a Real Housewife moment, to be fair. Just because Meghan isn’t calling Kate a copykeening loser to her Botoxface, doesn’t make Kate any less tacky.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgird, WENN.

Republic recently commissioned a YouGov poll to ask British people their interest in the upcoming coronation. The poll found that the overwhelming majority of British people – across demographics – could not care less. Not only that, but a clear majority wish that their taxpayer funds weren’t being used for King Charles and Queen Camilla’s big narcissistic parade and party. One of the huge problems facing King Charles’s reign is ambivalence towards him specifically and the monarchy generally. But there’s another huge issue: no matter how much money he spends, he just can’t get people to love Camilla. There are so many people still thinking about and talking about Diana, and what it was supposed to be, except that Charles treated his first wife like sh-t and now his mistress is going to be queen. Thus, the palace still commissions pieces like this recent article in the Telegraph: “The secret of Queen Camilla’s rise in popularity.” The palace is truly trying to speak this into existence. They’re being helped by the entire royal media machinery. Some highlights from the piece:

Why QEII gave her blessing for “Queen Camilla”: The late Queen’s decision to grant her daughter-in-law this title did not simply reflect a desire for conformity. It reflected the real achievement of the then Duchess of Cornwall in winning the hearts of the people, and the massive contribution she has made to the success of the Royal family since marrying the King in 2005. And when one recalls the rocky foundations of Queen Camilla’s relations with the British people, the scale of that achievement becomes even greater.

A passionate friendship?? As is well known, the King had had a passionate friendship with his present wife long before he married his first one; and it soon developed into something much more than that. His marriage in 1981 to Lady Diana Spencer, which he is said to have regretted before he had even contracted it, included what his first wife came to call a “third person” – Camilla Parker Bowles, as she then was. It is all very well in retrospect to say that none of this should have happened, but it did: and it left Mrs Parker Bowles in an invidious position.

Diana’s revenge: The Princess of Wales had built up a Hollywood-style celebrity among much of the British public long before she and her husband divorced: she was the exciting and charismatic one – “the people’s Princess” – he the dull plodder. When their marriage ended a merciless tabloid press blamed him, effectively citing his mistress as co-respondent. When Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris in 1997, full hysteria was unleashed. Rumours went round Fleet Street newsrooms that London would be swamped with plain-clothes police for the Princess’s funeral because of fears of an assassination attempt on her ex-husband.

Rebranding Camilla: For a time, she kept very much out of the limelight – not through any sense of trepidation or cowardice (she is not that type of woman), but out of sensitivity and propriety. Eventually, her emergence as the Prince of Wales’s partner was masterminded by one of his private secretaries, Mark Bolland, who has since made a stellar reputation in the world of public relations. The lingering antipathy to her because of her perceived role in the break-up of the Waleses’ marriage was strong, and continued to be fed by elements of the press who felt there were commercial benefits in sneering at her and the Prince. She, though, began to assert her personality to charm those most affected by her relationship with the King and to have them see her for what she was, and not for what they (on the basis of prejudice) thought she was.

Camilla and her stepsons: Without question the most important step in this direction was building a relationship with Prince William and Prince Harry. The former appears to have accepted her entirely, perhaps understanding far better than his younger brother the realities of their parents’ unhappy marriage, and how reckless it can be to apportion blame.

What Harry has said about Camilla: It is a measure of Queen Camilla’s success in connecting with the British public that various infantile and disobliging remarks about his stepmother by the Duke of Sussex have been widely interpreted as saying more about him than about her.

Genuine Camilla: Although her husband’s consort, she is not in his shadow. She has kept her own friends, has her own interests, is a devoted mother and grandmother, and has not altered her personality to fit in with his: what you see is very much what you get. That, perhaps, is the secret of the apparent miracle of the Queen’s transition to become one of our paramount national treasures. The British people tend to be good at spotting frauds, but in her they have unquestionably the genuine article.

[From The Telegraph]

The absolute desperation. It’s uniquely British desperation too – “It is all very well in retrospect to say that none of this should have happened, but it did.” A grown man used a teenager as a broodmare to provide his heirs, all while carrying on a torrid affair with his married mistress and then the man and his mistress spent years gaslighting his wife. And it’s only in retrospect that we can say that none of this should have happened, but it did and POOR CAMILLA?? Jesus – it’s not enough that “to the winner goes the spoils,” it’s about positioning Camilla as sympathetic in a despicable situation entirely of her own making?

The part about Harry and how he’s called out Camilla’s machinations – how much of all of this Camilla PR is about Spare? A lot of it. And the more articles there are like this, the more Harry’s version is proven correct.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

Elon Musk is an idiot. I agree with everyone who says that he’s going to end up “reinventing” basically every Twitter policy that existed before him, especially this issue of verification. Keep in mind, I never cared about verification – I’ve been unverified the entire time I’ve been on Twitter (since 2011). So has Celebitchy. But I appreciated the old verification system, in which brands, companies, media outlets, world leaders, celebrities, athletes and teams could get verified for free so people knew that the content was official. Musk has ended all of that – now people can only get verified if they pay $8 a month. Practically every celebrity, brand, athlete and world leader has declined the ungenerous offer. To make it even more ridiculous, when Musk removed all of the verification blue-checks, he ended up “keeping” some of the blue checks of the celebrities who criticized him, like LeBron James and Stephen King. Musk then claimed that HE is paying for them to be verified:

NEW: Have confirmed that LeBron, who has 52 million followers and has said he won’t pay for verification, was emailed by a Twitter employee with the offer to have his sub comped “on behalf of Elon Musk.”

James did not accept but his account is showing that he paid anyway.

— Alex Heath (@alexeheath) April 20, 2023

It appears that Elon Musk has decided to personally intervene to provide blue checks to Stephen King and LeBron James, falsely saying they paid for Twitter Blue, because each made high profile tweets saying they definitely wouldn’t pay for it. Billionaire manchild. https://t.co/C6B5QdJvaT

— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) April 20, 2023

You would be hard-pressed to find a bigger loser than Elon Musk. The business world is pretty shocked by Musk’s mismanagement too – Twitter ad dollars are down 89% since October – companies are leaving Twitter in droves. Musk hasn’t just halved Twitter’s value, it’s likely Twitter will only be worth a tiny fraction of what he paid for it.

Not content to simply torpedo Twitter, the Musk-owned company SpaceX did a big launch yesterday… and the sh-t exploded in air.

The four-minute flight of SpaceX’s Starship rocket ended in what the company called a “rapid unscheduled disassembly,” but employees still celebrated. It’s the latest step in SpaceX’s explode-as-you-learn approach. https://t.co/DM4TDXknHH pic.twitter.com/5dedFoVMgd

— The New York Times (@nytimes) April 20, 2023

All the responses from people saying, “Actually, the rocket was SUPPOSED to explode” are basically just the real-life version of this tweet. https://t.co/5TrqoO4r6l

— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) April 20, 2023

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images, Avalon Red.

About two months ago, there was a flurry of activity around the Parker Bowles clan. We learned that Queen Consort Camilla planned to make the coronation all about her family, with her two adult children Tom and Laura in attendance, plus their children acting as pages with actual roles in the ceremony. That was when the Times decided to declare Tom Parker Bowles “the monarchy’s new secret weapon.” Tom is a 48 year old “food writer” and a well-connected gossip, and it felt like he was suddenly being groomed for an earldom or something. Well, we’ll see about that. In the meantime, Tom is free to give interviews. In fact, I’m almost positive that Buckingham Palace wants him out there, trying to put lipstick on a pig (his mother). Especially since Tom made a pointed “rebuttal” of Prince Harry’s comments about Camilla, namely that she’s been running a decades-long campaign to win acceptance, marry Charles and sit on the throne, and (according to Harry) Camilla didn’t care if she left bodies in the street to get what she wanted. According to Tom, his mother did no such thing. ORLY?

The Queen’s son, Tom Parker Bowles, has rebutted the Duke of Sussex’s claim that she orchestrated “a campaign aimed at marriage and eventually the crown”, insisting there was no “endgame”. Mr Parker Bowles issued a staunch defence of his mother, who he said had married the King solely for love.

Speaking publicly about the allegations for the first time, he said: “I think change happens but I don’t care what anyone says – this wasn’t any sort of endgame. She married the person she loved and this is what happened.”

Mr Parker Bowles, a food writer and food critic, also told The News Agents podcast that his mother would ensure that her Coronation day menu was free of chilli and garlic because she did not like “massive spice” and would want to keep her breath fresh while greeting guests.

Mr Parker Bowles told podcast hosts Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel it was “tough” for the Queen to take on such a prominent role during the Coronation Ceremony, but said she had “never complained”. He added: “I think anyone would be anxious on an occasion of this sort of importance in terms of the historical. And yes, I think I’d be terrified if I had to sort of walk out wearing ancient robes. She’s 75, but you know, it’s tough to do it. But she’s never complained. You just do it. get on with it.”

Mr Parker Bowles praised the King and Queen, saying: “I think they’re doing amazingly. I think King Charles is a good, kind, intelligent man who cares deeply about his roles wherever they may be – Prince of Wales, the King.”

Asked if it was weird to think of Camilla as the Queen, Mr Parker Bowles replied: “Not really, because she’s still our mother. I say ‘our’ but not the royal ‘we’, speaking for my sister and me. She’s our mother.”

Mr Parker Bowles confirmed that he would not be getting a title, adding: “You’re not going to find us with great estates and being called the duke of whatever. No. That would be appalling.”

[From The Telegraph]

“I don’t care what anyone says – this wasn’t any sort of endgame…” Horsesh-t. Camilla absolutely plotted, schemed and calculated. Maybe in 1991, it wasn’t a clear strategy of “then I’ll do this and then I’ll hire this person,” but there absolutely was a strategy, a plan, a conspiracy. Camilla openly carried on with Charles for years, all while briefing the press about Diana and the state of the Waleses’ marriage. Camilla and Charles both masterminded the “Diana is crazy” narrative. Once Charles and Diana got divorced, Camilla seamlessly moved in and took over. She’s been in charge ever since, let’s be real. Painting Camilla’s journey as some kind of “she never schemed, she never planned this” is utterly bizarre. Tom’s comments do show that Camilla and her team are very worried that people believe Harry’s version of events.

As for Tom denying the talk of a peerage… well, we’ll see about that too. For all of the cost-cutting plans being made by Charles, I would be willing to bet that Charles and Camilla both plan on elevating Tom and Laura and ensuring that they have the means to live large.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

I watched the first season of Schmigadoon. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a playful send up of Broadway musicals about a modern couple who happen into a world that exists as if it was a – wait for it – musical. Everything about the show should have been right up my alley – the ridiculous concept, the musical, the irony, the cast. But while I saw it through until the end, it fell short for me. I haven’t watched the second season… and now I know why! Those b@stards turned down Patti LuPone. As in, they had the opportunity to have Patti LuPone grace them with her presence and they said “no.” And if there is one thing La Patti is going to do, it’s tell on you. So she did. She told Mashable that she approached them for season one because she really wanted to be a part of it and was told she was too old. Uhm, they said what?! Patti surmised it by saying “it’s their loss!” No, Patti – it’s our loss.

Apple TV+’s Schmigadoon! is a delirious dream for theater kids, combining playful parodies of a slew of major musicals with an ensemble cast stuffed with Broadway stars. Incredibly; however, Patti LuPone, one of the celebrated living legends of the Great White Way, was denied a chance to join in.

Season 2 (aka Schmicago) spoofs the songs of Stephen Sondheim, with whom LuPone has worked repeatedly and iconically in shows like Company and Sweeney Todd(opens in a new tab). So, Mashable asked if she’d been approached about the musical TV series. In fact, she approached the show first for Season 1.

“I wanted to be in Schmigadoon!, and I was too old,” LuPone said. Asked what she meant, she responded, “Exactly what I said. We reached out to them and said I want to be in Schmigadoon!. They said, ‘Sorry. You’re too old.’”

“It’s so sad. And it’s depressing,” she said of the rejection, before declaring, “It’s their loss! I don’t know what else to say. I so wanted to be in it!”

[From Mashable]

While I am playing up the hyperbole to match the Broadway tone of the story, I am generally stunned by this. Keegan-Michael Key and Cecil Strong play the “modern couple” but the rest of the cast includes Alan Cummings, Kristin Chenowith, Jane Krakowski, Aaron Tveit, Ariana DeBose – some real theater powerhouses. People who would probably list Patti as their hero. In addition to those folks, as Kristy Puchko at Mashable points out, is Martin Short, who is 73 years old – the same age as Patti. Now I’m doubly ticked. Because this is ageist and sexist. There are people who should have a Golden Ticket for roles and one of them is Patti. If Patti wants to make an irreverent Apple TV+ musical, write her a part. If Patti wants a role on Ted Lasso, make room for another coach. If they’re remaking JAWS and she wants to play the shark? Give her a swim cap and call her Bruce for christsakes! Mashable reported that Apple hasn’t responded for comment. I’ll bet they haven’t. Whoever told Patti she was too old is currently hiding under a desk and the rest are trying to gather their notes because Patti keeps her receipts. She’s not worried about being liked. If some idiot told a woman with Patti’s credentials that she was too old to appear on a show for which she was overqualified to appear, she’ll put them on blast.

Thankfully some casting people have sense, though. And this news will especially delight my fellow Penny Dreadful fans. Patti is joining Kathryn Hahn and Aubrey Plaza in Agatha: Coven of Chaos. This is, of course, the Wandavision spin-off for Kathryn Han’s character Agatha Harkness. Patti plays Lilia Calderu, a 450-year-old Sicilian witch who’s been a part of the MCU since 1973. (Oh thank goodness – a role Patti’s not too old to play!) Honestly, if I don’t hear another word about Coven of Chaos until the premiere, I would still be on the edge of my seat to watch it. Witches? Patti? Kathryn and Aubrey? Say no more – I’m in.

Photo credit: Robin Platzer/Twin Images and Jeffrey Mayer/Avalon and Cover Images