Jessica Simpson speaks out about her separation from Eric Johnson, says that Eric is “still very much a part of my life and will always be.” [JustJared]
Patrick Schwarzenegger’s unsettling vibe on The White Lotus. [LaineyGossip]
Marion Cotillard’s Chanel looks in Berlin. [RCFA]
LMAO, conservative women are coming for Megyn Kelly’s neck. [Jezebel]
Trendspotting: female characters eschewing assimilation. [Pajiba]
Did Demi Lovato get some work done? [OMG Blog]
Another day, another douche weaponizing his incompetence. [Buzzfeed]
The White Collar reboot is being shopped to networks. [Socialite Life]
More photos of Mindy Kaling & BJ Novak. [Hollywood Life]
Sean Hayes has a funny Broadway story. [Seriously OMG]

In retrospect, Prince William and Kate’s 2022 Caribbean Flop Tour really changed everything. That was the beginning of the end in some ways – they flopped so hard and looked like tone-deaf racist a–holes on the world stage, and there was no coming back from it. For Kate especially – she never wants to be in that position again. Since that tour, Kate has only done a couple of international “work trips” and they’ve been heavily stage-managed, like the trip to Boston in 2022 and the trip to Jordan for a royal wedding in 2023. Beyond that, Kate now refuses to go on international tours and she also refuses to attend William’s Earthshot Awards busywork. Kate’s health issues have provided a brand new cover for this refusal, but it started back in 2022. The excuses are wearing thin though, especially given Kate’s two consecutive international vacations (a ski holiday in the Alps and her current vacation in Mustique). Anyway, they’ve added a new “reason” why Kate can’t travel for work: it stresses her out, okay?

Princess Kate has been tipped to avoid a royal tour with Prince William due to “extreme stress”, according to a royal commentator, despite the Prince and Princess of Wales travelling abroad with their family.

The family are reportedly spending the half term in the Caribbean with Kate’s mother, Carole Middleton.

Royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams exclusively told GB News that Kate is unlikely to plan a royal tour while she recovers from cancer.

He said: “A tour abroad would be so tremendously stressful for her with the knowledge the world is watching.”

[From GB News]

“With the knowledge the world is watching” – yeah, the world watched her colonialist cosplay in Jamaica as she greeted kids through a barbed wire fence. Instead of just figuring out a way to do tours without all of the racism and colonialism, Kate’s just like “nope, it’s too stressful!” It’s such an idiotic excuse too – this is supposed to be the future queen consort, and she’s too stressed out by the idea of a royal tour to a country like Italy or Canada? Jeez. Anyway, yeah, all of this falls flat given William and Kate’s International Vacation Schedule. If Kate can make the journey to Mustique, she can absolutely do a little mini-tour to some European country.

Top 8 stories about the disastrous royal Caribbean tour

Kate and William dressed up in colonial cosplay and got fired on camera! Get the top 8 stories about the disastrous royal Caribbean tour when you sign up for our mailing list. I send one email a day on weekdays.

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Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images, Instar.

Last year, the Daily Mail’s Richard Eden wanted credit for ruining the Duchess of Sussex’s American Riviera Orchard launch. Because the Mail tries to stalk every move the Sussexes make, they had gotten wind of some trademark application or something involving ARO. Before Eden could spoil it, Meghan went ahead and announced ARO and sent out some ARO-branded jam to her friends. Nothing was ever put on sale, and it was clear (to me) that the original intention was for Meghan to launch her brand concurrently when the Netflix show aired (she was filming it at the time). Now that the show will come out in a few weeks, Meghan is clearly readying her brand. Internet sleuths/stalkers discovered the trail of As Ever over the weekend, and so Meghan once again came out and announced it before the Derangers “ruined” the story.

So, it’s clear that there are a lot of moving parts – because of the trademark filings and legal issues involved with a brand launch, Meghan can’t move like a shark, which is her preference. She has a lot of people watching her every move and there is literally a huge Meghan-hate industry built on trying to disrupt her life, her family and her business. She has to do some things out of PR concerns, but then it ends up making her look sort of half-assed, because she had to announce something unfinished or still in the planning stages. All of which to say, Eden has a new column in which “palace sources” are bashing her for trying to get ahead of the British media’s obsession with everything she does. Some highlights from Eden’s column:

The ARO backstory: In March last year, I contacted the Duchess of Sussex to inform her I had obtained the name of the lifestyle company she was then planning to launch, American Riviera Orchard. As part of our Code of Practice, journalists in Britain are expected to take care over the accuracy of our stories, which often means we notify the subjects of our articles before publication. This gives them the opportunity to comment and to contest anything they feel is inaccurate. Meghan failed to respond. Instead, she posted a video on a new Instagram account the following day, launching the new brand and confirming its name: American Riviera Orchard.

ARO never launched! Yet despite the heady excitement of those early days, the company has still to sell a single product. And yesterday, almost a year after its launch, Meghan took to Instagram again to announce that American Riviera Orchard was no more.

Meghan’s dig at the Windsors: Typically, Meghan justified the new name, As Ever, with what some have seen as a subtle dig at the Royal Family. King Charles’s daughter-in-law said she had not been able to share her passion for food and home for ‘years’, after she shut her lifestyle blog ‘The Tig’ in 2017. She married Prince Harry the following year.

Royal officials are following Meghan’s moves: This week’s embarrassing U-turn over the duchess’s hastily named lifestyle brand has come as little surprise to some of the royal officials who had to work with her after she became engaged to Harry in 2017. One told me this week: ‘This is further evidence of what we’ve seen time and again with Meghan. She doesn’t like to take advice. I’m sure she would have been advised that it was better not to launch her company until everything had been thought through carefully.’ The source added: ‘Meghan was offered so much advice and support after she moved to Britain, including from the late Queen, but most of it she ignored.’

The Sussexes should have stayed in the UK! When Harry and Meghan were still working royals, they were surrounded by a talented and experienced group of courtiers who could always be blamed if things didn’t turn out to the couple’s liking. And that’s exactly what Harry went on to do in his reproachful memoir, Spare. But now the Sussexes are on their own and will have to own their mistakes, however embarrassing.

[From The Daily Mail]

This is very funny: “They were surrounded by a talented and experienced group of courtiers who could always be blamed if things didn’t turn out to the couple’s liking.” Remember the Mother’s Day frankenphoto fiasco last year? Remember how Prince William AND THE COURTIERS made Kate take the blame for it publicly, then the courtiers patted themselves on the back and leaked to the Times that they had a really rough week, making “a princess with cancer” take the blame for a manipulated frankenphoto which caused a global photo agency kill order. The courtiers tossed their favorite white princess right under the wheels of the bus, what do you think those people would have been doing to Meghan this whole time?

As for the royal official sniffing about Meghan refusing to take advice… as I said, there are so many moving parts, and the whole situation is exacerbated by the huge, monetized industry of hate towards Meghan. I get Meghan’s calculations here and why she’s announced certain things in certain ways.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

In December, Donald Trump went to France for the big reopening of Notre Dame. President Macron hosted a bunch of smaller meetings around the reopening, and one of those meetings was a photocall between himself, Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy and Trump. It was Macron’s attempt to reset Trump’s diplomatic agenda for the war between Ukraine and Russia, a war which started when Russia invaded Ukraine around this time in 2022. Everyone in Europe knows that Trump is a Russian asset (more like Putin’s useful idiot) and that Trump is openly hostile to all of Putin’s enemies. We’ve known that for years, and it came up again in the 2024 election. Millions of Americans understood that if Trump got back into office, he would do everything he could to harm Ukraine and/or hand the country over to Russia. Trump has been in office for one month, and that’s exactly what he’s doing now.

The simmering feud between President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and President Trump escalated on Wednesday when Mr. Trump mocked his counterpart in a post filled with falsehoods, calling him a “dictator without elections.”

His comments came hours after Mr. Zelensky said the American leader had been “caught in a web of disinformation” from Russia over the war in Ukraine.

The pointed exchange was set off by a meeting of American and Russian officials to open talks on ending the war in Ukraine that excluded the Ukrainian government. After that meeting in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, Mr. Trump suggested that Ukraine had started the war, a comment that brought a strong rebuttal from Mr. Zelensky on Wednesday morning.

“I would like to have more truth with the Trump team,” Mr. Zelensky said in some of the most overt criticism yet of Mr. Trump and his view of the war in Ukraine. Mr. Zelensky, summoning reporters to his presidential office in Kyiv, a building still fortified with sandbags, said that the U.S. president was living in a “web of disinformation.”

In a post on his Truth Social account, Mr. Trump responded with a scathing attack on Mr. Zelensky.

“Think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start, but a War that he, without the U.S. and “TRUMP,” will never be able to settle,” Mr. Trump wrote.

As he did in making his assertions a day earlier, he misrepresented verifiable facts. The United States, for instance, has allocated $119 billion for aid to Ukraine, according to a research organization in Germany, the Kiel Institute, not $350 billion.

Mr. Trump also suggested that future security of Ukraine would not be an American problem. “This War is far more important to Europe than it is to us,” he wrote. “We have a big, beautiful Ocean as separation.”

[From The NY Times]

European leaders and diplomats have been holding panicked meetings for the past week, because America’s abusive alcoholic Defense Secretary gave a lil’ preview of America’s new messaging on Ukraine last week. Macron has known what’s coming down the pike, and I believe many of Ukraine’s EU allies have known too. It’s going to be catastrophic for the Ukrainian people and President Zelenskyy. I f–king hate all of the people who decided that THIS was going to be America’s foreign policy priority.

Something else happened on Wednesday – Trump posted this to the official White House account. I would make a joke here but I’m too depressed.

“CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!”
–President Donald J. Trump pic.twitter.com/IMr4tq0sMB

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) February 19, 2025

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

I honestly try not to pay attention to Barron Trump. Back when he was a minor, I kind of felt bad for him, being the youngest person in that f–ked up family. It also felt like Melania kept him hidden away, perhaps for a reason. Well, Barron is now a legal adult and he’s a freshman at NYU. He’s left the nest, but he and his mother are still very close, and I would assume that they still spend a lot of time together. I’ve seen random stories about “sightings of Barron in New York,” but I don’t really get why anyone is keeping track of him. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure he’s a sh-thead (apple doesn’t fall far) but there are so many other things to worry about, Barron doesn’t even make the top hundred. Well, other outlets have been running stories about “what’s Barron’s college life like” and those outlets have even spoken to some of Barron’s classmates. Long story short, the president of NYU’s College Republicans had to resign because she called Barron an “oddity on campus.”

Kaya Walker, the president of NYU’s College Republicans, was forced to resign after calling Barron Trump an “oddity on campus.” Walker’s resignation letter to the New York Federation of College Republicans was shared by NYU’s College Republicans in a post on X on Tuesday, Feb. 18. The resignation occurred days after Vanity Fair published an article that examined the college life of President Donald Trump’s 18-year-old son.

“He’s sort of like an oddity on campus,” Walker told the outlet in a story about Barron published on Wednesday, Feb. 12. “He goes to class, he goes home.”

She claimed in her resignation letter that her comments were “ridiculously misconstrued to suggest that I found Barron Trump’s commuter status to be unusual when in reality the majority of NYU’s student body-including myself-are commuters.”

According to Walker, her complete statement to Vanity Fair showed her “disappointment in the spectacle that the media and individuals on campus have created through the online circulation of gossip, articles, memes and even photos taken of Barron in class with no respect whatsoever for his privacy.” Walker noted that she is not an acquaintance of Barron and has never seen him on campus. She said the “oddity” she spoke about was the “unhealthy fascination that people have with a teenager just minding his business by going to college.”

College Republicans of America, however, noted in a press release that Walker’s statement to Vanity Fair “does not align with the values and principles upheld by our organization.” They said that although what Walker said was “unfairly framed,” a review of her comments found them to be “inappropriate.”

[From People]

“Unhealthy fascination that people have with a teenager just minding his business by going to college.” I kind of agree with this and that’s why I’ve continued to avoid talking about Barron. That’s probably why this young woman should have kept her mouth shut too? Like… if you want people to leave Barron alone, you probably shouldn’t speak on the record to Vanity Fair? This controversy did make me skim the VF article though – it’s mostly complimentary towards Barron, positioning him as the true MAGA heir and a rare teenager who doesn’t live his life online or on social media. Apparently, he’s really into the “manosphere” and the whole toxic-bro culture though. As I said, I have no doubt that he’s a total sh-thead.

This is Kaya’s resignation letter to the @NYFCRs chairman

Kaya is a lovely person and has been our fearless leader for years now. It was not members from our chapter who forced her to resign. We will carry on in our work despite the difficult position we have been put in. pic.twitter.com/LIjHkbzH5x

— NYU College Republicans (@nyurepublicans) February 18, 2025

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Backgrid.

Oscar presenters will include Lily-Rose Depp, Selena Gomez, Joe Alwyn, Sterling K. Brown, Willem Dafoe, Ana de Armas, Goldie Hawn, Connie Nielsen, Ben Stiller and Oprah Winfrey. How many are doing it for the presenters’ swag bag? [Just Jared]
Chloe Sevigny wore Saint Laurent in Berlin. [RCFA]
Nicholas Galitzine beefed up for He-Man. [OMG Blog]
Robert Pattinson looked good in Berlin. [LaineyGossip]
Margaret Cho has a new song? [Socialite Life]
Is a “Bond villain” trying to buy the James Bond franchise? [Pajiba]
Toni Collette is to CB what Laura Dern is to me. [Go Fug Yourself]
Paris Hilton’s son said his first bad word. [Seriously OMG]
Southern Charm star documents his ayahuasca trip. [Starcasm]
Pope Francis was hospitalized this month. [Hollywood Life]
Funny tweets from the past week. [Buzzfeed]

The 2025 Invictus Games are over. They were the first “winter games” in Invictus’s history, but I noticed that Invictus still did several of their usual adaptive sports, like swimming, basketball, rugby and volleyball. They basically just added all of the winter sports to an already packed Invictus games. Well, the next games are more than two years away – the Invictus Games in Birmingham will be held in July 2027. Prince Harry likes to do a “one year to go” appearance in the host cities too, meaning that he’ll likely be in Birmingham, possibly with Meghan, in July 2026. Instead of focusing on that, the next big “will Harry and Meghan come back to England and WHEN” story, we’re getting this: King Charles is mad about Harry scheduling the Invictus games in 2027, because of Camilla’s 80th birthday.

Prince Harry further irks his father with the timing of his next Invictus Games in Birmingham in July 2027. It coincides with Charles’s lavish celebrations for Queen Camilla’s 80th birthday.

The King is planning to pull out all the stops for his Queen, with events centring on a thanksgiving service at St George’s Chapel in Windsor.

The arrival of Harry’s bandwagon at the same time will be an unwelcome distraction. However, he is unlikely to lose sleep, given his fractious relationship with his stepmother.

[From The Daily Mail]

First of all, Charles scheduled his whole-ass coronation on his grandson Archie’s birthday, because that’s how petty and jealous Charles is. Charles really forced Harry to “choose.” And now Charles is mad because Camilla’s 80th falls on July 17, 2027? I mean, it’s pretty bold to assume that Charles and Camilla will both be around in two-and-a-half years, or well enough to beef with Harry over some scheduling BS. Anyway… it’s still pretty f–king remarkable that Charles, the head of Britain’s armed forces, could not be bothered to acknowledge British veterans or Invictus competitors for the past three Invictus games. Absolute radio silence about Team GB, and yet Charles is mad two years in advance because Harry might steal Camilla’s 80th birthday thunder. LMAO, these people.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

Yesterday morning, when I was looking through the articles about the Duchess of Sussex’s product line rebrand from American Riviera Orchard to As Ever, I noticed that there was already a New York clothing label called As Ever, or asevernyc.com. That site still comes up on the first page if you just Google “As Ever” and don’t include Meghan’s name. I kind of wonder if Meghan might have to make an adjustment and call her brand “As Ever, Meghan.” In any case, the guy who owns As Ever NYC said/wrote words:

A small clothing company called As Ever has addressed Meghan Markle’s decision to use the same name for her lifestyle brand. The Duchess of Sussex, 43, announced that she has renamed her lifestyle brand, American Riviera Orchard, to As Ever in a video posted to her Instagram account on Monday, February 17.

However, the name As Ever also belongs to a vintage clothing company based in New York and New Jersey founded in 2017.

“Wow and hello,” the company’s founder, Mark Kolski, began a statement shared via Instagram on Tuesday, February 18, after Meghan’s announcement.

“I want to say thank you to all the old friends who know and love our small family brand As Ever, and also say hi to all those that have just become aware we exist. In the last 36 hours there has been an outpouring of support and concern regarding recent events around our namesake brand,” the statement said. “We are aware. We are not affiliated.”

Kolski said the brand’s journey began in 2015 when he reworked vintage military attire into signature tanker pants for his wife. The company officially launched in 2017.

“It’s 2025. We are grateful to still be here making clothing in New York & New Jersey. We are grateful for all the customers coast to coast and worldwide that have supported our venture. We will continue As Ever,” the statement concluded.

Us Weekly has reached out to Kolski for further comment, as well as representatives for the Duchess of Sussex. Kolski’s brand uses the Instagram handle @asevernyc and has 10,600 followers on the platform at the time of writing on Wednesday, February 19. Meghan’s brand, using the handle @aseverofficial, has 640,000 followers at the time of writing.

In addition to the statement, Kolski’s brand also reshared messages of support from customers on its Instagram Stories. One person wrote: “Just a royally scandalous, run-of-the-mill Tuesday. @asevernyc forever.”

[From Us Weekly]

Yeah, I don’t know what to say. CB did a trademark search and found Meghan’s 2024 trademark application for As Ever for a wide variety of items. CB also couldn’t find a trademark or trademark application for this clothing label either. (There’s an Asever trademark for clothing, filed in 2020, but that company is in China.) I have no idea what’s next if the clothing company doesn’t have a trademark? I don’t really care either? Like… Meghan is partnered with Netflix on this brand. Netflix has lawyers, Archewell has lawyers, they’ll figure it out.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by @aseverofficial

Photos courtesy of Instagram, Cover Images.

BAFTA president Prince William skipped last Sunday’s BAFTAs. He skipped because he and his family flew to Mustique for a luxurious vacation, and apparently they couldn’t fly to Mustique AFTER the BAFTAs. The fact that the vacation was announced by the Mail ahead of the BAFTAs was fascinating to me, because the British media rarely calls out William and Kate for their disappearing acts and extensive vacation schedules. It’s also interesting that the British press keeps talking about it too – they’re publishing stories about how Will and Kate are likely staying in a ritzy rental villa at exorbitant cost, and they’re running stories about Mustique itself and the vibe on the private island. The Times of London published a first-hand account of what the island is really like for the elite. Some highlights:

How Mustique started: Colin Tennant, who would later become the 3rd Baron Glenconner, purchased the island in 1958 — the thinking being that it would be cheaper to fly out here in the winter than heat his Scottish stately home. His best idea was to give a four-acre plot to Princess Margaret as a wedding present in 1960 — Glenconner’s wife, Anne, was one of Margaret’s ladies-in-waiting. The princess completed her villa, Les Jolies Eaux, in 1973 and was a frequent visitor, often with her lover Roddy Llewellyn, spending her days bobbing in the lush turquoise foams of Gelliceaux Bay and her evenings holding court at Basil’s Bar.

The royal vibe in Mustique: Princess Margaret once claimed that Mustique was “the only place I can relax”. There were no pressures, no paparazzi, just other wealthy and famous homeowners — Mick Jagger, David Bowie, various South American potentates — and their guests. Everyone knew everyone, parties were had, privacy was respected, and a sort of sunburnt English gentility presided. Queen Elizabeth herself visited in 1966, while on a tour of the West Indies. The place remains a home away from home for the royals, although Princess Margaret’s son, David Linley, sold Les Jolies Eaux in 1999. Prince George celebrated his sixth birthday here in 2019, and Prince Harry, in his twenties, apparently once wandered into the wrong house for a dinner party, but was nonetheless treated to nibbles and an aperitif, such is the vibe — laid-back while also being reassuringly exclusive.

No traffic lights? Still, there is something a bit special about the place. It’s fancy while also being eccentric, like a mad posh granny. The island’s airstrip can only accommodate small propeller planes, there are no ATMs and no traffic lights. Most guests bop around the island in golf buggies and pretty much everyone you pass will say hello. Every Tuesday night there is an open evening at Cotton House, the central clubhouse that was Tennant’s first building project in 1968, when he commissioned the theatre designer Oliver Messel to convert a cotton warehouse into a glamorous location for stiff gin and tonics and games of backgammon.

Day drinking & no bills: During the day the social hub is the Beach Café and bar in Endeavour Bay. No money ever changes hands, everything is signed for and settled at the end of the trip. The villas all have their own chefs, but owners still come to the Beach Café for lunch (prawn tempura, hamburgers, pizza).

No private beaches: There are no high-security fences here and no private beaches, so some low-level snooping can be done. Which is perhaps why Jagger has built two rather forbidding stone “groins” (no pun) on either side of the portion of beach in front of his home. While in theory these are to prevent further erosion of the northerly L’Ansecoy Bay, which is now so worn away it is barely walkable — even the beaches of billionaires are subject to the ravages of climate change.

The one nightspot: The only real nightspot is the aforementioned Basil’s, a glorified seafront shack where bands perform and DJs play party tunes while guests enjoy tacos and tequila. On the night we went there was quite an odd mix. It was a bit like an uneasy transatlantic wedding. Posh middle-aged women, cheeks pink from a day of sunshine and champagne, were bopping about to Sade on the dancefloor, entirely unselfconscious, barefooted and with hair unbrushed.

The Americans: And then the Americans arrived. A group of about eight of them, immaculate in matching flowing white garments, like something from a D:Ream video. They surveyed the scene, the shoddy British orthodontics and the Boden leisurewear, the people just having fun and not really caring what they looked like, and they left. Because, you see, these days there are far ritzier resorts than Mustique for the super-rich. But nonetheless it is a beautiful destination that has not been overdeveloped, with a compelling history of dressed-down decadence.

Why the Waleses went to Mustique: The Waleses have had an incredibly tough time and Mustique is a familiar feelgood escape when life has become a bit too much — I went just before I had to put my mum in a care home in South Croydon. And if someone gave me the option, a night at the Baftas or a week on Mustique, I would be on that propeller plane in a flash.

[From The Times]

“If someone gave me the option, a night at the Baftas or a week on Mustique, I would be on that propeller plane in a flash.” Again, it’s not either-or?? William could have attended the BAFTAs and hopped on a plane later that night? He would have only missed a couple of days of “vacation.” Plus he would have avoided traveling with HIS heirs, which is what is supposed to happen anyway, William and George should not travel on the same plane anymore. As for this summary of Mustique’s vibe… it feels like people are paying an exorbitant amount of money to shuffle around a private island and day-drink with the same people you party with in London? That’s the English for you.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instar.

Several tabloids called emergency sessions to deal with the Duchess of Sussex’s big As Ever announcement. Those same tabloids have spent the past year squealing about “American Riviera Orchard” and trademarks and “flop launches,” as if they could just mak Meghan’s brand fail through the power of their sheer hatred. As it turns out, ARO was a decoy and As Ever will launch in the next month, probably. It’s a relief, because I was genuinely worried that Meghan’s brand would never get launched. In any case, those tabloid emergency sessions have resulted in a new “thing.” Apparently, there’s a “problem” with As Ever’s logo, which features a palm tree and two hummingbirds. First, here’s how People Mag explained the significance:

Meghan Markle’s refreshed lifestyle brand has a logo with a meaningful symbol. On Feb. 18, the Duchess of Sussex announced that she was rebranding her lifestyle venture previously known as American Riviera Orchard to As Ever and dropped a coordinating crest on its new website. The elegant graphic in a square shape shows a palm tree flanked by two hummingbirds and is featured prominently at the top of the As Ever page, which features a new picture of Meghan and her daughter Princess Lilibet.

The logo’s palm tree is symbolic of Santa Barbara, where Meghan and Prince Harry call home with their kids Prince Archie, 5, and Princess Lilibet, 3. Meanwhile, hummingbirds hold a special significance in the Duke of Sussex’s memoir, Spare.

At the end of the book, published in January 2023, Prince Harry reflected on a visit from a hummingbird to his Montecito home after the death of his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, noting how the bird is interpreted as a symbol of spirits in some cultures.

“Soon after our return, a hummingbird got into the house,” Harry wrote in Spare. “I had a devil of a time guiding it out, and the thought occurred that maybe we should start shutting the doors, despite those heavenly ocean breezes. Then a mate said: Could be a sign, you know? … Visitors, as it were. Aztecs thought them reincarnated warriors. Spanish explorers called them ‘resurrection birds.’”

Harry wrote in Spare that “naturally” when the hummingbird emerged and flew around the kitchen, soaring over “the sacred airspace we call Lili Land, where we’ve set the baby’s playpen with all her toys and stuffed animals, I thought hopefully, greedily, foolishly: Is our house a detour — or a destination?”

[From People]

Something I learned about Harry from Spare is that he seems especially in tune with nature and animals, and he often uses nature and animals for quasi-religious guidance. The hummingbirds absolutely feel like Meghan adopting something from Harry’s interests and mindset, because he is a dedicated bird watcher. There was that infamous moment in their Netflix series where Harry is super-excited about the hummingbirds coming to the feeders on their patio, and Archie DGAF. Archie was more concerned about blaming his mama for his dirty foot (“I got a dirty foot, mama, because I was with you”).

Now for the dumbass controversy. Someone paid a Spanish politician to make some noise about how Meghan “plagiarized” the logo from the coat of arms from the Mallorcan town, Porreres. The Porreres coat of arms IS similar – it features a centered palm tree with two birds on either side, but the coat of arms is in black, green and brown. Porreres’ mayor Xisca Mora is “studying the case with the legal services of the Consistory to see what course of action should be taken from the municipal level.” Deep sigh… I don’t mean any disrespect, but the two images are not identical and this is one of the dumbest controversies anyone has ever cooked up.

Photos courtesy of As Ever site, Meghan’s IG, Avalon Red.