These people simply cannot decide if the Duchess of Sussex’s absence from the coronation is the best thing or the worst thing to ever happen to the Windsors. Of course, we’re also dealing with a crew of fantasists, liars and idiots, which means that people are just throwing sh-t at the wall to see what sticks. Daniela Elser is one of those fantasist idiots, and Elser believes that Meghan’s “snub” of the coronation is the biggest mistake ever:

“Their decision for Meghan not to go could have serious repercussions, not least when it comes to their Sussex titles. In making the choice to not go and to not show her support for her father-in-law, to not be there for the one of the biggest moments for the monarchy in the better part of a century, she is making her position in regards to the institution pretty damn obvious. Meghan seems to be taking an abundantly crystal clear stance on what sort of relationship she wants to have with her husband’s family, i.e., pretty much none,” expert Daniela Elser wrote in news.com.au.

[From The Mirror]

Again, Harry already offered to give up the Sussex titles and his offer was shrugged off. Again, it would look terrible if Charles made a point of removing the Sussex title, all while leaving Prince Andrew’s York title. Again, the Windsors didn’t even want Meghan there, which they made abundantly clear. Speaking of, other “royal experts” believe that Charles is extending yet another olive branch to the Sussexes by including a photo of them in the Chubbly program.

King Charles’ decision to include a family photograph with Harry, Meghan, William, Kate and their children in the official Buckingham Palace souvenir Coronation programme is an ‘olive branch’ in the direction of California, experts told MailOnline today.

Phil Dampier told MailOnline: ‘Using the picture including Harry and Meghan is yet another olive branch from the King and an attempt to show they are still loved members of the family. We know of course that relations were already starting to strain but it’s a happy picture which conveys harmony and unity. Most of all it reminds us of what might have been and how it’s so sad the way things have unfolded.

‘Harry and Meghan could have been Royal superstars and helped modernise the monarchy and take it forward deep into the century. But now the slimmed down monarchy is struggling with numbers and an awful lot depends on William and Kate. The King will be hoping that Harry’s presence at the Coronation is the start of a healing process but I don’t see the couple of days that Harry will be here as an opportunity for any meaningful peace talks. The King will be too busy and William has no interest in talking to his brother’.

Royal biographer and investigative journalist Tom Bower told MailOnline the choice of picture from 2018 comes from the right place – but it is also a ‘sad’ reminder of the rift between him, William and his youngest son. He said: ‘Charles is desperate to preside over a successful Coronation. He will sacrifice everything to conceal the truth. Publishing the photo reminds us only of a sadly missed opportunity – but Charles is certainly not to blame’.

[From The Daily Mail]

“An awful lot depends on William and Kate…” LOL. Harry and Meghan were royal superstars, which is why William and Kate were so mad, and why they’re still so resentful. So much fear, so much agitation about how badly this continues to play out. It’s yet another reminder that King Charles absolutely needed Harry to come to the coronation – think of how awful it would look if both of Charles’s sons were not there. While the British media would have screamed and blamed the Sussexes, the optics would have always been very straightforward: Charles is a dogsh-t father and he’s too racist to accept his mixed-race relations. THAT is why Charles is making such an “effort” to include Harry. It’s not out of genuine warmth or anything – this is all completely transactional and image-conscious on Charles’s part.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

For months, there’s been a steady drumbeat of aristocratic agita, confusion, heartbreak and salt over the invitations to King Charles’s coronation. It’s honestly one of my favorite things ever, to see all of these titled toffs – earls, dukes, viscounts, lords – lose their g–damn minds about NOT being able to pledge themselves to the new king whilst wearing feathers, velvet and knickerbockers. These toffs are the ones arguing that THEY are the ones people really want to see, and Charles’s “updates” and “modernizations” for the coronation are destroying something very dear to them: their social standing and their visible connection to the crown. If they aren’t important enough to be invited to the Chubbly, then maybe the whole bloody system is a f–king sham? Oh, dear. Well, now an untitled aristo – someone close to the Parker-Bowles clan – has run to the Mail to cry about how Charles is giving in to “drips and dullards” by “watering down” his coronation. Curious.

King Charles is in danger of giving in to ‘drips and dullards’ by ‘watering down’ his Coronation. The warning will set alarm bells ringing at Buckingham Palace because it comes from Ben Goldsmith, whose family have been close to the royals for decades.

‘No amount of watering down will ever be enough for the drips and dullards who really want this kind of thing abolished altogether,’ says the financier, whose sister, film producer Jemima Goldsmith, was one of Princess Diana’s best friends. ‘They represent a small, chippy minority who, for now, can be easily ignored. For the rest of us who enjoy the beauty of these ancient ceremonies, go big or go home.’

Goldsmith is a good friend of Queen Camilla’s nephew Ben Elliot and is so close to the royals that he and his wife, Jemima, a caterer, hosted the wedding party for Prince and Princess Michael of Kent’s daughter, Lady Gabriella Windsor. His comments follow my disclosure on Saturday that most of the 24 non-royal dukes — the most senior rank in the peerage — had not received invitations to the Coronation. One of those, Goldsmith confirms, is the Duke of Somerset. He had been ‘sprucing up’ the family state coach so he could potentially arrive at Westminster Abbey in ducal splendour. Goldsmith says: ‘Apparently, peers have been told they aren’t allowed to wear their coronation robes at the Coronation next month. Some, including our local one here, the Duke of Somerset, haven’t been invited at all.’

He adds: ‘It’s 70 years since the last one of these. I really hope it won’t end up being a watered-down affair. Britain does these kinds of celebrations so well, and they matter to a huge number of people, not just here but around the world.’

At Queen Elizabeth’s Coronation, the senior peer of each ‘degree’ — the duke, marquess, earl, viscount and baron with the oldest titles — ‘paid homage’ to the new monarch. Goldsmith believes it’s a mistake for the King to try to downplay the pageantry. ‘Everything else changes all the time, and so it’s reassuring for there to be some things which don’t change, through generations,’ says the son of late tycoon Sir James Goldsmith and Lady Annabel Goldsmith, the daughter of a marquess. ‘For this reason, every society that has ever existed has had its own unique, often strange and inexplicable rituals and traditions.’

Ben, the brother of Tory minister Lord (Zac) Goldsmith, adds: ‘America, a newer society than ours, has created for itself a whole array of local and national rituals and ceremonies which matter a great deal to the people involved in them. There is an ugly kind of self-hatred in calls for the watering down or eradication of the ones which are unique to our society. Thankfully, it’s only a small, slightly depressing minority, for the time being. Fingers crossed they are completely ignored.’

[From The Daily Mail]

“America, a newer society than ours, has created for itself a whole array of local and national rituals and ceremonies which matter a great deal to the people involved in them.” It’s true – we celebrate inaugurations, we annually celebrate our independence from the British crown, we soberly recognize Memorial Day and Veterans Day with Nissan sales. The difference is, we’re usually celebrating our democracy. We’re celebrating the public servants we voted for. The crown is asking people to not only pay for an excessive party for an unelected king, but *celebrate* the fact that taxpayer money is going to support these lazy elitists. It’s not just drips and dullards complaining, but I love that people like Goldsmith are actually upset that the ceremony isn’t going to be more elitist, more aristocratic, or more expensive.

Photos courtesy of Instar, Cover Images, Backgrid.

Embed from Getty Images

In the past month, the Prince and Princess of Wales have only made one public appearance or event: the church walk on Easter Sunday. No one knows for sure where they were on their month-long holiday, although most people assume they spent the bulk of that time at Anmer Hall in Norfolk. We usually don’t find out about their international travels until much later. In any case, today they ended their vacation and traveled to Birmingham for a day of local events. According to the Mail, they traveled by train. Shocked that they didn’t travel by helicopter! They probably took their helicopter from Norfolk to London, which is where they “caught the train.” Just like us!

Kate is wearing a Karen Millen dress in a muted merlot shade. The dress currently retails (on sale) for £183.20. It’s called the “midi trench dress.” Y’all know who else likes trenches and trench-style dresses? CopyKeen Kate is at it again. That being said, this also feels retro, like she’s trying to reference a look from Princess Diana.

One of their first stops was an Indian restaurant, where they wore aprons and helped out in the kitchen? Unsanitary.

Hope we told this customer to come to the right place…! @indianstreatery pic.twitter.com/0dxzpegLqt

— The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) April 20, 2023

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Photos courtesy of Getty.

These are some pics of Chris Evans and Ana de Armas from the premiere of Ghosted. All the articles call it Ghosted but the posters write it ghosted, so I don’t what’s correct. There was a show Ghosted with Adam Scott and Craig Robertson that was kind of cute, but there were some actual ghosts. Chris’ movie, though, refers to the act of not contacting a person with whom you have a relationship again. One day you’re friends or dating/lovers and the next they’ve gone radio silent on you with no explanation. It’s a gut punch because the person who has been ghosted is left to wonder why. According to Chris, he prefers being ghosted to being dumped, because then he can make up why it happened. So instead of closure, Chris prefers a Hollywood blockbuster that he writes in his mind.

Yes, even Chris Evans, the reigning Sexiest Man Alive, has been jilted by a potential paramour, he reveals in the new issue of PEOPLE.

Asked if he’s ever been ghosted, the 41-year-old Marvel Cinematic Universe star is disarmingly honest. “I feel I’ve experienced something much worse,” he says. “I think I’d prefer being ghosted because you can make up any story you want. I’ve had the slow decline in text responses, and you just know the person is pushing you aside casually.”

So how did he cope? “You tell yourself a story, whatever you have to do to get by,” he says.

[From People]

A Gemini says what now? I mean, I love this concept – the idea that I could take every person that took an Irish Goodbye out of my life, every job that passed me over and every negative vibe that came my way and create my own reason for why it happened. But as a tried-and-true Capricorn – oh hell no. If you ghost me in any way, I will track you for the rest of your days for answers. And the only thing worse than me trying to get answer from you is my second-guessing your motivation. Honestly, the rejection will sting, but at least I’ll be able to get on with my life.

But I’m not Chris, who can apparently blithely dip in and out of relationships. It doesn’t surprise me that an attractive white guy would choose to create their own narrative when one isn’t provided. I assume any reason they generate works out in their favor, too. He might want to be careful though, because it works both ways. Remember he ghosted Jana Kramer, and she created her own story about how Chris couldn’t handle a woman’s diet – and then put him on blast on a podcast. Hopefully his current girlfriend Alba Baptista will get a proper breakup if it comes to that. Of course, at the rate they scare each other, their definition of ‘ghosting’ is going to involve cardiac arrest.

Photo credit: Backgrid

I generally don’t put a lot of faith in Marca, the Spanish tabloid which covers European royals and celebrities. They have some good gossip about Spanish celebrities, for sure, and I appreciate the fact that they’re stirring up gossip about the British royals, but y’all can’t take ALL of their reporting seriously! Back in February, Marca breezily reported that Prince William spent Valentine’s Day with Rose Hanbury and they had an intimate dinner together in London. Which… the British media covers up William’s crap for the most part, but I doubt the entire British establishment would cover it up if William was flaunting his affair(s) so publicly. Meanwhile, Marca reports this week that William is being emotionally and verbally abusive to Kate. This is kind of the first time anyone has printed that.

Insiders within the royal family have been divulging a lot of controversial information lately, and now a staff member has come forward with some truly shocking allegations. This person claims that Kate Middleton has been subjected to emotional and verbal abuse by her husband, Prince William. This revelation has caused quite a stir among royal watchers and the public alike.

The staff member, who has chosen to remain anonymous, has been working closely with the royal family and therefore has firsthand knowledge of the situation. According to the source, the alleged mistreatment has taken a toll on Kate Middleton’s mental health, leaving her struggling to cope with the constant pressures of her royal duties and the challenges of maintaining a harmonious marriage.

“Kate’s really been through the wringer lately,” the source shared. “The way William treats her is just awful, and it’s been really hard on her. She’s such a strong person, but even she has her breaking point.”

These allegations are incredibly concerning, especially given Kate Middleton’s well-known work ethic and dedication to her royal duties. If the claims are true, there are serious implications for her ability to continue fulfilling her responsibilities.

[From Marca]

In the 24 hours following the Guardian’s excerpt of Prince Harry’s Spare, the part when Harry described William cornering him in Harry’s home and then violently throwing Harry to the ground, I’ll never forget how quickly thousands of royal-watchers went straight to “what does William do to Kate behind-the-scenes.” I don’t know what happens between William and Kate, all I know is how Harry described his brother’s actions, behavior and words. I also know that everyone around William has said for years that he has a terrible temper and that he’s constantly incandescent with rage as his default emotion. It would absolutely be believable to me that William is the same way when he’s with his wife and children.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images.

These days, there really is so much drama within a certain class of British society. The grandest dukes, earls, lords, viscounts and noblewomen are extremely pissy right now because King Charles did not invite many of them to his coronation. Keep in mind, I have no skin in this game – I just enjoy watching fancy, entitled aristocrats’ worlds collapse because they weren’t invited to the biggest royal event in seventy years. But even I wonder if Charles should have made these titled toffs a bigger priority for the guest list. Especially when it comes to Lady Pamela Hicks, daughter of Lord Mountbatten, who was Charles’s mentor and de facto godfather/surrogate father. Pamela Hicks was one of QEII’s bridesmaids. Pamela Hicks and her daughter India Hicks are big-time royalists and long-time defenders of Charles. Pamela has spent years saying all kinds of nasty things about Princess Diana. India has made a point of lavishing Princess Kate with praise. And none of that was enough.

Lady Pamela Hicks will not be among the 2,000 guests in Westminster Abbey for King Charles’ coronation. Queen Elizabeth’s bridesmaid and lady-in-waiting turned 94 on Wednesday, and her daughter India Hicks shared her take on the scaled-down guest list for the May 6 crowning ceremony in an Instagram birthday tribute.

India, 55, said they received a message from one of King Charles’ private secretaries, explaining that “this coronation was to be very different to the Queen’s. 8,000 guests would be whittled down to 1,000 alleviating the burden on the state.”

“The King was sending his great love and apologies, he was offending many family and friends with the reduced list,” wrote India, who is a goddaughter of King Charles and served as a bridesmaid at his wedding to Princess Diana in 1981. “My mother was not offended at all. ‘How very, very sensible’ she said. Invitations based on meritocracy not aristocracy. ‘I am going to follow with great interest the events of this new reign,’ ” India continued in the caption.

“Today my mother turns 94 years old, she must be one of the few remaining people with such a memory intact, about to live through a third coronation,” the designer, writer and entrepreneur wrote. “Happy Birthday to my darling Mum.”

[From People]

I’m including the Instagram post below. I looked it up to see if I could tell whether India was seething on her mother’s behalf. I can’t tell, but I’ve always had some difficulty reading between British lines and trying to figure out their obscure class-code. If you told me that India included a few signifiers for her deep displeasure, I would believe you. Is one of them “One of the King’s personal secretaires was passing on a message from the King”? Meaning, India is pointing out that Charles sent one of his many toadies to do his work instead of calling one of his parents’ oldest friends, the daughter of his mentor? Is this also code? “My mother was not offended at all.” It reads as… carefully worded.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by India Hicks (@indiahicksstyle)

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instagram.

In the days following Jonathan Majors’ March arrest for domestic violence, rumors swirled within the New York and Yale acting community that there were additional victims. Majors’ lawyer went on the attack, releasing a statement calling his victim emotionally unstable and claiming that the victim recanted her allegations. Then his lawyer released the victim’s text messages, and they were incredibly damning to Majors. Throughout the week, the trade papers have been covering the fact that Majors’ publicist and management team dropped him, and that Majors has also been dropped from several upcoming productions. Plus, he’s not going to the Met Gala. Well, it’s gotten even worse. Variety reports that several additional victims have come forward and they’re talking to the New York DA’s office.

As Jonathan Majors prepares for a May 8 court appearance on domestic violence charges, his PR problems are about to get bigger. Sources familiar with the matter tell Variety that multiple alleged abuse victims of Majors have come forward following his March arrest and are cooperating with the Manhattan district attorney’s office. The prospect of more women waiting in the wings would mark a dramatic turn in the case and comes on the heels of Majors’ publicists and management firm cutting ties with the embattled actor earlier this week. The D.A. declined comment.

“Jonathan Majors is innocent and has not abused anyone. We have provided irrefutable evidence to the District Attorney that the charges are false. We are confident that he will be fully exonerated,” said Majors’ attorney Priya Chaudhry in a statement.

The “Creed III” star was arrested on March 25 in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan on charges of strangulation, assault and harassment. At the time, an NYPD spokesperson said in a statement that a 30-year-old woman told police she had been assaulted by Majors, 33, and that she “sustained minor injuries to her head and neck and was removed to an area hospital in stable condition.” But Chaudhry mounted an immediate and aggressive response, insisting that the actor “is provably the victim of an altercation with a woman he knows” and suggested the woman was having “an emotional crisis.” A source familiar with the chronology of events says the attorney released the statement while he was still behind bars.

For many who were in business with Majors, the text messages [Majors’ lawyer released] had the opposite effect and raised more questions than they answered, namely why the woman had lost consciousness. “It read like a bad Lifetime movie. They basically look like the text messages of a textbook abused woman,” says one person who is working with Majors on an upcoming project.

In recent months, Majors had become one of Hollywood’s most promising stars, with a series of high-profile and lucrative roles on the horizon. Now, all eyes are on his future with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where he is poised to play the titular Kang in “Avengers: The Kang Dynasty.” Majors is still attached to star in that film, which is slated to be released on May 2, 2025, and he is poised for a $20 million payday including back-end compensation. He also was signed to star in “Avengers: Secret Wars,” which is slated to debut in 2026. Disney is monitoring the fast-moving situation and has time to move deliberately.

Disney has the added wrinkle in that the alleged victim in the Manhattan incident also worked on this year’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” a film in which Majors was third-billed as Kang the Conqueror. A Disney spokesperson declined comment.

Separately, Majors is stepping down from the board of the Gotham Film and Media Institute and his work with the Sidney Poitier Initiative, which was created to support emerging filmmakers. On Wednesday afternoon, executive director Jeffrey Sharp sent a note to the Gotham board alerting them of the move.

“I think the truth is everyone is waiting to see what Marvel will do,” says an industry insider familiar with the situation. “It doesn’t mean everyone will do the same thing, but that’s what people are looking to.”

[From Variety]

While it breaks my heart that there are additional victims, I’m proud of those women for coming forward and telling their stories to the DA’s office. Given the victim’s text messages, I’m not sure she’s in a place where she’s ready to testify about what Majors did to her. The additional victims will at least help with the prosecution. After Variety reported all of this, Majors’ team went to TMZ and claimed all kinds of crazy sh-t about the night in question – they say that the taxi driver will swear up and down that Majors never laid a hand on this poor woman, and that after the taxi drive, the victim went out clubbing. They have blurry photos, apparently. I have no idea, but given that Majors’ team released his victim’s text messages with the belief that they would exonerate him, I’m pretty suspicious of everything coming from his team.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

People Magazine published additional excerpts from their cover story this week: “Why Harry’s Going Without Meghan.” In yesterday’s excerpts, we learned from “sources” that the Duchess of Sussex was thinking about going to the coronation to support her father-in-law, but she didn’t want to have to put herself through “the scrutiny” of the British media. “Scrutiny” being some kind of euphemism for targeted hate campaign. Anyway, these new excerpts are putting more of an emphasis on Harry’s perspective. Keep in mind, for days now, Buckingham Palace has been leaking a steady stream of “olive branch” stories, trying to make King Charles sound magnanimous and wise, a doting father and grandfather who has heart-to-heart conversations with his darling boy. Except that sources tell People that Charles didn’t even contact Harry directly for a while.

The coronation invite: When the Duke and Duchess of Sussex received an email about the royal event from Charles’ office — and not from Harry’s father himself — it became clear that the “sit-down” the prince sought to talk through their issues following the release of his memoir Spare wasn’t going to happen, a close friend tells PEOPLE exclusively in this week’s cover story. “They didn’t hear from Charles. Harry wanted to hear from his father directly — it’s always through somebody,” the friend says.

Harry & Charles eventually did speak over the phone: With the coronation just weeks away and the big question of whether the Duke and Duchess of Sussex would attend the historic ceremony remaining, the estranged father and son ultimately connected — although not in person — and had “positive conversations,” a source says.

Charles’s first wish: A source who knows the royals tells PEOPLE it would be King Charles’ “first wish” for Harry to join them at the coronation. “Despite the wounds, it’s his son, and I can’t imagine he wouldn’t want him to be there regardless of the hurtful things that have been said,” royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith adds.

Why Harry is going: For Prince Harry, his solo appearance at the coronation has everything to do with his desire to have, as he has stated, a “family, not an institution.” “This is about a son showing up for his father rather than the optics of the institution,” the close friend says.

No family reconciliation: “What they wanted wasn’t achieved,” the insider continued. “But at the end of the day, he’s going there to support his dad.”

[From People]

Yeah, I believe that Charles and Harry weren’t speaking and that the e-vite came through staff. I think Charles has regularly cut off personal communications with Harry over the years, and I’d be willing to bet that father and son did not speak over the phone from, like, October of last year through March. Charles was pissy about the Netflix series and Spare, and his punishment was clear: evicting the Sussexes from Frogmore Cottage. My other theory is that Charles’s childish silent treatment was probably the major reason why Harry didn’t confirm his attendance until last week. He was like: I can give you the silent treatment too, dad. Harry went radio silent about the coronation and Charles freaked out and eventually called Harry. I bet you that’s how it happened.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

Monday marked the debut of Live with Kelly and Mark, the newly minted married co-hosts of the long-running morning talk show. Mark Conseulos officially took over for Ryan Seacrest to sit next to his wife of 26-years, Kelly Ripa, on the show she’s hosted since 2001. Mark’s frequently filled in as a guest host with Kelly so this transition was seamless and effortless. Or was it? Two days into the all KellyandMark, all the time experiment and things are not going well. They are getting what conservatively is being called mixed reviews and what most are calling “backlash” or “brutal” critique. Viewers feel the couple overshare about their bedroom activity, that their newlywed schtick is silly, and their PDA is cloying. Plus, they really wish Kelly would let Mark finish one of his sentences. All of this makes me wonder, have these people never watched Kelly or Mark before?!

Married couple Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos faced more social media criticism during their second day hosting “Live” together.

“Gosh I don’t know with them together,” tweeted one viewer. “I am not a fan. Loved Ryan and all his stories, he brought another layer to the show.

“Kelly and Mark look uncomfortable together, it’s hard to watch. Mark as a fill in cohost was fun to watch. This isn’t fun to watch anymore. Need Ryan back.”

“Painful! When does Mark get to finish his own sentences??” noted one less-than-impressed fan. “Annoying, changed the channel. Bye-bye Live!

The “Riverdale” alum defended the first episode.

“This show today truly felt like home,” the actor told Us Weekly Monday. “I always feel at home with Kelly, but [working] together this morning just felt so right.”

He added that the couple has “always” felt at “ease” when they are together, and he feels “lucky we get to do that daily” as co-hosts.

“I can’t wait to see where we can go from here,” he added.
Ripa, also heaped praise on her husband’s debut, telling the magazine that she thought he did an “amazing” job and “better than (she) ever thought possible. “He’s a natural, and I have a good feeling this is going to be great for a while.”

[From Page Six]

I’ve only seen clips of Kelly and Mark on the show. They seemed like all their other clips, which I don’t love but I don’t know why everyone hates them now. I do think Mark seems a little more nervous, but that’s to be expected. And even though everything I thought would happen is happening, I still think they should be given longer than two days to prove themselves. Everyone needs to find their groove, even marrieds. Hopefully they will take the feedback and tweak their onscreen dynamic because seriously, right now it does feel like we’re at dinner with the annoying neighbors who only talk to each other.

The part I want to focus on is Kelly not letting Mark finish his sentences. I’ve been curious ever since they announced his hire about what their work dynamic would be. She’s been there 22 years, is she his boss? She definitely has seniority; does she get to make calls that he doesn’t? If the audience ultimately responds better to Mark, will Kelly can get ousted? That would be a hard hurdle to get over at home. Even if Mark gets fired, that’ll make for uncomfortable pillow-talk. I hope they thought this through because ABC is loyal only to their numbers. They don’t care about how blowing up an online partnership affects the relationship offline, they’ve proven that time and again. So Kelly running roughshod over Mark isn’t great. Not only does it establish her seniority, it kind of looks like she doesn’t trust him, despite her glowing review above. Plus, it’s annoying to watch. Again, I’ll wait out the first week because they’re probably both anxious. But I’d expect those kinds of nerves from two people just coming together. These are two people who have been together for 26 years and have worked together for many of those.

KELLY PLEASE LET MARK SPEAK
LET THE POOR GUY FINISH A SENTENCE. ITS PAINFUL TO WATCH. THIS IS A DIFFICULT TRANSITION FOR ALOT OF US..

— lori d. (@loridee07) April 18, 2023

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kelly Ripa (@kellyripa)

Embed from Getty Images

Photo credit: Instagram, Martin Sloan and Getty Images/Avalon Red

The funniest thing about the Carole and Michael Middleton’s Party Pieces business collapsing is the distinct lack of gossip and commentary about it in the British media. The Daily Mail, Tatler, The Telegraph, they’re all doing straight reporting about the situation around Party Pieces. There’s no commentator chiming in about how a potential bankruptcy for the future queen’s parents looks awful. There’s no royal biographer briefing the Mail about how the Middleton brand is going down the drain. All of those commentators are so focused on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s business dealings and putting the nastiest spin on Harry’s “paymasters,” meanwhile their future queen’s mother mismanaged what was supposed to be an eight-figure business into what looks like total insolvency. Nary a whiff of commentary about the fact that the Middletons will likely have to pay a “dowry” to offload the failing, debt-ridden business? Well, here’s more straight reporting – apparently, the Middletons need to offload PP in a hurry because two of their partners and financial backers pulled out rather suddenly. Holy sh-t.

Carole and Michael Middleton put their Party Pieces business up for sale after two of their three financial backers pulled out, it has emerged. Steven Bentwood, chief executive of parent company Party Pieces Holdings since 2019, and investor Darryl Eales resigned as directors in March, according to documents filed this week at Companies House. It was only after their departure that the Princess of Wales’s parents called in the consultancy Interpath to help them find a buyer for the company they founded in 1987.

Mr Bentwood, who previously built up his own lingerie company, and Mr Eales, a former chairman of Oxford United Football Club, and Erik Anderson, an American millionaire, all invested in Party Pieces when it became a public limited company four years ago. Now, only Mr Anderson remains as a director, together with Mr and Mrs Middleton.

It comes after reports that the Middletons are considering handing over a six-figure sum to a buyer in order to offload the business. Party Pieces lost £285,000 in 2021, taking its total deficit to £1.35 million, according to publicly available accounts.

A source close to the sale process confirmed that Mr Bentwood and Mr Eales had resigned as directors before Interplan was asked to give advice. The Middletons have asked Interplan to advise them on “options”, which include a sale or finding new investors.

The company is hoping it will receive a major boost from the Coronation – at which the Middletons are expected to be guests – by promoting a range of items for use at street parties.

Sky News reported this week that one of the leading contenders to buy the business is Club Green, one of its rivals, which is also a family-owned business selling party goods. Potential bidders have been told that Party Pieces has shown “some recent UK performance contraction during international expansion and focus on margins”. The Middletons are reportedly offering a six-figure “dowry” payment to sweeten any deal, with Sky quoting a source who said they were “trying to do the right thing for the business and its stakeholders”.

[From The Telegraph]

Um, is no one going to do a follow-up on WHY two of their business partners suddenly exited the business in March? Is no one going to do a follow-up on why Carole and Mike took on these business partners in 2019? Is no one going to ask if it’s tacky as f–k that the future queen’s gauche, bankrupt mother is hoping that her coronation invitation helps spur Party Pieces sales? I always thought that James Middleton was the black sheep of the family, the one with zero business sense, a well-connected grifter with a reverse Midas Touch. But no – the apple didn’t fall far from the grifter tree. Party Pieces has been a house of cards for a while. Sounds like those business partners just wised up to the extent of failing business this year. Good lord.

Also: how have Carole and Mike been funding their lavish lifestyle for years as their business went under? Does it have anything to do with that pot farm found adjacent to Middleton Manor?

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images.