Last week, Netflix finally dropped the trailer for Polo, a sports docuseries produced by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. While their names appear in the trailer as producers, neither of them appears in the trailer. I would assume that Harry appears at some point in the series though, right? If only to provide some commentary, although we know that cameras have been around for some of his polo matches. Here’s the trailer again:

Netflix has the money and inclination to do these deeper dives into various sports. Full Swing looked into professional golf and that series was a huge success. Break Point – which focused on pro tennis – was less successful, because (in my opinion) no one at Netflix thought to put actual fans of the sport in charge of the show and you could tell that they didn’t actually give a sh-t about the actual tennis part. Polo looks good to me, because I’ve always been curious about that elite world, and it looks like pretty standard Netflix fare – dialing up the glamour and soap opera drama. Obviously, the British media has been screaming and crying about the trailer for days. Now the Daily Beast’s Royalist columnist Tom Sykes managed to get Prince Harry’s “former friends” and a “senior Hollywood executive” to bad-mouth the series:

Former friends of Prince Harry who played polo with him in their younger years have told the Daily Beast they have been left in “appalled hysterics” by the new trailer for his and Meghan Markle’s “tacky” new Netflix show about polo. One Hollywood executive has cautioned the couple are “running out of last chances” to prove they can make compelling TV that is not about themselves, and speculated their futures may lie in social media influencing.

The trailer for Polo dropped this week, and has been either ignored or ridiculed in global media, a clear sign that Harry and Meghan’s once-bright star appears to be fading. Although their role as “executive producers” is flagged full screen in the opening credits, the cheesy trailer does not feature an appearance by either Harry or Meghan.

One former friend of Harry’s who played polo with him as a teenager said, “It’s hilarious, but not in a good way. It’s so tacky and cringey, it is literally all the worst things about polo. I watched it in appalled hysterics.”

Another former friend said, “The irony is that polo is actually a surprisingly inclusive sport these days. You do see plenty of rich kids but there are also plenty of kids from less rarefied backgrounds who just happen to be fantastic riders who are sponsored by the teams. It doesn’t look like this show is going to foreground that, which is a real missed opportunity.”

A senior Hollywood executive told The Daily Beast: “This looks like it has failed to capture the imagination. They still have Meghan’s cooking show to screen next year but there is very little tolerance for pissing money away these days. It’s debatable whether anyone cares about these two if they are not serving up outrageous stories about the royals. They are running out of last chances to prove that isn’t so. If they can’t, they could try to monetize their fame on social media. Plenty of people would still give Harry a million bucks for a post.”

The trailer was ridiculed by the prominent Daily Mail columnist Liz Jones. Jones was for many years a Meghan sympathizer but has recently turned against the duchess. In one particularly biting comment she opines: “What next? His own slot on the Shopping Channel? How can Harry and Meghan possibly travel the globe, preaching about poverty and diversity and inclusion, when not one black player can be spied… the funds required to run a polo team doubtless outstrip that of Formula 1. How can they lecture us about global warming when one player admits he flies to Argentina twice a week?”

[From The Daily Beast]

Pick a struggle, you know? Or in this case, pick a consistent criticism for why this series (which has not been viewed by any one of these people) is bad or unwatchable. It’s bad because it features rich people who fly around the world playing polo! Yeah, we get that from the word “polo.” It’s bad because Harry and Meghan are involved yet they aren’t involved enough! It’s bad because it’s tacky and cringey, unlike every single tacky and cringey thing Harry’s brother does! Jesus. This whole Royalist piece reads like William screaming and throwing a tantrum. Polo belongs to Peg!!

Photos courtesy of Backgrid,Cover Images, Netflix.

Well, I was wrong. I kept thinking “they’ve spent way too long promoting Wicked, there’s no way this is going to do what they think it will.” I thought it would be an oversaturation issue, that people would be bored of hearing about Wicked before Part 1 even came out. But I was wrong – people love a musical, especially when it’s the first film adaptation of a massively popular Broadway show. Wicked is on track to becoming one of the biggest hits of the year. Gladiator II also performed very well – they were trying to make this into another Barbenheimer head-to-head (“Glicked”) and it worked?

If you care to find “Wicked,” look to the top of box office charts. Universal’s adaptation of Act One (with some padding) of the popular Broadway musical was No. 1 in North America with $114 million from 3,888 theaters over the weekend.

Those dazzling ticket sales rank as the third biggest domestic debut of the year behind “Deadpool & Wolverine” ($211 million) and “Inside Out 2” ($154 million). Among other benchmarks, “Wicked” landed the fourth-biggest start in history for a musical, ahead of Disney’s recent “The Little Mermaid” remake ($95.5 million) and behind “Frozen II” ($130 million), as well as the best opening (by far) for a Broadway adaptation, overtaking the record held by 2014’s “Into the Woods” ($31 million).

“Wicked” collected an additional $50.2 million at the international box office, bringing its global tally to $164.2 million. It marks the biggest worldwide opening for a film based on a Broadway show, supplanting another Universal musical, “Les Miserables,” with $103 million in 2012.

“It’s a juggernaut,” says David A. Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research. “Audiences are making the singing and costume experience their own.”

While “Wicked” was courting women (nearly 75% of ticket buyers) and families, men turned out in force for Paramount’s R-rated “Gladiator II,” the quarter-century-in-the-making sequel from director Ridley Scott. The bloody sword-and-sandal epic opened solidly in second place (though behind expectations) with $55.5 million from 3,573 cinemas over the weekend.

It’s unclear whether “Wicked” and “Gladiator II” fueled each other, à la “Barbenheimer,” an unexpected 2023 phenomenon in which tens of thousands of moviegoers opted for back-to-back screenings rather than choosing between Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” and Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” — or if “Glicked” is just an effective case of counterprogramming. Either way, this weekend was one of the biggest of the year with approximately $210 million in overall revenues.

[From Variety]

Meanwhile, I debated whether to see Anora this weekend at the second-run theater in town – I ended up not going, but I will try to catch it this week before it leaves theaters. Like, I’m much more excited to see the awards-bait “smaller” films. But I’m happy for Wicked and Gladiator II. I even think they’ll both end up with some awards nominations, especially in supporting categories. People are saying Ariana Grande could get nominated in supporting actress, and Denzel Washington might get some supporting actor noms. It’s always good when actors are nominated from films people have actually seen.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images, ‘Gladiator II’ poster.

In recent months, Kim Kardashian and “sources” close to her have been emphasizing the fact that she’s raising four children pretty much by herself. The comments were, I believed, about Kanye West’s lack of involvement with his children, although I think Kanye does spend some time with North (the oldest). But Saint, Chicago and Psalm? Ye isn’t involved. It really is up to Kim to do all of the child-rearing and keep up with all of the kids’ schools and activities. But this whole time, we’ve always believed that Kim has an army of nannies and helpers. I mean, she’s a billionaire on paper, she’s also still a “law student,” of course she pays for nannies and helpers, right? Well, not according to Kim, who told a podcast that she’s “basically raising four kids by myself here.”

Kim Kardashian admits she often feels “alone” raising the four children she shares with ex Kanye West. During Tuesday’s episode of pal Zoe Winkler’s iHearRadio podcast, “What In The Winkler,” the reality star addressed her co-parenting arrangement with her ex-husband. The episode was dropped just weeks after a source claimed to People that West has been an absent father.

“You and I have mostly connected on parenting and judgment, and you know, feeling like sometimes you’re in this alone,” Kardashian, 44, told Henry Winkler’s daughter. The Skims founder — who shares North, 11, Saint, 8, Chicago, 6, and Psalm, 5, with West — went on to confess that she also feels overwhelmed at times.

“Even though we have great support systems and we have people around us, but sometimes in the middle of the night when [the kids are] all sleeping in your bed, kicking you and crying and waking up, like, it is…,” she said before trailing off. “It’s not something I talk about a lot because I feel like there is always a lot of judgment. Or people will always jump to the, ‘Oh, but you have the resources to have nannies and to have help.’ And I just think that no matter what kind of help I have, I’m basically raising four kids by myself.”

Zoe called Kardashian’s current parenting situation “insane,” to which the Hulu star replied, “Yeah. I mean, even carpool this morning, I had five kids that I had to take, two came over, and everyone leaves and wants to leave at like, different times and wants different stuff. I feel like I’m at, like, a pitstop of a racecar driver, when it’s like, ‘Brush your teeth, brush your teeth, brush your teeth, brush your teeth, OK, get dressed, get dressed, do your hair.’”

Zoe brought up in the podcast how the SKKN by Kim creator drives her children to school every morning. “That’s what’s really important to me … driving them to school every single day is just what I have to do no matter what [my] work schedule [is]. It’s really important to me. That’s just, like, my bonding time. That’s when I can get them up, get ready, but it’s madness.”

[From Page Six & Marie Claire]

“I just think that no matter what kind of help I have, I’m basically raising four kids by myself.” Yeah, even though I know everyone loves to hate on Kim, I understand what she’s saying. She’s not saying she doesn’t have nannies or help, she’s saying that she’s the only one parenting her kids. She’s the only one making decisions about the kids, she’s the only one “raising” these kids. I think that’s fair for her to feel that way. I’d also like to point out that… she’s the one who wanted four kids. Even when her marriage was on its last legs, she was still organizing a gestational carrier for the two younger kids. She said that was what she wanted. And now that she’s raising the kids on her own, she’s overwhelmed.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images, Instagram.

Something is going on in Isla de Saltines. In recent days, they’ve been pushing a lot of weird stories about the Duchess of Sussex and almost none of those stories have new information. It’s giving desperation, it’s giving “pay attention to me!” Speaking of, the Mail found some change at the back of the sofa, and they decided to pay Samantha Markle for another interview. When we last checked in on this c-u-next-Tuesday, Samantha’s defamation lawsuit against Meghan was being dismissed with prejudice back in March. Then Samantha and her lawyer gave some interviews about how they were not giving up and they’d find some way to continue to abuse the legal system to harass Meghan. So what’s new? The script Samantha is being paid to perform, I guess. Some lowlights:

Samantha’s mother died: Samantha Markle’s mother died six weeks ago. They had been estranged for many years. Things had been rocky anyway, but the nail in the coffin of their relationship, Samantha claims, was when her half-sister Meghan got engaged to Prince Harry, and the whole world turned its attention to the Markle family, in all its dysfunction. ‘And everyone sucked up to Meghan, even on the fringes of the family,’ says Samantha. ‘It was like the Emperor’s New Clothes. Unfortunately, my mother fell prey to it.’

Samantha talks to her father: She speaks to her father Thomas ‘every day, sometimes several times a day’, but Meghan has not been in contact since before her wedding. Thomas Markle has had two heart attacks and a stroke. He is 80, she points out, ‘and we don’t know how long he has’. Her anger returns. ‘Meghan has no idea what she is missing out on because when my dad goes, it will be too late. Believe me, I know. You can’t get back that time. It leaves a hole in your heart. When my father passes away, I hope she can feel, and remember he loved her more than life itself – or she will never be able to look in the mirror.’ She hasn’t finished. ‘Maybe Harry can learn something from me too,’ she continues.

The Sussexes’ interview with Oprah: ‘I don’t know the Royal Family. I’m just a human, watching from across the pond, but I couldn’t believe it.’ In particular, she was incensed by Harry’s implication he never had fun with Charles, and wasn’t able to go bike riding with him as a child. ‘Then we saw all those pictures of him rolling in the grass with Charles, laughing, riding on the back of his bike. I want to say to him “Why did you say it? Do you know what a gift that is? Maybe you didn’t get that every day, but you had it, and your family gave you those experiences”. I’d ask Harry “What did you give them? Heartache? Grief?”.’

How Meghan treated the Queen! ‘I never thought I would see Meghan do what she has done to the Royal Family. She’s done what she did to her own family to so many other people, too. I knew my dad had suffered, but I thought she would stop at the Queen.’ Samantha tells me ‘a line was crossed’ when Meghan mimicked curtseying to the Queen during the couple’s 2022 Netflix docuseries. ‘What a flagrant, nasty mockery of lovely royal protocol. And Harry sat there smiling, like a buffoon. He allowed it. In counselling [Samantha is a trained counsellor] we call this “enabling”.’

Her evolving view of Harry. ‘I used to think Harry was the victim here, that he had arrested development over the death of his mum and Meghan manipulated it. But there was no excuse for the things he said in his memoir Spare. There is no excuse for hurting people like that. Now I think of him as the teenage delinquent who throws stones at the windows of the school then sets it on fire, yet has the audacity to play the victim and say, “Oh I’ll come back to school on these terms”.’

On Meghan’s American Riviera Orchard line: The subject of American Riviera Orchard and Meghan’s lifestyle venture comes up – so far we’ve seen some jam and dog biscuits. ‘Is it in the shops? I don’t think it got beyond the PR stage,’ she muses ‘In the 70s, Tom [Samantha’s brother] and I would spend our summers with Grandma Markle and she did make jam, but that was long before Meghan was around. By the time she was interacting with Grandma Markle, she was in a care home and she certainly wasn’t making jam.’

[From The Daily Mail]

As a long-time reader of the British press/tabloids, I’m quite familiar with their talking points, Britishisms and worry-stones. Which is how I know Samantha was either operating from a script written by a British person, or she was being fed these lines by the Mail. No American says “is it in the shops?” No American gives a f–k if Meghan mocked the curtsy. No American thinks Spare was the story of a delinquent who constantly plays the victim. Between Samantha’s scripted interviews and her nuisance-suit harassment, Samantha is playing a really dangerous game. Also: with all of this talk about “family,” it’s good to remember that Samantha is estranged from her children, and Meghan is very close to her niece (Samantha’s daughter).

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Queen Camilla did three big events last week – she attended the diplomatic reception at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday evening, she received an honorary doctorate on Wednesday, and on Thursday, she hosted an event for the Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition. So, three days in a row, she had events. The flurry of activity came after Camilla skipped all of the Remembrance events earlier in the month, as well as canceling and postponing other, non-Remembrance events. A “chest infection” was cited and Buckingham Palace tried to strike the balance between “she’s really sick” and “but she’ll be okay.” Well, after three days of work, Camilla said no mas. She pulled out of her appearance at the Royal Variety show, which she was supposed to attend with King Charles on Friday. She pulled out just a few hours before the event.

Queen Camilla has canceled her appearance at a major event in the royal calendar, as she continues to suffer the lingering effects of a chest infection. Camilla skipped Remembrance Sunday events in London ten days ago, and—despite attending some engagements this week—Buckingham Palace said Friday the 77-year old would not attend this evening’s Royal Variety Performance, an iconic set-piece of the royal festive calendar which sees the royals attend a central London theatre for a program of popular entertainment.

Over three weeks since picking up an illness shortly after an overseas tour that culminated in a sojourn at an alternative healing clinic in India, Camilla is still unwell with what sources describe as a “nasty bug” and “lingering post-viral symptoms” of a chest infection.

A palace spokesperson and an official source sought to play down the severity of the queen’s condition. The spokesperson said: “Following a recent chest infection, The Queen continues to experience some lingering post-viral symptoms, as a result of which doctors have advised that, after a busy week of engagements, Her Majesty should prioritize sufficient rest.”

The source said that due to the “lateness” of the event, Camilla had “sensibly decided to heed medical advice that there is a risk when recovering patients overstretch themselves.”

The palace source said the “nasty bug” had left the queen—who reportedly smoked 10 cigarettes a day until 2001, when she quit the habit—feeling “a little under the weather.”

The source said the queen was “naturally disappointed to miss the evening’s entertainments, and sends her sincere apologies to all those involved, but is a great believer that the show must go on. She hopes to be back to full strength and regular public duties very soon.”

[From The Daily Beast]

I hadn’t been sick in a few years before I got a cold in September. I was surprised by how long that f–king cold lingered. In Camilla’s case, she’s in her 70s and she’s probably pretty pickled most of the time, and she had just returned from a long international journey. That being said, she looked and seemed fine earlier in the week. Is something going on? Another health-related conspiracy? I honestly don’t know. I will say this though – Charles did not look well at the Royal Variety show (photos below). He was all hunched over and really did look quite sick. I wonder why he didn’t cancel too, and make someone else go in his place. Maybe no one else was available – Sophie, Edward, Anne, Peggington, Waity? Were they all busy on a Friday night?

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

Earlier this year, after Drake had spent more than a month trying to beef with Kendrick Lamar, Kendrick released the first of his Drake-specific diss tracks, “Euphoria.” It’s a great song which has aged like fine wine. At one point, Kendrick tells Drake/his haters: “Headshots for the year, you better walk around like Daft Punk.” Well… Kendrick chose the 61st anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination to surprise-drop an album called GNX. Kendrick has been doing a lot around specifically American holidays – Juneteenth saw his special concert in LA and he dropped the “Not Like Us” music video on the 4th of July. I never would have thought Kendrick would have chosen JFK’s assassination date as a surprise album drop, but here we are. Headshots for the year.

Obviously, people have theorized for months that Kendrick had an album coming out. His friends in LA have even said that Kendrick was working on the album throughout his beef with Drake in the spring. What’s funny is that Kendrick didn’t include ANY of the Drake-disses on GNX. The only thing we got which was sort of related was “Squabble Up,” the full song which was teased ahead of the “Not Like Us” music video. That’s gonna slap at the Super Bowl Halftime show next year.

Speaking of slapping, Kendrick is calling out people right and left in this album. One of the big stories is about the performative “outrage” about how Kendrick was selected for the Super Bowl in New Orleans. A lot of people were like “what about Lil Wayne??” In the first track, “wacced out murals,” Kendrick addresses the issue: “Used to bump ‘Tha Carter III,’ I held my Rollie chain proud/ Irony, I think my hard work let Lil Wayne down.” And then “Won the Super Bowl and Nas the only one congratulate me.” I’ll admit that I don’t actually care about the Wayne issue, and… um, I kind of think Kendrick doesn’t give a f–k either.

Some cool little items – Kendrick saw mariachi singer Deyra Barrera perform at a Dodgers game and he liked her so much, he put her on the album. SZA – who is basically Kendrick’s little sister – also appears on “Luther” and “Gloria.” Plus, the entire album was produced by none other than Jack Antonoff. Jack produced one of Kendrick’s Drake disses, and Jack is obviously very connected to Taylor Swift. Kendrick and Taylor are tight, and I kind of love that Kendrick is working with someone so closely associated with Taylor and the pop girls (Lorde, Lana, St. Vincent). Jack did a good job with the album too, I have to say. Last thing – apparently, Kendrick and Father John Misty are basically on the same album-drop schedule and have been for over a decade?

Obviously, NSFW for language.

GNX cover courtesy of Kendrick’s social media. Additional photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.

Throughout history, people inevitably ask why various ruling classes eventually go crazy. I always thought the answer was “inbreeding.” Meaning, for centuries, ruling houses, royalty and aristocratic societies were always marrying and having children with their siblings, cousins or various other relatives. The whole idea of “opening up the gene pool” is actually a relatively modern concept. Well, Ridley Scott was asked why the half-fictional Roman emperors in his Gladiator movies are always bonkers. He went in a different direction – it’s not the inbreeding, it’s the lead!!

In Gladiator II, opening this week, twin sibling Emperors Geta and Caracalla, played by Fred Hechinger and Joseph Quinn, come across rather unstable — to say the least. And in 2000’s Gladiator, Joaquin Phoenix’s tyrannical Emperor Commodus was also a bit loopy (in addition to being “terribly vexed”). According to director Ridley Scott, there is a very specific historical reason for this.

“People forget that all the wealthy, high-end senatorial Roman aristocracy would live on water, which was piped through lead pipes and lead tanks,” Scott told The Hollywood Reporter. “People don’t think about that. Your choice is water or wine. When you drink water, it’s through a lead system that by then could be 200 years old by then. No wonder they’re f–king crazy. They’re all going halfway to Alzheimer’s.”

Indeed, according to Science magazine, “High-born Romans sipped beverages cooked in lead vessels and channeled spring water into their homes through lead pipes.” In addition to causing physical problems, lead poisoning can cause behavioral issues such as depression, irritability, altered moods and difficulty concentrating or remembering. Modern-day testing of Roman pipes have shown that Ancient Rome water had 100 times higher lead levels than normal. But scientists have also concluded this wasn’t high enough to — as some historians have speculated over the years — bring down the Roman Empire. Still, regular doses of lead mixed with massive amounts wealth and power could arguably inspire some regal volatility.

[From THR]

It’s true, it would not occur to most people that the Roman Empire was being ruled by people who were all being slowly poisoned by lead. I absolutely believe that was a factor now. Plus the inbreeding, obviously. There are other weird scientific reasons for various questions like “why were people in such-and-such era acting that way?” Like Victorians and arsenic. The Romanovs and… inbreeding.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Ana de Armas was seen kissing the Cuban president’s stepson, Manuel Anido Cuesta. The current president of Cuba is Miguel Díaz-Canel. [Just Jared]
Kaia Gerber in Valentino… I’m going to keep my mouth shut. [RCFA]
Ryan Murphy’s next Monster series will focus on Ed Gein, with Charlie Hunnam playing Gein. I haven’t watched any of these. [LaineyGossip]
Amy Adams at the Nightbitch premiere. [Go Fug Yourself]
Spotlight on male model Josh Fine. [Socialite Life]
Leonardo DiCaprio came out to support Kate Winslet. [Pajiba]
Kesha dropped her new single! [OMG Blog]
Jason Ritter is listening. [Seriously OMG]
What’s going on behind-the-scenes on Project Runway? [Starcasm]
One Direction attended Liam Payne’s funeral. [Hollywood Life]
Some of these #WomenInMaleFields tweets are funny. [Buzzfeed]

Academy Award nominee and movie star Ana de Armas has been spotted with the stepson of Cuba’s president on a romantic stroll. Mi gente latino! pic.twitter.com/yA6OoWA8gO

— Ana de Armas Updates (@ArmasUpdates) November 21, 2024

In September, NewsNation’s Paula Froelich had a curious exclusive about the Windsors. Unnamed sources vented that the Windsors were still consumed 24-7 by everything the Sussexes were doing or not doing, and that the Sussexes’ activities in California were negatively impacting the health of both King Charles and the Princess of Wales. Froelich’s sources also claimed that both Charles and Kate were doing much worse than the palace let on, and that Kate in particular is “not in remission and not cancer-free…She’s not in good shape at all.” While it’s no secret that British royalists regularly vent their Sussex-bile to American outlets, it’s really curious to see NewsNation – like the Hollywood Reporter – go all-in with an anti-Sussex agenda. That seems to be what’s happening though. Froelich’s latest is a bizarre attack on the Duchess of Sussex:

Across the pond in America, former British royal Prince Harry is making inroads to make himself likable again… and it’s working. Earlier this week Harry released a cheeky promo video for the Invictus Games in which he agreed to get a tattoo by JellyRoll if the singer performed at the closing ceremonies for the wounded warrior event in Whistler, Vancouver, on November 20… and ended up with a “I AM JellyRoll” “tattoo” on his neck (rest assured — it’s fake). Barenaked Ladies will also perform at the event.

”It’s what Harry does best,” a friend told me. “He was always the most likable of all the royals and now that he’s focusing on charitable works stopped selling out his family at every turn he’s shining.”

Meanwhile, Harry’s wife Meghan — who is sticking with her commercial activities — isn’t faring so well.

“She doesn’t know what she’s doing,” the friend added. “She may have shot some episodes for Netflix on her cooking show — but who wants to watch her cooking in a ballgown and an impossibly expensive house? And she still doesn’t have a CEO or anyone to head up that venture. I wouldn’t be shocked if Netflix ends up dropping it — they pull a lot of things they’ve spent money on and preshot.”

[From NewsNation]

We were told – through sources – months ago that the tentative launch of Meghan’s cooking show would be December, possibly January. Meghan filmed everything in April and May, so the turnaround makes sense, although I kind of hoped it would come out sooner. I do wonder if the show is going to be a bit like Archetypes, as in… too many cooks in the kitchen at first and everything is sort of overproduced, and then Meghan figures out what she’s doing. And no, I don’t think she’s going to be “cooking in a ballgown.” Netflix will absolutely release the show at some point, but I don’t know when we’ll get the American Riviera Orchard line. That being said, the British media and these “friends/sources” are dying for the Sussexes to come out and dominate the newscycle. Because they don’t want to actually focus on the left-behinds and how weird they’re all acting.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.

Last year, King Charles’s coronation was supposed to be the biggest and grandest occasion of the decade, if not century. Most people weren’t alive for Queen Elizabeth II’s 1953 coronation, so Charles’s coronation was a historical moment for everyone under the age of 70. There were so many problems though – QEII’s coronation was of an attractive young queen just years after the second world war. Charles’s coronation was for a septuagenarian who married his horsey mistress and ran his one charismatic son out of the country. People tuned in, but only to see Prince Harry (who left right after the ceremony). We knew last year that the coronation did not stimulate the British economy, not even locally, within London. We also know that Charles rejected the idea of a “budget coronation,” even if he and Camilla banned everyone else from wearing tiaras, crowns and coronets. So how much did this exercise in narcissism cost the British taxpayer? £72 million.

Last year’s Coronation of King Charles III cost taxpayers £72m, government figures have revealed. Just over £50m was spent by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), which coordinated the event, while policing costs came to almost £22m, which were paid for by the Home Office.

The DCMS described the Coronation as a “once-in-a-generation” moment and the figures came broadly within unofficial estimates, which suggested it would be between £50 and £100m.

The Coronation in May 2023 had been described as a “slimmed down affair”, with the Westminster Abbey guest list only a quarter of the size of Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation at the same venue in 1953.

Being a state event, the Coronation was paid for by the UK Government and Buckingham Palace through the Sovereign Grant – which comes from a percentage of the profits of the Crown Estate revenue – and the Privy Purse, money from a private estate known as the Duchy of Lancaster. By the end of March 2024, the Duchy of Lancaster had £647m of net assets under its control.

There had been criticism aimed at the public funding of the Coronation, which came during a cost-of-living crisis in the UK. A poll carried out by YouGov the month before the Coronation revealed that 52% of Londoners did not believe the Coronation should be paid for by taxpayers. There had been much speculation about the cost to the public purse, which the DCMS said could not be revealed until after the event.

The DCMS annual accounts report released on Thursday said the Coronation reached an estimated global audience of two billion people in 125 countries, saying it “offered a unique opportunity to celebrate and strengthen our national identity and showcase the UK to the world”.

[From BBC]

I won’t place the blame entirely on Charles’s shoulders – I remember reading that Rishi Sunak wanted the coronation to be a big event too, because they were all riding the high they got from the global attention at QEII’s funeral in 2022. But yeah… people didn’t give a sh-t. They especially didn’t want to be billed £72 million for one man’s fancy hat party, historical moment or not. There were so many layers to Charles and Sunak misreading the national mood – it could have been a more businesslike event, done simply with little drama. Or they could have leaned into the inherent drama and asked everyone to wear all of their family jewels and really put on a show. They chose neither and billed the taxpayer for the most boring show in the world. Anyway… given the cost of the coronation AND the 53% raise of the Sovereign Grant, it’s past time for British taxpayers to reel in their mad king. Speaking of, Republic’s Graham Smith had a lot to say:

Republic, which campaigns to replace the monarchy with an elected head of state and more democratic political system, described the coronation as an “obscene” waste of taxpayers’ money.

“I would be very surprised if £72m was the whole cost,” the Republic CEO, Graham Smith, told the Guardian. As well as the Home Office policing and DCMS costs included in the figures, he said the Ministry of Defence, Transport for London, fire brigades and local councils also incurred costs related to the coronation, with other estimates putting the totalspend at between £100m and £250m.

“But even that kind of money – £72m – is incredible,” Smith added. “It’s a huge amount of money to spend on one person’s parade when there was no obligation whatsoever in the constitution or in law to have a coronation, and when we were facing cuts to essential services. It was a parade that Charles insisted on at huge expense to the taxpayer, and this is on top of the huge inheritance tax bill he didn’t [have to] pay, on top of the £500m-a-year cost of the monarchy.”

Under a clause agreed in 1993 by the then prime minister, John Major, any inheritance passed “sovereign to sovereign” avoids the 40% levy applied to assets valued at more than £325,000.

Smith added: “It was an extravagance we simply didn’t have to have. It was completely unnecessary and a waste of money in the middle of a cost of living crisis in a country that is facing huge amounts of child poverty. When kids are unable to afford lunches at school, to spend over £70m on this parade is obscene.”

[From The Guardian]

Yep, I agree. About all of it.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.