In the years before QEII passed away, then-Prince Charles would often brief the media about his big plans once he was in charge. In 2021, Charles even unveiled his plans to do a big real estate shuffle as king, and one of his notable suggestions was that he would downsize his own portfolio and basically “give” Windsor Castle to Prince William and Kate. Then QEII passed away and suddenly all of those plans fell by the wayside. Not even a full year into his reign and his aides were telling the royalist media that Charles is newly committed to never giving up any of his twelve castles and palaces. William and Kate received no real estate upgrade, although William now has access to the vast Duchy of Cornwall real estate empire, so god knows where William even lives now, but it’s certainly not Windsor Castle! Well, now that King Charles, the Princess of Wales and Prince William are all taking steps back from work for a while, all of the palace/castle staffers are like “wait, what are we supposed to do now?”

Staffers are at loose ends: While the royals are expected to continue working behind the scenes, perhaps even holding some private audiences, it seems inevitable that many of the vast army of people who work in the various royal households will be at a looser end than they might otherwise have been in the weeks ahead. Charles is likely to remain publicly invisible for up to another month, having already taken ten days off frontline duties for treatment for an enlarged prostate. William and Kate are likely to be out of action for a staggering three further months as they focus on her recovery and attending to their family, having already been out of sight for two weeks.

William has been seen! Kate is likely to have been ordered to try and stay in bed as much as possible following her planned abdominal surgery. William is taking time off his royal duties to care for her and their three children, and has been spotted doing the school run in recent weeks, sources have told The Daily Beast. Courtiers have said they expect the Waleses to be largely out of the public eye until after Easter.

One former courtier told The Daily Beast: “Serving the royals can be a precarious business, as Queen Elizabeth’s staff found out when she died. (Royal staff) are not exactly twiddling their thumbs, but there is never going to be the usual volume of business to attend to if your principals can’t do royal jobs. For instance, it takes dozens of people to plan and execute a foreign tour, and those have all been canceled. (Courtiers) devote their lives to serving these people, and one does assume it will just carry on forever. But of course, it doesn’t, and hiatuses like this come as a very stark reminder of the extremely contingent nature of their roles.”

A friend of the king’s however, said: “It really is nonsense to suggest that everyone is going to be at a loose end. The public engagements are a huge part of the job, but much, much more happens behind the scenes, and that won’t stop. The king’s people are kept incredibly busy and I suspect if they only have a chance to catch up they will be jolly happy.”

Kate & William aren’t in a rush: Kate, however, took a different approach to her father-in-law. Not for her the public wave on the hospital steps. Instead, she left hospital quietly and without fanfare, slipping out without getting photographed by the waiting media. This perhaps points to a difference in how the two offices intend to handle their respective principals’ time off in the days ahead. A friend of William’s and Kate’s said, “I think they have made it very clear that the next few months are about the family. They are taking time off and no-one begrudges them that. I’m sure the office will be a bit quiet over the next few weeks; that is kind of the whole point.”

[From The Daily Beast]

Let’s be real – Kensington Palace is used to a more “genteel pace,” as we were told repeatedly during the “Hurricane Meghan” years. KP staffers regularly wept in closets because they had to work eight-hour days when Harry and Meghan were around. It was often said, separately from the Sussex stuff, that KP was a nice place to work because there was nothing to do and no expectations. Look no further than what KP did for William and Kate in the years before Kate’s health drama – idiotic busywork and word-salad speeches, William proclaiming to be the savior of homeless people, and W&K’s belief that they both had to be “out of the office” for twenty weeks a year during their kids’ school holidays. Kate once went a full eleven weeks without being seen or photographed or doing one stitch of work (that was in 2021).

Now, it’s different for the king – he made such a big deal about how he was going to spend time in all of his palaces and castles, and I bet you anything he’s just recuperating in Highgrove right now. I also think they’ll end up saying that Charles needs an “easier” schedule when he does come back. Oh well!

I’m trying not to take this onslaught of celebrities sharing how much they get done between 3-7am personally, but the struggle is real. I understand that people tend to fall into one of two camps, early bird or night owl, and I’m also aware that some studies say there are people who simply need less sleep. I grew up with one of those people, an early bird who functioned on fairly little sleep. My father, like Dolly Parton (first time I’ve uttered that statement), would wake up in the wee hours and pretty much get a whole day’s work in by the time my mother and I, night owls, would be rising for the day. It was hard not to feel like a schlub by comparison. Rachael Ray is among that anointed, productive crowd, as she described to People Mag while chatting up a new partnership with A&E:

Rachael Ray has been cooking up something big.

Ray’s production company, Free Food Studios, formed a partnership with A&E Networks. The deal will bring “in the kitchen” content and various new shows from both Ray and other talent over the next two years.

The project means Ray, 55, is having a hard time finding a moment to relax — but she’s just fine with that.

“I’m not really good with downtime. I love to work. I love it. I love to have my brain very active, and if I’m not writing shows, I’m drawing ‘foodles’ I call them — recipes on paper — and writing books and things,” the iconic television cook tells PEOPLE. “I don’t like being idle. I’ve never been good at it.”

She even jokes that she wrote “120 pages” of one of her cookbooks on her honeymoon. “I really am bad at doing nothing!” she says proudly.

Ray says she starts as early as 3 a.m.

“I can’t sleep. I wake up at three or four in the morning, and I just start working because I can’t stop thinking about it,” she says. “I’m not very good at sleep. I never have been. Even when I was a little girl. My nickname was Little Hoot because I was a night owl.”

Her husband of over 20 years, John Cusimano, prefers a little more R and R. “He loves to sleep. Unfortunately, once I get up and turn all the lights on and start typing and turn the coffee on, he’s forced to get up pretty early, too,” Ray quips. “He’s usually up between five and six…The other morning he said, ‘You realize it’s three o’clock in the morning, right?’”

Another main reason Ray likes to stay hyperactive is that she’s always curious about trying out new things and taking on reimagined business ventures.

“I’m always game for anything, and I’m a person who’s over 50 years old. I’m trying to still remain relevant, which is an honor,” she says. “It’s cool to be over 50 and get new opportunities that keep getting thrown at me.”

[From People]

Real question here: do Rachael and her husband live in a studio apartment now? Why is she turning on the lights in the bedroom if he’s still sleeping? At the very least she could flip them on for getting dressed and then turn them back off when she’s done. And is the coffee being made in the bedroom?! Why must he be forced to wake up at the same time?! My vehemence stems from empathy!! Rachael may start her day before daybreak, but she should leave the hubby to his own circadian rhythm. Also, is it me or was that quip about her honeymoon a little rough? Not working doesn’t necessarily mean doing nothing. Rachael and John have been married for nearly 20 years, though, so if they butt heads I’m sure they’ll have one of their signature vents and move on. As for her new A&E shows, she’s working on one where she’ll be cooking from her home in Italy. I’m gonna need several boxes of pasta handy when that airs.

Embed from Getty Images

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Photos credit: Erik Nielsen/Media Punch/INSTARimages.com/Cover Images and Getty

Last June, the wheels came off the Middleton bus. Carole and Michael Middleton’s business, Party Pieces, went bankrupt, leaving a trail of financial destruction in its wake. The Middletons owed creditors more than $3 million, but they sold off the Party Pieces name and stock to a British entrepreneur, who actually came out and said that the Middletons were broke-ass and they never had the kind of money they pretended to have. Carole and Mike have only been seen once since all of that went down, but it’s still incredibly strange that they were not seen or photographed anywhere near the London Clinic for two weeks while the Princess of Wales was being treated. Well, today is Carole’s birthday, and the Mail published a pretty brutal piece about how the past year has been Carole’s “annus horribilis” and “The Middletons are reeling from a series of blows to family and reputation.” Oof. Some highlights:

Carole’s birthday: All thoughts in the Middleton household will be on their daughter, Catherine, as she continues her recovery from abdominal surgery. And that will apply even today, the birthday of Carole Middleton. In previous years, she has celebrated abroad – and memorably so for her 60th, which she spent on the private Caribbean island of Mustique with pink champagne, grenadine cocktails, a jazz band and fireworks. Today’s 69th birthday will be a quieter affair, and not just because the eldest of her three children, the Princess of Wales, has been unwell.

Annus horribilis: For the past 12 months have been something of an annus horribilis for the Middletons, and Carole in particular. Kate’s mother has only been seen in public once since her business Party Pieces collapsed last June owing £2.6 million. That was at her daughter’s Together at Christmas Carol Service at Westminster Abbey before Christmas. Carole avoided the Wimbledon tennis championships and Royal Ascot, both regular fixtures in her diary.

Party Pieces went bust: In May, Prince William’s in-laws were given pride of place at the Coronation, seated in row seven of Westminster Abbey, immediately behind the Royal family and next to world leaders.But it all exploded the following month when it was announced that her company had fallen into administration with debts of £2.6 million, misery compounded by a malicious campaign seemingly from embittered creditors, a cruel depiction in the Netflix series The Crown, and her daughter’s surgery.

The Middletons’ debt: While Party Pieces was bought for £180,000 by entrepreneur James Sinclair, who describes himself as the ‘Millionaire Clown’, there was no money to pay the creditors. Not only did the company owe the taxman £613,000 in unpaid VAT, and RBS £219,000 for a Covid loan, a string of family businesses was left out of pocket with some £456,000 due. Disgruntled supplier Sultani Gas, which was owned more than £20,430 by Party Pieces for helium for balloons, accused Carole of ‘betrayal’. ‘What hurt me the most was that I trusted her as the mother-in-law of the future King,’ a spokesman said, ‘and she just betrayed me. It is absolutely unacceptable.’ The firm’s landlord, Lord Iliffe, on whose Yattendon estate the company was based, was also owed £57,480 in unpaid rent and faced ‘severe financial consequences’. Other creditors, according to the report, included Portuguese gas canister maker Amtrol Alfa, which was owed £82,872, and party decorations firm Ginger Ray, due £52,304.

Carole’s portrayal in The Crown: The latest – and final – series of the Netflix blockbuster The Crown, hardly helped. Carole was lampooned and portrayed as an ambitious match maker who had engineered the marriage between William and Kate. Speaking on an episode of the hit Mail podcast, The Crown: Fact or Fiction, her brother Gary Goldsmith attacked the show for misrepresenting his family. ‘Carole isn’t that manipulative evil person, coming up with ways by which she can force her way into the Royal Family,’ he said. ‘First and foremost, Kate did brilliantly well to get into St Andrews. She’s an amazing girl, but that wasn’t noted. It was all to do with: “Kate you’ve got to be doing these things, you’ve got to be showing your legs”. It’s just not my family. It’s not the way Carole operates.’

How the Middletons will spend the day: It is not known whether Kate, 42, will be well enough to see her parents or her siblings Pippa Matthews, 40, and James Middleton, 36 today. While in other circumstances, Mike and Carole would celebrate abroad or perhaps at their £4.7 million Grade II listed home in Berkshire, for the moment they have cleared their diaries to help Prince William look after their three grandchildren George, ten, Charlotte, eight, and Louis, five. The princess is expected to recover at Adelaide Cottage in Windsor Great Park, which is a 40-minute drive from her parents.

[From The Daily Mail]

Damn, happy birthday to Carole, here’s how your house of cards collapsed in real time. I’m glad the Mail noted the fact that Carole skipped Ascot and Wimbledon, and that she’s only been seen once since PP’s insolvency. It would suck if that’s the reason why Carole didn’t visit Kate in the hospital though – the last thing on my mind (and I’m a hater) would have been “broke ass Carole shouldn’t visit her ill daughter in the hospital!” Of course not – we all know that Carole and Kate are very close, and I believe that Kate would have wanted to see her mom more than anyone. Which is why I still halfway believe that Kate is already recuperating at Middleton Manor, or she soon will be. Anyway, happy birthday to Carole.

Note by CB: Get the Top 10 stories about the Middletons’ shady finances when you sign up for our mailing list! I only send one email a day on weekdays after lunch.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Party Pieces’ IG.

In 2020, Taylor Swift made her general feelings known for months before she formally endorsed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. She was jazzed, that summer, when Biden chose Harris as his running mate, then Taylor did a piece with V Magazine in October 2020 where she spoke about why she was voting for the Biden-Harris ticket. She also baked Biden-Harris cookies and posted the photo on her Insta (and Biden reposted it too). So far, Swift hasn’t been vocal about who she plans to vote for, but I would be willing to bet that – at the very least – Taylor will do another voter-registration drive and she’ll participate in some GOTV efforts in the fall. All of that means that the Republicans are terrified of the power Taylor wields and You-Know-Who has been telling people that he’s more popular than Taylor (he is not).

Singer-songwriter Taylor Swift hasn’t even endorsed President Joe Biden for reelection yet. That hasn’t stopped members of MAGAland’s upper crust from plotting to declare — as one source close to Donald Trump calls it — a “holy war” on the pop mega-star, especially if she ends up publicly backing the Democrats in the 2024 election.

According to three people familiar with the matter, Trump loyalists working on or close to the former president’s campaign, longtime Trump allies in right-wing media, and an array of outside advisers to the ex-president have long taken it as a given that Swift will eventually endorse Biden (as she did in 2020). Indeed, several of these Republicans and conservative media figures have discussed the matter with Trump over the past few months, the sources say.

While Swift has not yet issued an endorsement in the 2024 race, The New York Times reported Monday that Swift is a key name on Biden aides’ “wish lists of potential surrogates.” A potential Swift appearance at Super Bowl LVIII alongside her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, has already prompted the MAGA right’s culture war pugilists into a conspiracy-fueled froth about how this NFL season has been rigged to boost Biden.

Behind the scenes, Trump has reacted to the possibility of Biden and Swift teaming up against him this year not with alarm, but with an instant projection of ego. In recent weeks, the former president has told people in his orbit that no amount of A-list celebrity endorsements will save Biden. Trump has also privately claimed that he is “more popular” than Swift is and that he has more committed fans than she does, a person close to Trump and another source with knowledge of the matter tell Rolling Stone.

Last month, the source close to Trump adds, the ex-president commented to some confidants that it “obviously” made no sense that he was not named Time magazine’s 2023 Person of the Year — an honor that went to none other than Swift in December.

Meanwhile, as Trump has been having a popularity contest with Swift in his own head, others close to him —including GOP operatives, some of his 2024 staff, and Trumpy media figures — have been brainstorming different ways to go after Swift. Since late last year, these Trump allies have repeatedly discussed how to turn the culture-warrior dial up to 11, if she re-endorses Biden this year, the sources recount.

“It would be more fuel thrown on to the culture-war fires,” says an official working on the Trump reelection efforts. “Another left-wing celebrity who is part of the Democrat elite telling you what to think.”

Publicly, members of Trump’s inner sanctum and social circle are already signaling Swift’s prominent position atop their enemies list — a situation that has reached fever pitch now that Swift’s boyfriend will once again be playing in the Super Bowl.

[From Rolling Stone]

Here’s the thing – I bet Taylor has been wondering what she should do or say about the election too, but by telegraphing their fascist rage at the #1 pop princess in the world, the Republicans are making it that much easier for Taylor to just post a simple Instagram endorsement for Biden. I mean, she’s going to get sh-t no matter what she says or doesn’t say, they’re absolutely making that clear. And if it turns into Trump vs. Taylor, my money is on the Snake Fam. Please, I’m begging the Snake Fam to use their power against the MAGA cult. Also: I don’t believe that the Biden administration wants to use Taylor as a surrogate. Her power and voice would be much better for (as I said before) voter registration drives and GOTV efforts.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images and Instagram.

As we discussed, on a recent episode of the UK show Dragons’ Den, the founders of jewelry brand Kimai revealed that their business grew by leaps and bounds right after the Duchess of Sussex wore a pair of their lab-grown diamond earrings in January 2019, to a Smart Works event. Kimai’s founders, Sidney Neuhaus and Jessica Warch, told the panel that they got Meghan to wear the earrings by “cold emailing” her. The British papers have been ranting about it for several days, trying to say that Meghan accepted the earrings as freebies and she should have said no, or she should have shared with staffers or blah blah blah. As it turns out, while Meghan did hear about the company through a cold email, she actually purchased the earrings she wore in 2019. She also purchased another pair from the brand, and wore the second pair during last year’s Invictus Games.

Whenever Meghan Markle wears something, it’s sure to be a swift sellout — and the founders of London-based fine jewelry brand Kimai recently shared that they raised $1.2 million in investments after the Duchess of Sussex wore a pair of their diamond earrings. Sidney Neuhaus and Jessica Warch, co-founders of the ethical lab-grown diamond company, appeared on “Dragons’ Den” (the BBC’s version of “Shark Tank”) last week, sharing that they “launched without investment” and managed to convince Markle to wear one of their pieces just two months later.

The duchess sparkled in Kimai’s 18k yellow gold Felicity crawler earrings during a 2019 visit to the Smart Works charity, with the soon-to-be-relaunched style — which retailed for $845 per earring — featuring three diamond eye charms dangling from a wave of pavé stones.

Warch shut down rumors that Markle accepted the earrings as freebies, confirming to Page Six Style that the Duchess of Sussex purchased them from Kimai directly.

On “Dragons’ Den,” Warch explained that after the royal wore the earrings, the company was able “to grow the revenue significantly,” enabling Kimai to raise $1.2 million in investments.

“I think for us as a young brand starting out it’s very hard to get out there, and her wearing our designs really attracted people’s attention from a design perspective but also from a lab-grown diamond perspective,” Warch tells Page Six Style, adding “it was the first time royalty was seen wearing lab-grown diamonds.”

The jewelry pro told us that, in 2019, lab-grown stones were “a very new and controversial topic” and that the Duchess of Sussex’s support “definitely launched” the business.

When “Diary Of A CEO” podcast host Steven Bartlett, who serves as one of the show’s “dragons,” asked how they pulled off getting a member of the royal family to wear the unknown brand, the duo admitted that they sent “cold emails.” Bartlett went on to offer the duo a £250,000 ($316,000) investment in their business, telling Warch and Neuhaus, “The story you told me of you hounding down Meghan Markle was the moment you had my heart, because that’s what it takes.”
The Duchess of Sussex has since gone on to wear Kimai ‘s semi-hoop earrings ($795 each) at the Invictus Games in 2023, and stars like Jessica Alba and Emma Watson have also worn the ethical brand.

[From Page Six]

I’m sort of in awe of Meghan’s ability to do research into the smallest things and have this kind of impact. I mean, a jewelry brand cold-emailed her and she purchased a pair of lab-grown diamonds, wore them to a royal event and she had this huge impact for the brand but she never said a word. It’s incredible. Anyway, I wonder if the British papers will still be screaming about the earrings now that the founder has come out and said that Meghan purchased them. I hope Kimai gives her some free earrings though, damn.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

Calista Flockhart works so rarely in television or films, it always feels like an event when she’s actually out of the house. She’s now starring in Feud: Capote vs. The Swans, and she plays Lee Radziwell, Jackie Kennedy’s sister. She’s joined by Naomi Watts (Babe Paley), Diane Lane (Slim Keith), Chloe Sevigny (CZ Guest), Molly Ringwald (Joanne Carson) and Demi Moore (Ann Woodward). Calista recently gave a pretty great interview to Maureen Dowd at the NY Times about Feud, about being married to Harrison Ford and about life in general. She also touches on the ‘90s sh-t – all of the conversations about her short skirts and whether she had an eating disorder. Some highlights:

She would have had lunch with the Swans: “Maybe once. I felt very sorry for them. Here they are, the toast of New York — rich, jewels, apartments, houses in the country, houses in Europe. They travel all the time on private planes. They have yachts. They are dictating what is in and what is not. Underneath all that, they were very sad, very lonely and really unhappy women.”

She loved the costumes but her real style isn’t like that: “I should have lived in the ’60s, for sure…[but] I’m not going to wear a purse that says Gucci all over it, because that just seems strange. I’m also just very frugal. I have some really beautiful designer clothes, but 90 percent of my wardrobe is from Nordstrom. Just what’s comfortable, what works. I have a uniform. I switch from a gray sweater to a black sweater back to the gray sweater to a black sweater.”

On Lee Radziwell: “Truman Capote recognized that she was living in her sister’s shadow, and he would say things: ‘You’re so much prettier. You’re so much smarter. You’re more interesting. You have better style.’ She really needed to hear that. I think it made her really love Truman. He was fun, and she confided in him, like they all did.”

On all of the criticism of Ally McBeal’s short skirts: “I have a lot of distance and perspective, and I’m still incredulous. I cannot believe that I was scrutinized and pursued like that. It was intense and it was unfair.” Ms. Flockhart recalled how casually that wardrobe decision had been made: “I said to the costume designer: ‘It either has to be long or short. It can’t be in the middle, because that doesn’t make my leg look good.’ She said, ‘OK, let’s go short.’ I said, ‘Cool, let’s go short.’ And then all of a sudden there was this huge short-skirt scandal, which was really fun.”

The conversations about whether she was anorexic: “I don’t think that would ever happen today. They call it body-shaming now. I haven’t thought about it in a long time, but it’s really not OK to accuse someone of having a disease that a lot of people struggle with. It wasn’t the case, and there was nothing I could do to convince anybody or get out of it. If I had worn a big padded bra, they probably would never have been able to target me in that way. I look back at pictures, and I’m the same then as I am now, and nobody says a word now. I was an easy target, I guess. It was painful, it was complicated. I loved working on ‘Ally McBeal,’ and it just made it sour. I was very sleep-deprived and I was depressed about it. I did think that it was going to ruin my career. I didn’t think anybody would ever hire me again, because they would just assume I had anorexia, and that would be the end of that.”

She’s always been naturally small: “I honestly have never been in a situation where I have to watch my weight. My mom is 4-11 now, and she weighed 93 pounds when she was married. Talk about a little tiny elf. I just have small bones, and I just am lucky.”

Why her marriage to Harrison has worked: She mused that one of the reasons that it has worked is because she was “really content being home” as a full-time mom. “I didn’t have the same dreams at the time, so we weren’t competing with each other. We’re very independent of each other in some ways and probably incredibly codependent on each other in others.”

Her independence startled him at first. “It scares him, I think, sometimes. When I first met him, he said, ‘You are the most self-sufficient woman in the world, and I don’t know how I feel about that.’ I remember I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ Because I didn’t recognize I was self-sufficient. The other reason it works is, we’re both pretty introverted. We stay home a lot, homebodies, which is nice.”

[From The NY Times]

If you go to the full piece, there’s a cute back-and-forth between Harrison and Calista about how they met (Harrison was interviewed separately). Basically, Harrison caught a glimpse of Calista at the 2002 Golden Globes and he was like “who is that??” He went over to her and tried to chat her up but she was ambivalent, but they kept talking later in the evening and he asked her out, and they’ve basically been together since their first date. She doesn’t make a big deal about “oh, I’m the wife of a Hollywood power player,” and it feels like neither of them really revel in that side of things. She’s just happy at home, raising her son and living her life. I also believe her when she says that she’s just naturally small. Some people are just fine-boned. And yes, all of those conversations about her body were gross at the time.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

Last year, for St. Patrick’s Day, Prince William formally turned over his honorary position as colonel-in-chief of the Irish Guards. The position was handed over to his wife, the Princess of Wales. In turn, William took an honorary position with the Welsh Guards, because I guess the Prince of Wales can’t do f–k all for both the Welsh Guards AND the Irish Guards at the same time. In any case, Kate was always supposed to attend the St. Patrick’s Day shamrock ceremony with the Irish Guards, except for the time she skipped because she didn’t feel like it. Well, she’s obviously still recovering from her abdominal surgery this year, so the Irish Guards’ royal patron will be MIA. Weirdly, it doesn’t sound like they’re sending anyone in Kate’s place?

Recuperating at Windsor, the Princess of Wales, who is off duty until Easter, will not be able to down a Guinness while presenting shamrock to the Irish Guards on St Patrick’s Day. Just over a year ago Kate replaced William as their Royal Colonel. She hopes to be fit in June when No 9 Company troop the colour for the King.

A week earlier she is due to take the salute at the Colonel’s Review, the first female regimental colonel to do so since Princess Elizabeth in 1951.

[From The Daily Mail]

Notice how effortlessly they’ve pushed back Kate’s comeback – we’ve gone from “after Easter” to “maybe we’ll see her in June.” Last year, King Charles handed Kate several other military patronages, and none of those units will probably see her for a full year. While last year’s Irish Guards parade was widely criticized online, the whole shamrock ceremony is something cute which has been done by a senior royal woman for decades. It seems weird that they can’t or won’t just send Anne or Sophie or even Camilla for just one St. Patrick’s Day.

Meanwhile, Page Six had some lukewarm tea about how Kate’s surgery was a big surprise to her closest aides:

Kate Middleton is “thrilled” to be home with her children — after even her closest staff were kept in the dark about her major abdominal surgery. The Princess of Wales, 42, returned home to Adelaide Cottage on the Windsor estate Monday after two weeks in the hospital.

Even her closest aides did not know what exactly was wrong, sources told Page Six, as she and Prince William wanted to protect her privacy.

A Kensington Palace spokesperson said Monday that the royal “is making good progress.” The Princess of Wales is said to be extremely glad to get home.

“But for a twist of fate and meeting William, friends often comment she’d likely have preferred a quieter countryside life,” said a source. “Family and bringing up her children is the most important thing to her.”

[From Page Six]

A quieter country life is what Pippa ended up getting – after spending the first years of her marriage in London, Pippa and Terribly Moderately Wealthy James moved into a palatial estate in Berkshire with plenty of room for live-in nannies. Kate really made a Faustian bargain for the ring. As for Kate’s closest aides being kept in the dark… I don’t even know anymore. Again, wherever Kate is, I hope she’s okay.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images, Backgrid.

With King Charles, Prince William and the Princess of Wales all out of royal commission for one to five months, it was looking like Queen Camilla was being left in charge for a lengthy period of time. I still believe that Camilla is going to enjoy her little solo daily events for the next month, but the royal press isn’t looking forward to it. Which is why they’re desperate to convince themselves that everyone has been dying to see what Princess Anne and the Duchess of Edinburgh are up to. Anne and Sophie will also be out and about in the next month – although Sophie only seems to have one event on her calendar – but don’t expect to see much of Prince Edward. He’s either on strike or he just needed a break after jetting around the world with zero attention.

With the King temporarily out of action and the Princess of Wales laid up recovering from surgery, there was only one thing for it. The women of Windsor, as ever, have stepped up to the plate. The Queen, Princess Royal and Duchess of Edinburgh are to hold the fort for the coming week as the only senior members of the Royal family on public engagements.

The Queen will be out and about every day on visits, the details of which will be kept under wraps until her arrival for security reasons. Princess Anne, whose reputation as the hardest-working member of the Royal family precedes her, is doing two or three engagements on most days, travelling from London to Moray in Scotland, to Cardiff in Wales and then Wiltshire, Nottingham and back again. Close to her home in Windsor, the Duchess of Edinburgh will do one engagement in Surrey.

The unexpected royal matriarchy will end only on Feb 7, according to plans, when the 79-year-old Duke of Gloucester enters the fray, followed by the Duke of Edinburgh on the 8th. Prince Edward is taking a short break from public duties after his trips overseas in January to South Africa and St Helena.

The Princess of Wales was also discharged on Monday and is now at home in Windsor and reunited with her three children. She is not expected in public until Easter, with a long period of recuperation from abdominal surgery. She will be able to complete some of her work at home, closely following her Early Years project, but will not be making any in-person visits until at least April in a major change to the Royal calendar. The Prince of Wales is due to return to his own public engagements after taking time off to be by his wife’s bedside, but only once when she is settled at home.

The Duke of Sussex and Duke of York, who years ago would also have been undertaking royal duties and would have stepped in to fill the gaps left by the King and Princess, are no longer working members of the family.

[From The Telegraph]

Gee, is the Telegraph going to mention why Harry and Andrew are no longer working royals? So eager to lump them together, never eager to explain why! Andrew isn’t a working royal because he raped teenagers who were trafficked to him by Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein. Prince Harry, on the other hand, married a Black woman who was good at her royal job, and four years later, none of these people have ever recovered from it. As for Edward… it’s not a permanent hiatus, and most of these royals believe that they need a month’s rest after a few days abroad. Anyway, Anne sounds busy. Sophie does not. Camilla isn’t busy either – she’s doing busywork stuff like “visiting a dollhouse” and “dropping off her son’s watch at a repair shop.”

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Avalon Red.

Chloe Sevigny is currently promoting Feud: Capote vs. the Swans, and she finally sat down for a Vogue “15 Looks” video. I genuinely enjoyed hearing her talk about the ‘90s and her quirky fashion. You can tell how much she cares about it. [OMG Blog]
I’m still not ready to talk about the Australian Open men’s final. [Socialite Life]
Keanu Reeves took relatively small salaries for the John Wick movies because he had a backend deal on the whole franchise. [JustJared]
Dev Patel directed himself in Monkey Man & it looks so good! [LaineyGossip]
Yeah, Jonathan Glazer has been a well-known music video & commercial director for a very long time. That Jamiroquai video! [Pajiba]
Funny tweets from women! [Buzzfeed]
Calista Flockhart’s suit game is very good. [GFY]
Oprah Winfrey turned 70 years old on Monday! [Hollywood Life]
What’s Stephen Amell up to? [Seriously OMG]
Louis Vuitton made their brand ambassador Ana de Armas fly to Australia just to present the trophy at the Australian Open. [RCFA]

Well, Rebecca English at the Daily Mail has an exclusive about the Princess of Wales’s discharge from the London Clinic and her return home to Adelaide Cottage. While I believe that all is not as it seems, the conspiracy theories have gotten crazier and crazier in the past two weeks. As I’ve said before, you really have to watch what the other Windsors are doing – they don’t seem panicked, they’re carrying on like usual, and the king and queen are even using Kensington Palace’s crisis-mismanagement to draw a very pointed and vivid contrast. Enter Becky English and her “exclusive.” Again, no one saw William or Kate anywhere near the London Clinic yesterday and the British media is just itching to talk about that. So English insists that William was there, at the hospital, and he picked up his wife around 11 am on Monday, hours before Charles and Camilla left the same hospital and managed to do a full photocall.

The Princess of Wales has been reunited with her three children for the first time in two weeks after finally leaving hospital. Kate, who is said by Kensington Palace to be ‘doing well’, left The London Clinic in Marylebone yesterday morning after being admitted for surgery on January 16. King Charles was also discharged yesterday after surgery for an enlarged prostate, with the two royals leaving the central London hospital within hours of each other.

The King has been advised to avoid public engagements for up to a month, although he will be working through his red boxes of state papers almost immediately. Kate, 42, is unlikely to be seen in public until after Easter.

The Mail can reveal that Prince George, ten, Princess Charlotte, eight, and five-year-old Prince Louis were not taken to visit their mother in hospital after she recovered from what has been described as ‘abdominal surgery’. As her children would have been in school when she arrived back at her Windsor home, it is likely they would only have seen her for the first time when they returned to Adelaide Cottage later in the afternoon from Lambrook School, a ten-minute drive away. It will almost certainly be the longest period the Princess has been away from them.

It is understood that Prince William, who had cleared his diary to be by his wife’s side throughout, was at the hospital when she was discharged and is likely to have driven her home. It is thought the princess left through a private exit at around 11am in a car with her husband. Kensington Palace staff were seen leaving half an hour later, one with an arrangement of white orchids in their car.

Kate will now recuperate at home and her return to official duties will depend on medical advice closer to the time. It has been suggested she might not be able to undertake public duties until after Easter, meaning all planned engagements – including two foreign trips – have been cancelled, although aides hope they can be rearranged. It is understood William plans to restart public engagements once his wife is settled and recuperating at home, with further details to be announced. He has had help from the couple’s nanny, Maria Turrion Borrallo, and his in-laws, Michael and Carole Middleton, who will continue to lend a hand.

Kensington Palace said they will not discuss the princess’ condition any further and that it is her ‘wish’ for her personal medical information to remain private.

[From The Daily Mail]

From what I’ve seen, English is the only one firmly claiming that Kate absolutely checked out of the London Clinic yesterday and William absolutely picked her up. Given the number of photographers outside of the hospital and the number of times Queen Camilla was photographed entering and exiting the hospital over the weekend, I just find that so unlikely, but hey, what do I know. I’m not even entirely convinced that Kate is currently recuperating at Adelaide Cottage either. As I’ve said before, the absence of Carole and Michael Middleton at the hospital might be explained if Kate was already recovering somewhere else, and I would totally believe that Kate would rather recuperate at her parents’ house than at Adelaide Cottage. Wherever she is, I hope she’s safe and doing well.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.