Here are some photos of King Charles and Queen Camilla on Sunday in Sydney, Australia. They went to a Sunday service at St. Thomas’s Anglican Church, having announced a day earlier that people should come out to greet the king and queen. Hundreds of people did so – legitimately, hundreds of Australians came out to shake Charles’s hand or wish him well. There were protesters, but they were kept a distance away from the church. The protesters chanted “Not my king” and “Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land.” There were videos circulating where protestors were talking about how the British monarch does not represent Australia, etc. There were also large banners reading “Empire built on genocide” and “decolonize.” The Guardian mentioned something interesting about the hundreds of royal fans – the Australian Monarchist League “had pledged to hand out thousands” of supportive, pro-monarchy flags and placards. As in, they expected thousands of people to show up outside of the church. Only a couple of hundred showed up.

While the British media tried to put the best spin on all of this, the Telegraph even had to admit that: “When the couple first arrived they met some of the younger members of the congregation at the church door as a group of protesters could be heard shouting “not my King” but were drowned out by shouts of ‘hip hip hooray.’” Yes, god help us all if Charles has to hear faint “not my king” chants in a country his family brutally colonized. That wasn’t all – after the the church visit, Charles headed off to a lunch in his honor. The Guardian’s headline: “King Charles makes relaxed start to Australian tour but spends less than 10 minutes at lunch in his honour.”

King Charles III did not linger long at the luncheon put on in his honour, at the second scheduled event of his short Australian visit. And his gift to the gathering was a reminder of the fleeting passage of time.

There was a menu fit for a king, and very Sydney: chargrilled asparagus and olive dust; marinated octopus and squid ink wafer; barramundi and duck confit.

But the sovereign was gone before the first course. He addressed the gathering at NSW’s Parliament House, he offered an hourglass as a present, told lawmakers the “sands of time” would encourage “brevity”, and left within 10 minutes of his arrival in the hall, not to be seen again in public until Monday.

[From The Guardian]

Some people said that the palace officials were basically like… Charles is tired, we’re trying to limit his schedule. But it was a lunch? It was his only other event on Sunday, after the church service. I get it, he’s really tired. But to not even stay ten full minutes at a lunch in your honor when you just had a rest day on Saturday?

Look at how Charles & Cam greeted their well-wishers:

See how Consort Queen Camilla greets people without looking. King Charles doesn’t even bother to say hi! They despise the people who showed up to see them. #RoyalVisitAustralia pic.twitter.com/hlaberYoXR

— Ange Andrews (@andrews_ange) October 20, 2024

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

About a month after VP Kamala Harris became the democratic nominee this summer, Taylor Swift fans organized a massive Zoom fundraising call. It was part of a fantastic trend that was kicked off by Black women for Kamala, and swiftly followed Black men, South Asian women, South Asian men, LGBTQ, white women, and white dudes. The Swifties for Kamala call raised more than $140K! And all of that was still before Taylor endorsed VP Harris. Well, Swifties for Kamala are not done yet! Taylor started the final leg of her Eras Tour in Miami over the weekend, so Swifties for Kamala teamed up with the Florida Democratic Party on the ground to do major GOTV and canvassing efforts while hosting listening parties and live streams of the concerts. Excellent. I’m sure Donald Trump will be crying and waving his exhausted baby fists soon about how unfair it is since Kid Rock isn’t on tour.

The Florida Democratic Party is teaming up with the Swifties for Kamala voter outreach group to host listening parties, statewide canvasses and phone banking. They’ve teed up new merch and live streaming of Swift’s surprise song mash-ups at her shows.

Text banking will prod as many as 1.5 million Florida voters with messages like, “I Know Places You Can Vote” and “How To Get The Girl Elected.” Campaign volunteers will make beaded friendship bracelets that have become a signature accessory among Swift concert-goers, the bulk of whom are Gen Z and Millennial women.

They’re calling it all the “Eras Tour (GOTV Version).”

The Democratic National Committee is getting in on the action with a new Snapchat filter whose banner reads, “In My Voting Era” and “Be fearless for _____.” Users then get to fill in the blank space with words like “Equality,” “Reproductive Rights” or “Climate Action,” and their followers can click on a link to IWillVote.com. The DNC also snapped up Miami concert-area billboards, featuring Harris and messages like, “Welcome to your voting era! Swiftly go to the polls and vote for Democrats!”

There’s no indication that Swift will use her Miami tour to make a political statement. Democrats remember all too well when a widely circulated false rumor that Beyonce would make a surprise appearance at their convention in Chicago got them down bad.

But that isn’t going to stop Democrats from trying to use the opportunity to canvass outside the concert or from doing voter events with Democratic Senate candidate Debbie Mucarsel-Powell and Florida state House candidate Laura Kelley. And it hasn’t stopped Democrats from wishing Swift would weigh in again on candidates or issues.

“She holds immense power to get out the vote,” said Eden Giagnorio, spokesperson for the Florida Democratic Party. “We hope our organizing efforts will help voters connect the dots — but nothing compares to her advocacy around it.”

After all, Swift’s latest album features a song called, “Florida!!!” She has used her platform to encourage people to vote and endorsed other candidates earlier in her career. She recently posted about supporting “a woman’s right to her own body” just as Florida voters are facing a question about abortion on the ballot in November. And Harris’ 60th birthday is on Sunday, the same day Swift’s Miami tour wraps. (Harris is scheduled to campaign in Michigan on Friday and Georgia Saturday.)

“Nothing that Taylor Swift does is accidental,” Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said in Tallahassee this week. “She’s very purposeful in how she interacts with her fans, and so I think that her voice in this election is making a big difference.”

[From Politico]

“Nothing that Taylor Swift does is accidental,” may just be the understatement of the century, lol. As of this writing, there’s no reporting that Taylor made any political comments this weekend. She debuted new outfits and songs in the setlist, including TTPD’s “Florida!!!” But the most overt political statement at her concert came from a MAGAt who flew a plane over the venue with a banner saying, “Trump 2024 — Ready For It. Cat Lady? MAGA!” Do you think they meant to put a comma before “Cat Lady?” I’ll add it to the list of reasons to vote for VP Harris: democracy, equality, economy, reproductive rights, climate change, and proper punctuation.

As for the Swifties for Kamala doing this GOTV, I’m thrilled. It’s time for all of us to nail down our voting plans! And I can’t help it, the petty girl in me would love it if Florida, major swing state and current home state to Trump, swung blue. But we can’t take anything for granted. You can go to IWillVote.com to see if you’re registered, check the status of your ballot, or for more info on making your vote plan.

And Happy Birthday to VP Harris yesterday! My gift is coming on Saturday when early voting begins in my area.

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Volunteering with @Swifties4Kamala today making bracelets with @FlaDems! Got to give an S4K “in my voting era” friendship bracelet to Florida Democratic Party Chair @NikkiFried. So much fun! pic.twitter.com/hiqsfHqHKr

— Kate Arnold-Murray (@k_arnold_murray) October 19, 2024

Embed from Getty Images

Last month, I quietly clocked the fact that Jennifer Lawrence totally skipped Paris Fashion Week. In recent years, the Dior shows are one of Jennifer’s few public outings, as she’s been repping Dior for a decade or longer. I thought “hey, that’s interesting that Dior’s most prominent ambassador skipped their show but who knows what’s really going on.” Well, I wonder if this is what was going on – Jennifer is pregnant, again!

Jennifer Lawrence’s family is growing!

The No Hard Feelings actress, 34, and husband Cooke Maroney, 40, are expecting their second baby, sharing the news via a Vogue Instagram post and article on Sunday, Oct. 20.

“Congratulations are in order for Jennifer Lawrence! The Oscar-winning actor will be welcoming her second child with art gallerist husband Cooke Maroney,” the magazine wrote in the caption of the post, adding that representatives for Lawrence had confirmed the happy news to the outlet.

Representatives for the actress did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.

The couple — who wed in October 2019 — are already parents to son Cy, 2, who they welcomed in February 2022.

[From People]

I’m happy for her. She got to a point, I would say pre-pandemic, where she was so overexposed and really yearning for a more stable life with a husband and children. She clearly loves being a mom and it would not surprise me at all if she ends up with three or four kids total. I don’t know how far along she is, but that Vogue IG shows that her bump is pretty tiny. If her first pregnancy was any indication, she’s probably barely going to be photographed during her second pregnancy as well. Does she have any promotional tours coming up? Let me look…nope. She has several projects in development, including that Real Housewives-esque movie, The Wives. She’ll either have to shoot that pregnant or they’ll hit pause on it for a year.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Backgrid.

One of the most amusing parts of this latest Sussex story is the implicit admission that Prince Harry and Meghan are wealthy enough to afford a second home in Portugal. I still don’t know if the reports are true, but Richard Eden at the Mail broke the news that the Sussexes “quietly” purchased a home on the coast of Portugal at some point after they visited Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank there last year. Jack works in Portugal now, working as some kind of salesperson or real estate guy in association with a luxury development in Comporta. It is believed that Harry & Meghan purchased one of the luxury villas in the development. The cost of the villa? £3.6 million or more. LMAO.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have purchased a holiday home in the Portuguese resort that the Duke’s cousin Princess Eugenie resides during the summer months. Express.co.uk can reveal that the royal properties are located in Comporta, just an hour’s drive south of Lisbon on Portugal’s west coast.

The Sussexes’ purchase of the property was said to have been prompted by Princess Eugenie’s husband Jack Brooksbanks’ job at the exclusive CostaTerra Golf and Ocean Club. The resort’s properties have been designed by high end architecture and interior design firm Denton House which delivers “the world’s most glamorous residences and resort destinations”. The resort is positioned on an unspoilt, picturesque stretch of beach in the Algarve and has become a popular holiday destination for the rich, thanks to it being relatively untouched by tourism.

The CostaTerra Golf and Ocean Club is owned by multimillionaire property tycoon Mike Meldman. A co-founder of Casamigos tequila, along with George Clooney and Cindy Crawford’s husband Rande Gerber, Mike has been friends with Princess Eugenie’s husband Jack for years. Jack works in marketing, sales, and promotion for Mike’s Discovery Land Company, which specialises in building luxurious private golf and residential holiday communities across the globe. The Discovery Land Company has been developing the highly sought after 722-acre beachfront plot in Comporta since 2019. Once completed, the resort is set to have 300 homes, with prices starting at a whopping £3.6million.

[From The Daily Express]

Let’s say that Jack convinced Harry & Meghan to buy a vacation home in this A-list community, with access to a golf club and all kinds of amazing amenities, not to mention proximity to the ocean. Let’s say that Harry & Meghan purchased the home for something like $4 million to $5 million. Doesn’t that mean that the British reports about “the Sussexes’ struggling finances” and “what happens when the money runs out” are all bullsh-t? Food for thought. Meanwhile, one royal commentator has a theory about why Harry & Meghan want a European hideaway:

Royal expert Hugo Vickers told The Sun: “There are two reasons why Harry and Meghan might go to Portugal. One of them is the one that you mentioned that because he’s very close to Princess Eugenie, his cousin. They get on very well together. They seem to be the main members of the family who are still very much in touch with Prince Harry. The other reason is that there is always this fear that if Donald Trump gets re-elected as President, he will move Prince Harry from America. It’s exactly the sort of thing that he would do, because first of all, it would show his strength and his power. To show that he can do it.

“He has been irritated, I think, in the past by things that Meghan Markle has said about him, and probably Prince Harry as well. He would be completely in his rights to do that, and so they might be looking for an alternative residence.”

Hugo added: “Portugal’s very accessible to all parts of Europe, whereas California is a long way away. Maybe he doesn’t like the Californian way of life, I would imagine that would be quite alien to him. So I think there are many other reasons why he might wish to settle there. It may just be that they want an alternative, an extra home, to go to in the summer. If they’re making lots of money, maybe they can afford to have two bases. He may well have enormous advantages, probably from the tax point of view, and also from cost of living. Food in Portugal is very, very reasonably priced, and I can see many reasons why he would find that advantageous. Obviously, Portugal is really right in the center of things. You can get anywhere very quickly from Portugal. It’s very accessible.”

[From The Sun]

“if Donald Trump gets re-elected as President, he will move Prince Harry from America. It’s exactly the sort of thing that he would do, because first of all, it would show his strength and his power. To show that he can do it…He would be completely in his rights to do that, and so they might be looking for an alternative residence.” While I think there could be a “back-up plan” aspect to purchasing real estate in Europe, let’s not skip over the whole “Donald Trump would be perfectly within his rights to deport an American citizen and her husband.” The British press has been salivating about this for years now, the idea that their Heritage Foundation buddies will somehow organize the deportation of the Sussexes during a second Trump presidency. It’s truly insane. Anyway, I hope H&M enjoy their villa!

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.

King Charles and Queen Camilla touched down in Sydney, Australia on Friday evening, then rested on Saturday. I’ll cover their Sunday visit to the Anglican church on Monday, but here’s an interesting note – the church visit was originally supposed to be low-key and quiet, but the courtiers must have been worried that it would too quiet, so they made a specific appeal to Aussies to come out and see Charles and Camilla. As much as there’s a larger conversation about the crown and whether Australia should become a republic, don’t miss the fact that Camilla is not and has never been an asset to her husband. Don’t miss the fact that Camilla will forever live the shadows of more popular royal women:

Queen Camilla’s Australia tour with King Charles “won’t be easy” due to “less agreeable” crowds Down Under, an expert has warned. According to royal expert and historian Dr Tessa Dunlop, with all eyes on the King, it could be a trip that Camilla finds particular difficult.

She explained to the Mirror: “The press corps have flown in and the King has postponed his cancer treatment – everyone is set for Charles’ first tour to Australia as monarch. Headlines have been full of it – the political snubs from Australia’s premiers, to the pared-down itinerary and absence of walkabouts. Will Charles’s 17th visit down under, seal the deal for Republicans or set royal hearts aflutter?”

“With all eyes on the King, there has been less talk of Camilla, who will be touching down as Australia’s new queen. Her gig won’t be easy – she has giant shoes to fill and not just those of the late Queen. Against expectations, it was just over 40 years ago that Australians surprised themselves and fell in love with a fresh royal fairy story – cue the arrival of Charles and Diana on a six week tour in 1983. Staunchly Republican Australian Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, had been hoping that the incoming Prince and Princess of Wales would seal the deal for dumping the British monarchy. Not a bit of it. Crowd surges, overwhelmed police, flags, flowers and gridlocked roads: 1983 saw the start of a brand new phenomenon: Diana-mania.”

“The public’s love was unadulterated – so much so that Prince Charles, who had been trying to woo Australia since 1966, took umbrage. Sadly Diana is long gone, but while here in Britain we have grown fond of Queen Camilla, who has been rehabilitated in our press, in Australia memories of the ‘other woman’ and Diana’s rough treatment at the hands of the royal family are more pronounced.”

But it’s not just memories of Diana that might work against Camilla in Australia, as Tessa explained another factor may hinder her popularity. She added: “Nor has the international fall-out from the Harry and Meghan debacle helped Camilla’s cause. The Sussexes’ departure from the Royal Family followed hot on the heels of their 2018 Australia tour, with Harry subsequently airing ‘wicked stepmother’ tropes and citing Camilla’s ‘dangerous’ connections. The King and Queen, who have not been to Australia since Megxit, will find new dissenters in the pack. Fortunately the trip is short, and positive polling for an committed monarch with cancer bodes well, but beyond the summer sun, Queen Camilla will be on alert for a less agreeable Australia lurking in the shadows.”

[From The Daily Mirror]

It’s especially wild that Charles and Camilla’s tour is the first major Australian since Harry and Meghan’s 2018 tour. The connections, six years later, are so pronounced. Harry and Meghan were wildly popular and Meghan was regarded, internationally, as a bridge to the future for the monarchy, a breath of fresh air, a woman of color who was uniquely situated to modernize a staid and racist institution and drag the colonialist mess into the 21st century. And right after that tour, the Windsors began their campaign to drive Meghan out by any means necessary. Camilla was a huge part of that campaign, just as Camilla’s fingerprints were all over every part of Diana’s misery. I hope Camilla gets booed especially hard in Oz.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

On Friday, Politico got the ball rolling on a pretty simple story. I think the simplicity of it is why it’s picked up so much steam in recent days. Politico reported that Donald Trump’s team keeps canceling so many interviews and campaign events because the 78-year-old white supremacist and rapist is “exhausted.” As in, Trump’s own people are citing his exhaustion as the reason why he can’t keep up with a demanding campaign schedule in the final weeks of the election cycle. Well, after Politico’s report, Kamala Harris’s campaign obviously jumped all over it: Trump is not only unhinged and incompetent, but he’s just too old, too senile and too sleepy to do the job as president.

The Harris campaign only had to wait a few hours until the Trump campaign underlined how bad things had gotten for their candidate. Trump was campaigning in Detroit, Michigan when the microphones went out on stage. When his mic cut out mid-speech, Trump waddled around the stage in front of a screen which hilariously read “Technical Difficulties: Complicated Business.” While Trump waited two hours for the microphones to get fixed, he nodded off. Sleepy Don, too fatigued to campaign, too exhausted to lead. Oh, and did I mention the Detroit venue was barely half-filled? Dude can’t even fill his sad little Nazi rallies anymore. This is what Kamala HQ posted:

An exhausted Trump appears to be falling asleep during his campaign event pic.twitter.com/WRMt0iTwAn

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) October 18, 2024

As I said, the “Trump is exhausted” storyline has now gotten a lot of coverage. It’s so easy to describe that the networks are even covering Politico’s report. It’s worth noting that Trump has canceled interviews with most networks too, because he’s exhausted and numb and deranged and he only wants to talk to the friendliest wingnuts he can find. This is truly one of the best closing statements for VP Harris to make.

Vice President Harris: Trump is becoming increasingly unstable and unhinged. The American people are witnessing it in real-time. The American people deserve better than someone who seems to be unstable pic.twitter.com/mAKJnlFmJ0

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) October 19, 2024

Embed from Getty Images

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Getty.

Angelina Jolie stepped out on Friday at the BFI London Film Festival premiere of Pablo Larrain’s Maria. Pablo was there too, and they looked like they were about to do an artsy remake of Ocean’s Eleven. I’ve been trying to keep track of how many festivals Angelina has attended this year so far: Venice, Telluride, Toronto, New York, now London and soon the AFI Fest in LA. All of this is ahead of the December release date – a limited theatrical run and a big premiere on Netflix. Fingers crossed that Netflix puts some money in this Oscar campaign.

As for Angelina’s look in London… it’s interesting because she eschewed the sack dresses she’s favored in recent years, and she went for a much more old-school look. Back in her 20s, Angelina rarely wore dresses. She was all about leather pants and menswear. In London, she wore a three-piece tuxedo suit from Dolce & Gabbana’s menswear collection. Maybe she’s doing this with some kind of agenda, but my first thought was “of course she’s wearing menswear, all of the women’s suits these days are absurd.” Women’s suits have giant shoulder pads or puffed out shoulders or too-long sleeved or weird darting or terrible collars. Jolie was like… no thanks, I want a normal suit jacket. I like this look from the hips up – the pants are not great. But I like the boots.

The Santa Barbara International Film Festival always encourages would-be Oscar-campaigners to make the trek to shill their movies by the beach every awards season, usually in late January or early February. It will be the same next year, and Santa Barbara really wants Angelina to come out. So they’re giving her an award – the Maltin Modern Master Award, named after film critic Leonard Maltin. Maltin told Variety: “Angelina Jolie makes bold choices, both as an actress and as a director. She sets the bar high in both disciplines and always comes through. I look forward to reviewing her career with her in Santa Barbara!” That should be really nice.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

Vittoria Ceretti has a sticker of her boyfriend Leo DiCaprio’s face on her phone. [Just Jared]
Liam Payne’s cause of death revealed. [Socialite Life]
Jude Law & Nicholas Hoult star in The Order. [LaineyGossip]
Review of Luca Guadagnino’s Queer. [Pajiba]
Will Cate Blanchett wear any of these looks? [Go Fug Yourself]
Rotting, carved pumpkins are so much scarier. [OMG Blog]
Nicki Minaj attended a Vogue event. [RCFA]
The songwriter behind Rihanna’s “SOS” describes how he came up with those lyrics (no one realized any of this before). [Seriously OMG]
Joy-Anna Duggar drops some Duggar family bombshells. [Starcasm]
Did y’all see the supermoon last night? [Hollywood Life]
The scariest TV episodes ever? [Buzzfeed]

Vittoria Ceretti has adorable throwback picture of boyfriend Leonardo DiCaprio on her phone case https://t.co/dp8nRJYjsj pic.twitter.com/bAKs8w4Hjp

— Page Six (@PageSix) October 16, 2024

Richard Eden’s big, blaring exclusive this week in the Daily Mail was the juicy gossip that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have possibly purchased a second home in Portugal. While I enjoy the real estate adventures of the rich and famous as much as anyone, I failed to see how this news was some big f–king deal to the British press, or why the left-behinds would even care that much. Harry and Meghan have two young children who go to school/nursery school – they might enjoy some vacations in Europe in the years to come, and if that happens, it’s entirely their business and that’s all it will be, family vacays. Wealthy American and her expat husband vacation in sun-soaked Portugal, news at seven. But Eden is trying to do the most with his “exclusive.” Now he’s crying about this: “Why I believe Harry and Meghan’s new Portuguese home means we may NEVER see her in Britain again.” LMAO!!!

When she left Britain in 2020, the Duchess of Sussex welled up during a ‘bittersweet’ farewell to royal staff. My colleague Bryony Gordon, who was with Meghan and Prince Harry that day, said the former actress appeared to be ‘quietly devastated’ and had tears in her eyes at her last private function at Buckingham Palace.

At the time, I wondered if we would ever see Meghan again in this country. Now, it would appear that she has found a way of keeping a foothold in Europe without actually having to set foot in Britain, where she is becoming increasingly disliked with every bitter utterance she makes against the Royal Family.

As I revealed in today’s Daily Mail, the Duke and Duchess have bought a property on the coast in Portugal. The purchase may have allowed the couple to acquire a so-called Golden Visa, under which they would have visa-free access to the European Union’s Schengen area.

This could have been a major attraction to Meghan, who is a US citizen, where the property is concerned. When the couple got engaged in November 2017, Kensington Palace said Meghan would apply for British citizenship in due course, with a spokesman confirming that ‘she will go through the process [which] takes a number of years’. However, she eventually abandoned her bid to become a British citizen after she and her husband left the country in March 2020, less than two years after their wedding.

Acquiring a Golden Visa would help Meghan as she and her husband develop their plans to become the ‘rival royals’ across the water, enabling them to travel easily through European countries. We have already seen them undertake ‘quasi royal’ tours of Nigeria and Colombia, with more overseas trips planned. And it may be that Harry’s cousin Princess Eugenie and her husband, Jack Brooksbank, who also own a Portuguese property, join their rival-royal court. The Brooksbanks live in the CostaTerra Golf and Ocean Club, a luxury development of 300 properties by the sea in Melides, south of the Portuguese capital, Lisbon.

[From The Daily Mail]

Eden is desperately trying to set up this narrative (please follow along as I translate royalist fan-fic to American English): Meghan was incredibly sad to be forced out of the UK against her will and she’s been desperate to come back to the UK for years, but she’s so deeply unpopular in the UK, so she’s decided to punish all of Britain by buying a home in Portugal and setting up a rival court and forcing the British media to cover her every move, moves which include weekly tantrums about the Windsors. End translation. It never occurred to Eden that Meghan and Harry are perhaps just… supporting Eugenie and Jack, and want to have a place close to Harry’s beloved cousin. That perhaps none of this is about royal and political machinations or the British establishment’s desperation to control the Sussexes?

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instar, Backgrid.

King Charles and Queen Camilla touched down in Sydney, Australia a short time ago, and the photos in this post are from the official greeting on the tarmac. As I mentioned earlier this week, Charles’s first royal tour, as king, of one of his “realms” has become international news. Charles and Camilla were actually aiming for a quieter visit, but it’s become politically fraught. If Charles or Camilla misspeak or stumble in any way, it will be a huge conversation. The Washington Post dipped into covering the tour too, with this piece: “For Charles’s first visit as king, Australians are royally unimpressed.” Ouch.

When King Charles III arrives in Australia on Friday, he’ll receive rock star treatment — just not in the way he might have hoped. Instead of drawing the massive crowds that often awaited his mother, Charles’s first trip here as monarch is likely to be a mellower affair. The king will meet with Australia’s prime minister, review its naval fleet and greet supporters outside the Opera House.

But many state leaders are staying home. And perhaps the liveliest reception will be from members of Australia’s republican movement, who are selling sarcastic “Monarchy: The Farewell Oz Tour” T-shirts, as if the royals were an aging band on the brink of retirement.

“It’s very strange,” said Dennis Altman, a sociologist at La Trobe University in Melbourne who has studied the monarchy. “Here is a man who theoretically is our head of state coming to Australia two years after he came to the throne, but there is less interest and enthusiasm than I can remember for any previous royal tour.”

But his visit also comes at a quiet time in Australia’s decades-long debate over whether to become a republic. Rarely has the issue seemed further from people’s minds since the failure of a constitutional referendum in 1999, when 54.9 percent voted against replacing the queen with an Australian president as head of state. As a result, both avid monarchists and zealous republicans are hoping to use the trip to drum up enthusiasm, even though most Australians — more worried about the cost of living or the U.S. presidential election — may simply shrug.

“There is almost a complacency,” said Michelle Arrow, a historian at Macquarie University in Sydney. “It’s like, yeah, we’re a monarchy but it seems okay, we haven’t had any coups, we’re a pretty stable democracy.”

The crown may not crave complacency, but it might welcome it at this point. When Queen Elizabeth II died two years ago, there were fears that the coronation of her less popular son would cause Commonwealth realms to scrap him as head of state. That hasn’t happened.

[From WaPo]

“Here is a man who theoretically is our head of state” lmao – I mean, at every technical level, Charles IS the head of state in Australia. He is “king of Australia.” Which is why it was so weird last year when Prince William, the “future king of Australia,” refused to travel to his future realm out of laziness. It’s also weird – and I will keep bringing this up! – that Charles decided to jettison long-standing plans for his first year on the throne. He was supposed to visit most, if not ALL, of the British realms soon after he became king. He did not. Anyway, I have no idea how this tour will go, but the international press is definitely paying attention.

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Getty.