Here on the East Coast, the ESPYs were delayed because President Biden gave a press conference adjacent to the NATO Summit he’s currently hosting here in America. As everyone knows by now, the national media has been throwing a complete fit about President Biden since his poor performance at the debate two weeks ago. Since the debate, Pres. Biden has been on the campaign trail, delivering speeches and meeting with voters. The entire time President Biden has been incredibly visible, his opponent has been sitting in Mar-a-Lago doing nothing. Biden’s also hosting the NATO summit this week with all of America’s closest allies, allies who want no part of another Trump administration. Last night’s press conference was yet another attempt by the Biden administration and the Biden reelection campaign to simply put an end to the past two weeks of hysteria. Did it work?

Biden made some flubs – he has a speech impediment and he’s been a gaffe machine throughout his decades-long political career – and he called VP Harris “Vice President Trump” at one point. But he also gave detailed, substantive answers on Chinese trade policy, gun policy, Ukraine, NATO alliances and more. At no point did he go off on a tangent about electrocuting sharks. My take: he’s an old man, he moves a bit slower, but he’s not senile. He’s got institutional wisdom and he’s still a sharp policy wonk. Critics are like “is he capable of doing the job??” But he’s actively doing the job. Right now. And he’s doing it well.

Since all of this sh-t is going down concurrently with the NATO summit, world leaders have been asked about their interactions with President Biden and they’re all backing him and wondering what the hell America is doing right now.

It would be really cool if the media people now DEMANDED that Trump go do an hour long off the cuff press conference covering complex foreign policy, since, you know, they’re so interested in who would be the best President and all.

— Mikel Jollett (@Mikel_Jollett) July 12, 2024

Joe Biden’s gaffe could have been worse, he could have said, “I’ve known Jeff Epstein for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

That’s worse right?

— Alex Cole (@acnewsitics) July 11, 2024

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

Embed from Getty Images

ESPN announced, two weeks ago, that Prince Harry would receive the Pat Tillman Award for Service at the ESPYs. The “backlash” came quickly. That dumbass Pat McAfee, an ESPN bro, made asinine comments about Harry within a day, then the Daily Mail published exclusive comments from Pat Tillman’s mother Mary Tillman, where she expressed her shock and dismay that the award was being given to someone so “divisive.” The British media has spent this entire time screaming and crying about how Harry should refuse the award and how he and Meghan are loathed by Americans.

What’s crazy about all of that is that the endgame was entirely predictable. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex turned up to the ESPYs last night, looking amazing. ESPN put together a fantastic video package, and four previous Pat Tillman Award recipients (all of them veterans like Harry) came out to take part in the award presentation. Harry got several standing ovations and he made an incredibly moving and gracious speech. All of this was entirely predictable, as I said – the British media and some of the American media threw a huge tantrum for two weeks, only to see their arguments get blown up in ten minutes at an awards show airing on ABC.

Fashion notes: Meghan wore a slinky white Oscar de la Renta halter gown which looks so much like her wedding-reception dress (the reception look was by Stella McCartney). She looked amazing and she looked on with such pride for her husband.

Notably, in Prince Harry’s speech, he made special mention of Mary Tillman, the woman who most likely collected a check from the Mail to criticize a veteran. He also thanked Pat Tillman’s widow, Marie Tillman Shelton, who was in the audience: “I’d like to begin by expressing my deepest gratitude to everyone at the Pat Tillman Foundation, led by Marie Tillman Shenton, who I’m so honored is here tonight. I’d also like to acknowledge the Tillman family, especially Mrs. Mary Tillman, Pat’s mother. Her advocacy for Pat’s legacy is deeply personal and one that I respect. The bond between a mother and son is eternal and transcends even the greatest losses.” Class and grace. Checkmate.

Here’s the excellent video package ESPN put together:

Prince Harry is the recipient of the Pat Tillman Award for Service.

The Duke of Sussex founded The Invictus Games, an international platform that supports wounded, injured, and sick servicemen and women who are navigating both physical and invisible injuries. pic.twitter.com/M3F3Rmft4j

— ESPN (@espn) July 12, 2024

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Photos courtesy of Getty.

This post is just shameless smut so that I can drool over a hunk of a man. His Instagram is littered with thirst traps, whether it’s shots of him on set, lounging in bed, or enjoying something between his teeth. Simply put, I’m in love. What? No, I’m not talking about the six-foot chiseled actor. I’m talking about the four pound fur baby next to him. Forget Glen Powell, everyone (including yours truly) is smitten with his rescue dog Brisket! Glen adopted Brisket a year ago through the Labelle Foundation. Judging by their online posts, Brisket sure seemed to settle into being a set dog right away, as Glen brought him along to Oklahoma where he was filming Twisters last summer. And a star was born…

Do you remember a few years ago when we didn’t know that much about Glen Powell? Sure, we may have noticed him in 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick but it wasn’t really until 2023’s Anyone But You when we all decided he was our imaginary movie star boyfriend and he seemed like a really nice guy and then in 2023 we really knew he was a nice guy because he adopted an adorable tiny rescue dog that he named Brisket. Sure, Glen Powell is pretty cute and all but his dog is ridiculously cute.

And we aren’t the only ones who think so because tiny Brisket made a ton of friends on the set of the upcoming movie Twisters that stars, you guessed it, Glen Powell. Just check out these adorable pics! And if you linger on the last one, well, that’s just because umm… Brisket is too cute for words.

Powell posted the precious photos on his Instagram account on July 8 and wrote, “Shortly after being adopted, @hotbrisket joined the cast of “Twisters” and was quickly called “the Lassie of his generation.” Rumors are swirling of him leading a “Homeward Bound” reboot that would crown him as ‘Hollywood’s King of the Animal Kingdom.’

People on Instagram have absolutely zero chill when it comes to one photo in particular, and one person said, “Printing and hanging the last pic on my wall… because the dog is too cute, ya how.” Riiiiight. Another added, “I think Brisket was as shocked as we were in the last pic…I can’t tell. Glen, sweetie, can you post another pic similar to the last pic, with a better angle? It’s for research.” That seems legit. Someone else said, “It’s official. Half nekked thirst trap, and all this full-blooded female can see is THE BABY FLOOF! GP being upstage by the true GQ centerfold.” Haha! Some of us are just here for Brisket! And speaking of Brisket…

Powell adopted Brisket from the Labelle Foundation and posted in Brisket’s introduction snap, “It’s a ruff world out there, so I thought it was about time I hire a proper bodyguard…Meet BRISKET – 1.5 pounds of raw power. Thank you to @thelabellefoundation for all the incredible work you do to advocate for dogs and for making me a dad. I can’t wait to tackle all the adventures of life with this guy!”

[From Parade Pets]

I understand objectively that Glen Powell is attractive, I do. But personally, he’s a little too Abercrombie for my taste. In fairness to Glen, though, there really is nothing more attractive than someone who rescues a pup. It’s a scientific fact, however, that Brisket is a goddamn knockout. Hollywood may have decided that Glen Powell is the next big thing, but Brisket is gonna be the next TINY thing right by him every step of the way! You can follow the glamorous life of Brisket on his Insta, @hotbrisket (yes of course that’s his handle, he’s sexy and he knows it!) and live vicariously as he navigates his nascent stardom. To quote Peggy Lee in Lady and the Tramp: what a dog.

Photo note by Celebitchy: Glen brought Brisket to the Twister premiere last night! Daisy Edgar Jones wore Gucci.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Glen Powell (@glenpowell)

Photos credit: IMAGO/Jeffery Mayer / Avalon

Alexandra Daddario is pregnant! [Hollywood Life]
Congrats to John Mulaney, he had an “intimate wedding” in New York last weekend which was only attended by three other people. [JustJared]
Joe Alwyn talks about Kinds of Kindness. [Buzzfeed]
Zoe Kravitz explains why she changed the title of her film. [LaineyGossip]
Matthew McConaughey got stung by a bee (on his face). [Seriously OMG]
Jezebel is doing a “bad summer story” contest. [Jezebel]
My Lady Jane is the sleeper hit of the summer? [Pajiba]
Katy Perry really wants to be a pop star again. [Socialite Life]
Scarlett Johansson wore a terrible Erdem! [RCFA]
Oh, the “brat diet” is a real thing. [OMG Blog]

For months, if not years, the New York Times has been actively empowering Donald Trump and denigrating President Biden. This is the main thrust of the New York Times Pitchbot account, which mocks the NYT’s ability to spread negativity on every single thing President Biden does. In recent weeks, the NYT has been on a tear, reporting all manner of hysterical stories about Biden’s age. The Times is right in the center of whatever this operation is to kneecap Pres. Biden and VP Harris. But they want to be able to say “hey, we’re not completely anti-Biden!” So here it is, at long last, a New York Times editorial board piece called “Donald Trump is Unfit to Lead.” You can read the full piece here.

Next week, for the third time in eight years, Donald Trump will be nominated as the Republican Party’s candidate for president of the United States. A once great political party now serves the interests of one man, a man as demonstrably unsuited for the office of president as any to run in the long history of the Republic, a man whose values, temperament, ideas and language are directly opposed to so much of what has made this country great.

…Mr. Trump has shown a character unworthy of the responsibilities of the presidency. He has demonstrated an utter lack of respect for the Constitution, the rule of law and the American people. Instead of a cogent vision for the country’s future, Mr. Trump is animated by a thirst for political power: to use the levers of government to advance his interests, satisfy his impulses and exact retribution against those who he thinks have wronged him.

He is, quite simply, unfit to lead.

The Democrats are rightly engaged in their own debate about whether President Biden is the right person to carry the party’s nomination into the election, given widespread concerns among voters about his age-related fitness. This debate is so intense because of legitimate concerns that Mr. Trump may present a danger to the country, its strength, security and national character — and that a compelling Democratic alternative is the only thing that would prevent his return to power. It is a national tragedy that the Republicans have failed to have a similar debate about the manifest moral and temperamental unfitness of their standard-bearer, instead setting aside their longstanding values, closing ranks and choosing to overlook what those who worked most closely with the former president have described as his systematic dishonesty, corruption, cruelty and incompetence.

That task now falls to the American people. We urge voters to see the dangers of a second Trump term clearly and to reject it. The stakes and significance of the presidency demand a person who has essential qualities and values to earn our trust, and on each one, Donald Trump fails.

[From The NY Times]

“Given widespread concerns among voters about his age-related fitness…” This is untrue. Following the debate two weeks ago, most polls showed the debate didn’t change voters’ minds either way, and focus groups and voters interviewed all said that Trump came across as especially unhinged. The voters are not the ones leading this dumbf–k, shoot-ourselves-in-the-dick agenda. The media, a handful of billionaires and several disloyal Democrats are the ones coordinating the “age-related fitness” conversation. The voters already spoke in 2020 and in this year’s primaries.

As for what the Times writes about Trump… it’s too little too late. They could have done this after the man was convicted of 34 felony counts. They could have done this after he orchestrated an insurrection and tried to overthrow the government. They could have done this after E. Jean Carroll won her lawsuit, or when Trump was indicted for stealing classified documents. And on and on.

The only thing I keep coming back to is that it’s only July. I genuinely think most average Americans were not paying close attention to the past two weeks of trumped-up hysteria over Biden’s age, especially given that there was a long holiday weekend in there too. If this sh-t is still the conversation in September, we’re all in big trouble.

Covers courtesy of the New Yorker & Time. Photos courtesy of Backgrid & Cover Images.

Can we just stop for a moment and acknowledge the hilarity of Prince William doing some big homelessness project launch in July? He’s about to disappear for three full months of “summer vacation,” but before he disappears, he’s going to tell everyone about his “landmark” project to “end homelessness.” In case you missed the launch of Huevo’s Homewards project last year, he’s spent £3 million of Royal Foundation money and those funds are being parceled out to six homeless shelters/halfway houses. While the donations are fine, my concern was that William was basically adding extra layers of bureaucracy to the system rather than allowing homeless charities to simply administer the funds as needed. Homewards was criticized across the board though, for a variety of reasons, not least of which was William’s arrogant need to center himself as the sole savior of homeless people.

Well, continuing on that theme, William has now done a documentary in which people can see him centering himself in the issue of homelessness. The two-part documentary is called Prince William: We Can End Homelessness. It’s not supposed to come out until the fall, but William is well aware that his brother is about to pick up a major award tonight, so the crack team at Kensington Palace threw together a big speech for William to make today. KP sent out advanced copies of the speech to the British media, and here we go:

The Prince of Wales will say on Thursday that he “truly” believes homelessness can be “ended”, despite it blighting the lives of “far too many people”. Prince William is marking the first year of his project to solve homelessness, which will report its progress in building community links to make homelessness “rare, brief and unrepeated”.

He has recently hosted members of the public who have had “lived experience” of homelessness, inviting them to Windsor to hear more about what needs to be done to help.

At a speech due to be delivered at an event in Lambeth, south London, on Thursday morning, he will say: “Homelessness is a complex societal issue and one that touches the lives of far too many people in our society. However, I truly believe that it can be ended.”

He hopes to “demonstrate that it is possible to end homelessness,” he will add.

The Prince’s Homewards project is working in six UK locations, building a network between the public, private and third sectors to identify the root causes of different forms of homelessness and make progress towards eradicating it in five years. Matt Downie, CEO of homeless charity Crisis and a Homewards sector partner, said of the ethos: “The question isn’t what are our big problems and how can we wallow in them. The question is who can help?”

He added: “We are facing some really, really tough times. Homelessness is going up but actually, the evidence to end homelessness has never been better.”

[From The Telegraph]

They released a video, below, which is basically full of testimonials about how Homewards is the most groundbreaking thing ever. They’re also calling this the one-year anniversary of the five-year project… but they’re late. The one-year anniversary was in June. It’s weird that they held this “one year anniversary” keeery for the middle of July, because (as I said) William is about to disappear for three months. One thing I’ll give the film crew is that at least they didn’t lead it off by centering William. At least we’re hearing from the people on the ground, you know?

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

It’s been two weeks since the first presidential debate, where President Biden looked and sounded old and out of sorts. I absolutely believe he had a bad night. Donald Trump had a bad night too, but that was overshadowed by the past two weeks of hysterical meltdowns by the media and by some (but not all) Democrats and political commentators. From a strategic perspective, President Biden’s reelection campaign should have held emergency meetings, sent out talking points and made sure that high profile surrogates were all visible and acting in lockstep. I think the Biden campaign did some of that, but it wasn’t enough to stop what has become a two-week tornado of bullsh-t.

What has really bothered me throughout this ordeal is that it all boils down to two fundamental things: “we’re worried that Biden is too old/he might die” and “we don’t want Kamala Harris to be president.” Those two “concerns” are connected, because from where I sit, concerns about Biden’s age are already baked into his support. People are voting for the Biden/Harris ticket knowing that President Biden is old as hell, but that Kamala Harris is younger and capable if she needs to take over. In all of these conversations about “Joe Biden must step aside because he’s old,” why are all of these people acting like Vice President Harris doesn’t exist, or that everyone agrees she should be passed over, or that what they’re suggesting isn’t some logistical nightmare which would see Donald Trump crowning himself emperor of the Confederacy of Trumplandia? I bring this up because George Clooney has some thoughts, and he wrote down those thoughts in a NYT op-ed:

I’m a lifelong Democrat; I make no apologies for that. I’m proud of what my party represents and what it stands for. As part of my participation in the democratic process and in support of my chosen candidate, I have led some of the biggest fund-raisers in my party’s history…. Last month I co-hosted the single largest fund-raiser supporting any Democratic candidate ever, for President Biden’s re-election. I say all of this only to express how much I believe in this process and how profound I think this moment is.

I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him. Believe in his character. Believe in his morals. In the last four years, he’s won many of the battles he’s faced. But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can. It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe “big F-ing deal” Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.

Was he tired? Yes. A cold? Maybe. But our party leaders need to stop telling us that 51 million people didn’t see what we just saw. We’re all so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that we’ve opted to ignore every warning sign. The George Stephanopoulos interview only reinforced what we saw the week before. As Democrats, we collectively hold our breath or turn down the volume whenever we see the president, whom we respect, walk off Air Force One or walk back to a mic to answer an unscripted question.

Is it fair to point these things out? It has to be. This is about age. Nothing more. But also nothing that can be reversed. We are not going to win in November with this president. On top of that, we won’t win the House, and we’re going to lose the Senate. This isn’t only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and Congress member and governor who I’ve spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly.

…It is disingenuous, at best, to argue that Democrats have already spoken with their vote and therefore the nomination is settled and done, when we just received new and upsetting information. We all think Republicans should abandon their nominee now that he’s been convicted of 34 felonies. That’s new and upsetting information as well. Top Democrats — Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Nancy Pelosi — and senators, representatives and other candidates who face losing in November need to ask this president to voluntarily step aside.

All of the scary stories that we’re being told about what would happen next are simply not true. In all likelihood, the money in the Biden-Harris coffers could go to help elect the presidential ticket and other Democrats. The new nominee wouldn’t be left off ballots in Ohio. We Democrats have a very exciting bench. We don’t anoint leaders or fall sway to a cult of personality; we vote for a president. We can easily foresee a group of several strong Democrats stepping forward to stand and tell us why they’re best qualified to lead this country and take on some of the deeply concerning trends we’re seeing from the revenge tour that Donald Trump calls a presidential campaign.

Let’s hear from Wes Moore and Kamala Harris and Gretchen Whitmer and Gavin Newsom and Andy Beshear and J.B. Pritzker and others. Let’s agree that the candidates not attack one another but, in the short time we have, focus on what will make this country soar. Then we could go into the Democratic convention next month and figure it out.

Would it be messy? Yes. Democracy is messy. But would it enliven our party and wake up voters who, long before the June debate, had already checked out? It sure would. The short ramp to Election Day would be a benefit for us, not a danger. It would give us the chance to showcase the future without so much opposition research and negative campaigning that comes with these ridiculously long and expensive election seasons. This can be an exciting time for democracy, as we’ve just seen with the 200 or so French candidates who stepped aside and put their personal ambitions on hold to save their democracy from the far right.

Joe Biden is a hero; he saved democracy in 2020. We need him to do it again in 2024.

[From The NY Times]

George Clooney can f–k all the way off. Refer to Vice President Harris by her title, George. She earned it. 81.2 million Americans voted for the Biden/Harris ticket in 2020, and millions of Democrats have already cast their ballots in the 2024 primaries. President Joe Biden is the Democratic nominee and the sitting president and this coordinated Democratic bedwetting is unseemly. Especially since Trump has basically been sitting in his soiled diaper in Mar-a-Lago since the debate as every Republican supplicates themselves to their orange fascist god. Be for real.

The Biden camp clapped back:

Biden is fighting back on Clooney.

From a source familiar with event planning: “The President stayed for over 3 hours, while Clooney took a photo quickly and left.”

— Annie Karni (@anniekarni) July 10, 2024

I thought this was a good summary:

Let me be real clear: this same,
High-level coordination to push Biden out will then target Kamala Harris. What the Dems are doing now is dumb. They are spending more time on internal drama as opposed to focusing on Donald Trump. This is political malpractice.

— rolandsmartin (@rolandsmartin) July 10, 2024

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

I was late to the Severance fandom but I have to know what happened to those characters after Season 1’s big cliffhanger. Well, we’re not going to find out until January! AppleTV gave us a teaser trailer and a premiere date. [Just Jared]
Eric Roberts’ daughter & sister don’t want anything to do with him. [OMG Blog]
Is Carrie Bradshaw getting a cat? (I’m still not watching.) [Socialite Life]
Shaboozey is getting so much love from Virginia radio stations because he’s from Virginia! He’s also reached #1 on the Billboard country charts. [LaineyGossip]
Review/criticism of The Perfect Wife (true crime docuseries). [Pajiba]
Jodie Turner Smith’s Wimbledon ensemble is fun. [Go Fug Yourself]
Maika Monroe’s very bad premiere look. [RCFA]
Seann William Scott, before he was famous. [Seriously OMG]
A Love After Lockup person was arrested for murder. [Starcasm]
Anne Hathaway & Jessica Chastain are having another mother-off. [Hollywood Life]
When public proposals go wrong. [Buzzfeed]

The ESPYs are still scheduled for Thursday evening. I’m expecting both Prince Harry and Meghan to turn up at the event. I also expect Prince Harry’s acceptance speech for the Pat Tillman Award for Service to be well-received in the room and well-received overall. That’s what the Derangers expect too, which is why they’ve been throwing a huge tantrum about it for two weeks. It reminds me a bit of when everyone knew the release date for Prince Harry’s memoir and so the same deranged individuals all tried to get their hits in before Spare so they could create wall-to-wall negativity. They ended up giving the book millions in free publicity. So it is with the ESPYs – I guarantee that there were will be added interest and added international attention to the ESPYs because of Harry.

As for people getting their hits in… they come across as especially desperate. There’s that Lee Cohen guy who gets paid to write unhinged columns in the British media, all about how much he hates the Sussexes and the Obamas. Well, he’s got some thoughts on the Pat Tillman Award too, but I’m not going to excerpt anything from it. There was this piece in the Guardian which irritated me, written by Arwa Mahdawi: “Harry is the divisive duke – and Meghan is making jam. Can the Sussexes escape their ‘flop era’?” Some lowlights:

When life gives you lemons, make luxury lemon marmalade and sell it to your celebrity friends. That’s what Meghan Markle seems to be doing anyway. Ever since their break with the royal family, the Sussexes have been struggling to find their feet – so much so that last year, Rolling Stone declared they were in their “flop era”. Still, despite setbacks, the pair are steadfastly trying to build their brands. Meghan, in particular, has been busy with her new lifestyle company, American Riviera Orchard. The brand hasn’t launched yet, but she’s been teasing its offerings by sending influencers gift baskets with fruit preserves in them.

While Meghan has had her hands full with homemade jam, her husband seems to have found himself in something of a sticky situation. The Duke of Sussex is now facing a backlash after being nominated for the Pat Tillman award for service at the 2024 ESPYs, a sports-themed awards show hosted by the cable network ESPN. The award is named after a former American football player who turned down a $3.6m contract in order to join the US army after 9/11 and was then killed by friendly fire. It’s given to “a person with a strong connection to sports who has served others in a way that echoes the legacy of [Tillman]”. Last year the award went to the training staff of the NFL team the Buffalo Bills, after they saved the life of Damar Hamlin, a player who suffered a cardiac episode on the field. This year it is due to go to Prince Harry for his work on the Invictus Games, a sports competition for wounded soldiers he is credited for founding in 2014.

Mary Tillman’s criticism of the “divisive” duke has set off a flurry of bad press on both sides of the Atlantic. Lord West, a former bigwig in the Royal Navy, has said that it is bad publicity for the duke and he should turn down the award. Pat McAfee, an American sports pundit, complained on his radio show that ESPN was “obviously trying to piss people off” by selecting Prince Harry.

Harry has no end of haters in the UK; almost anything he does is bound to be criticised by sections of the British press. But the fact his award nomination is getting so much backlash from Americans speaks volumes about how badly his brand is faring in his new home. The novelty of the newlyfleds, it seems, has worn off; America is growing tired of the Sussexes. And while Harry and Meghan are used to bad press by now, sources told the Telegraph that the fact this bout of criticism relates to Harry’s military record, of which he is very proud, is “a particularly bitter pill to swallow”. Still, rumour has it Meghan might be releasing a rosé wine soon. Perhaps Harry can wash it down with that.

[From The Guardian]

The British press has been trying to make “America is growing tired of the Sussexes” happen since 2020. It’s a line British commentators feed to their domestic audience, because they’re too lazy to explain the nuances of American culture to their readers – the overwhelming majority of Americans view the Sussexes as just another celebrity family living privately and doing their own thing. The Sussexes do not live or die on their public support here in America, so stop spending money on dumb polling of “what do Americans think of the Sussexes?” ESPN is also telling Britain pretty clearly what THEY think of Prince Harry. And that really upsets this forced narrative of a “flop era.” Speaking of flop eras, where’s Kate?

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

It really was the royal-gossip Wild West in the first six months of the year. A missing princess, an unsteady and drunk heir, the death of Thomas Kingston, and the renewed interest in Rose Hanbury. The rumors of a much-alleged affair between Rose and Prince William have circulated for years. We picked up on the story in March 2019, which is when the “rural rival” gossip began in the British tabloids. That was the story about the then-Duchess of Cambridge “phasing out” Rose because of some kind of falling out. There were enough breadcrumbs left out by the tabloids to lead us straight to an unfaithful egg. In the years that followed, the Rose rumors have been more of a persistent hum and an open secret. Then everything exploded this year for obvious reasons. Certainly, when Stephen Colbert name-checked Rose and the affair, it suddenly felt like everything went super-mainstream.

What happened after the Colbert segment was even weirder – Rose’s lawyers threatened to sue CBS and they were sending out formal denials of the affair. Even weirder was the fact that suddenly Rose was much more visible, showing up at the Badminton Horse Trials and chatting with Queen Camilla, then attending the OBE service with her husband. It felt… pointed. Well, adding to the years of shenanigans is the fact that so many of the shenanigans have been deleted from the digital record. Ellie Hall at Vulture did a HUGE breakdown of the years-long affair rumors and everything else, and Hall points out which rumors have been subsequently removed, mostly from the Mail, Express and the Sun. There are so many links to our coverage over the years too – we’ve got a lot of the good Rose Hanbury stuff archived here. You can read the full Vulture piece here.

Since 2019, rumors have circulated on gossip blogs and royal social-media spaces of a supposed affair between the Marchioness of Cholmondeley and Prince William despite lawyers for both parties strongly denying that there’s any truth to them…

As far as royal scandals go, the Rose-William story barely registers on a list that includes the far more sordid (and substantiated) stories of the previous generation of Windsors, such as Squidgygate, the now-King Charles’s infamous tampon comments, and the whole Fergie toe-sucking thing. But if you start to dig a little more into the history of these recent royal-affair rumors — if you go looking for information about the Marchioness of Cholmondeley’s connections to the House of Windsor — you quickly encounter a problem. Years of U.K. media coverage about Rose have now vanished. And, to be clear, we’re not talking about just allegations of “aristocratic extramarital romance” but also allusions to an apparent tension between friends Rose and Catherine. Foundational stories about Rose and the future king and queen now lead to unavailable pages or redirect to the host website’s homepage.

Other stories remain online but were updated post-publication to remove details about the “feud” or other unspecified “rumors” about Rose, William, and Catherine, as seen via the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine or archive.today. Vulture is unable to share links to the deleted stories for legal reasons. However, the mysterious individuals in charge of removing stories didn’t do a great job cleaning up after themselves. Broken links to these vanished stories still exist in each publication’s royal coverage from this timeframe and, in many cases, on these outlets’ official social-media accounts.

In total, this investigation found 21 deleted stories and six stories that were edited post-publication to remove information, published from 2019 to 2024. All of the media outlets in question are based in the U.K.: Tatler, the Daily Mail/MailOnline/Mail on Sunday, the Evening Standard, the Mirror, the Sun, the Daily Express, the Guardian. Vulture sent several requests for comments to these outlets over a period of three months; the Guardian was the only news company to respond.

So where did they go? The gossipmongers’ assumption has always been that the Palace is pulling strings behind the scenes, leaning on media outlets to suppress news of or speculation about the alleged affair in order to protect the future king. (There have even been — wholly unsubstantiated, for the record — rumors on social media about a “media blackout” or “super injunction” on stories about William and Rose.) According to a Daily Beast story from April 2019, royal lawyers sent strongly worded letters to at least one media outlet warning them off reporting on the affair rumors, not just because they were “false and highly damaging,” but because they apparently violated Article 8 of the European Convention to Human Rights, they claimed.

But there have been no reports of the Palace asking media organizations to remove stories or parts of stories, and certainly no statements from the U.K. media outlets in question — or notices to readers — explaining why they’ve chosen to delete paragraphs and even entire posts. Legal representatives for both the royal family and the Marchioness of Cholmondeley strongly denied all rumors of an alleged affair between William and Rose but declined to provide any specific on-the-record statements about the deletion of or removal of information from the stories referenced above.

[From Vulture]

Vulture does one of the most substantial breakdowns I’ve ever seen of the chronology of the rumors and which articles have been since deleted or edited. We’ve covered that extensively over the years too, and Ellie Hall cites our stories throughout. One of the funniest censorship attempts was with Tatler’s Kate the Great cover story in 2020. Kensington Palace absolutely threw a sh-tfit and threatened to sue Tatler and KP made Tatler remove almost all of the story… months after the fact, months after the damage had been done. I absolutely feel like that’s why so many of the Rose stories have been edited, changed or removed too – Rose is not the one trying to censor the rumors. It’s almost always Kensington Palace. I’m including those infamous James Palmer tweets. When the editor of Foreign Policy is stating something as obvious…

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