The Duke and Duchess of Sussex had a rocky engagement and a rocky first few months of marriage. When I say “rocky,” I mean their treatment in the British media, not their relationship. They were happy together and Meghan would get pregnant soon after the wedding. They only announced the pregnancy in October 2018, telling members of the family at Princess Eugenie’s wedding, which was scheduled just before Harry and Meghan left for their South Pacific tour. The tour itself was a raging success – Meghan was hailed as a breath of fresh air, a true asset, a truly transformative figure for the monarchy. It all came crashing down just days after they returned to the UK. From Spare:

Stories rolled in, like breakers on a beach. First a rubbish hit piece by a hack biographer of Pa, who said I’d thrown a tantrum before the wedding. Then a work of fiction about Meg making her staff miserable, driving them too hard, committing the unpardonable sin of emailing people early in the morning. (She just happened to be up at that hour, trying to stay in touch with night-owl friends back in America—she didn’t expect an instant reply.)

She was also said to have driven our assistant to quit; in fact that assistant was asked to resign by Palace HR after we showed them evidence she’d traded on her position with Meg to get freebies. But because we couldn’t speak publicly about the reasons for the assistant’s departure, rumors filled the void. In many ways that was the true start of all the troubles. Shortly thereafter, the “Duchess Difficult” narrative began appearing in all the papers. Next came a novella in one of the tabloids about the tiara. The article said Meg had demanded a certain tiara that had belonged to Mummy, and when the Queen refused, I’d thrown a fit: What Meghan wants, Meghan gets!

Days later came the coup de grâce: from a royal correspondent, a sci-fi fantasy describing the “growing froideur” (good Lord) between Kate and Meg, claiming that, according to “two sources,” Meg had reduced Kate to tears about the bridesmaids’ dresses. This particular royal correspondent had always made me ill. She’d always, always got stuff wrong. But this felt more than wrong. I read the story in disbelief. Meg didn’t. She still wasn’t reading anything. She heard about it, however, since it was the only thing being discussed in Britain for the next twenty-four hours, and as long as I live I’ll never forget the tone of her voice as she looked me in the eye and said: Haz, I made her cry? I made HER cry?

We arranged a second summit with Willy and Kate. This time on our turf.

[From Spare, by Prince Harry]

The 5 am emails! LMAO. Remember how pressed those Salt Islanders were? The very idea that Meghan would email someone at 5 am! Hahaha. The stuff about the assistant is very, very interesting. Wasn’t one of the long-running rumors that Kensington Palace staffers kept turning away freebies for Meghan and Meg got mad at the staffers? Now Harry says: actually, we had to fire someone because the staffer was using her connection to Meghan to get freebies. I think I know who it is too – her name was everywhere for a time that year. She not only grabbed freebies, she sold some lies to the Daily Mail. And the tiara story – a good old hatchet job from Angela Kelly.

Anyway the “second summit” was the story about William and Kate admitting that they told Charles and Camilla that there was fighting between the two couples, and how Harry believes that Camilla leaked the whole thing. I think… Harry was sort of missing the bigger picture, that Camilla wasn’t the only one who had her knives out?

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.

In Prince Harry’s ITV interview, Tom Bradby asked him about his father’s upcoming coronation and asked whether Harry would go to it. Harry said: “There is a lot that can happen between now and then. But, you know, the door is always open. The ball is in their court. There is a lot to be discussed and I really hope that they are willing to sit down and talk about it.” It’s funny because even though Charles has dithered on so many subjects around the Sussexes, palace sources have always maintained that Charles wants Harry at his coronation. We’ve never gotten a clear answer on whether a formal invitation has been extended by Charles or Buckingham Palace, but going off of Harry’s words, it does not seem so and it also looks like Harry has repeatedly put the ball in Charles’s court. It also sounds like Harry wants a clearing-the-air conversation as a prerequisite to his attendance at the coronation. Well, funny story:

Prince Harry will not be welcome at the Coronation of King Charles because senior family figures fear what they say will “end up in paperback”. The Duke of Sussex, 38, has stunned the royals by revealing private conversations in his memoir, Spare, and in TV interviews this week. Now the families of Princess Anne, 72, and Prince Edward, 58, are concerned that private details of the Coronation will be exploited at a later date.

The King and Princess of Wales Kate were yesterday seen for the first time since Harry’s bombshell book hit the shelves. Charles, 74, looked grim-faced behind the wheel of his car at his Scottish estate Birkhall, while Kate, 41, was spotted driving in the grounds of Windsor Castle.

There are now worries that the Coronation — which is just 16 weeks away — could turn into a Harry and Meghan circus.

Family members are concerned they would not feel comfortable speaking freely if the pair are there.

A source told The Sun: “There have been discussions among the family, including Edward and Anne. They do not want private conversations at the Coronation making it into the paperback edition of Spare.”

The concern comes after an online survey for The Sun revealed 78 per cent of 31,300 readers want the California-based couple to stay away from the historic day.

[From The Sun]

While I haven’t finished Spare, does Prince Edward get anything more than a passing mention? Anne is mentioned in the part about QEII’s death, I know that. So… why are Anne and Edward all hot and bothered? Are they mad they didn’t get more mentions in Spare? Literally, Spare is damaging enough to the entire institution, you don’t have to wail and cry about “what’s going to be in the paperback edition?!?” Anyway, Anne and Edward are Charles’s patsies. It’s Charles who wants Harry to make the executive decision to stay away from the coronation. If Harry takes that choice away from Charles, then Charles gets to wallow in self-pity and act like “well, I tried!”

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

Do you guys follow NYT Pitchbot on Twitter? It’s a clever account which “pitches” article and editorial column ideas in the increasingly right-wing/contrarian New York Times style. Recent “pitches” include “Is life too good in Joe Biden’s America?” and “How can Pete Buttigieg have kids and still do his job as Transportation Secretary?” Why am I talking about a Twitter parody account? Because someone needs to start a pitchbot for royal reporting on both sides of the Atlantic. No matter what the Duke and Duchess of Sussex accomplish, no matter how successful they are, there’s always this performative sturm und drang. Royal pitchbot: “Why Prince Harry’s record-breaking memoir sales are a bad thing.” “Sure, Netflix’s ‘Harry & Meghan’ series was a huge hit last month, but why don’t they have ten projects out this month?” The gleeful pessimism/cynicism for all things Sussex in the British media has infected American reporting too, giving us these increasingly weird “industry insider” stories. Vanity Fair had another industry one, written by their media guy Joe Pompeo – you can read the full piece here. Some highlights:

The Sussexes have too many successes! It would therefore appear that Harry and Meghan’s business partners are getting a return on the gazillions they’ve shelled out on the royals-in-exile—a rumored $20 million for PRH and a reported $100 million for Netflix, not to mention the reported $25 million deal that Spotify made with Harry and Meghan, who have sucked us in with their behind-the-scenes peeks at dramatic curtsies, palace backstabbing, and physical altercations between once-beloved brothers. And yet, there’s something about the great Sussex media gamble that makes it hard to rate the whole thing an unqualified success, at least not judging by the chatter I intercepted this week from a handful of Hollywood muckety-mucks.

A giant pity party? “When the source of your content and your narrative and storytelling is just a giant pity party, it’s over,” one executive told me. “What’s more to say? Everyone’s shaking their heads.” Another said, “Okay, now you’ve told all this sh-t, but there’s a shelf life to these things. Something can look like it’s the biggest thing in the world, and then, boom, it’s gone.” A third power player concurred, “I am hearing that they are oversaturated. Everyone in our business is like, ‘Shut up, it’s enough already.’ But of course everyone is still rabidly following it.”

The Sussexes are damaging their future earnings! These anonymous rumblings were echoed in a front-page New York Times piece on Tuesday from Sarah Lyall, who suggested, “More worrying for Harry and Meghan is whether the continued public re-litigation of their troubles has grown so repetitive or even tiresome that it has eroded their personal brand and damaged their potential future earnings. Once they have exhausted the topic of themselves, what is left for them to talk about?”

Harry and Meghan’s spokeswoman says: “These look-back projects have been years in the making, and now that they have been delivered, this chapter is closed. It is in no way shaping what’s to come from the couple. They are looking forward, and ready for what comes next.”

Is Meghan working a book? I was assured that Meghan is not in fact working on a book, despite reports in the British press to the contrary.

Future Netflix projects: Heart of Invictus, a Netflix docuseries about Harry’s Invictus Games competition for wounded military veterans, is on tap. (No release date yet but it’s slated to come out later this year.) There are scripted and unscripted projects in development at Netflix that haven’t been announced, according to someone with knowledge of the deal, who told me it’s good for another two years or so.

The Sussexes had other offers: In signing with Netflix, undoubtedly the highest bidder, Harry and Meghan took a pass on other opportunities. I’m told there had been talks with the brass of Disney (at Bob Iger’s home) and Discovery, the latter of which may have even positioned Harry for a David Attenborough-like role. One of the possibilities discussed, sources familiar with the talks told me, was for Harry to work on documentary programming about Africa (a passion of his) and Great Britain. Meghan expressed interest in lifestyle programming.

But are the Sussexes even committed to building a media empire? This raises the question of whether Harry and Meghan are even committed to building a media business in the long-term, after their initial contracts with Netflix and Spotify expire. (They still have all that philanthropy to busy themselves with.) Perhaps the bigger question is whether they could pull off another hit to rival their Netflix debut.

What is this?? For additional perspective, I called someone who’s not from the entertainment world, but has deep familiarity with royal media relations. “There is certainly a view that, unlike the Obamas, say, they don’t actually have much of a backstory beyond being royal, and nor have they got a particularly illustrious list of achievements to their names,” this person said. “But that doesn’t necessarily translate into lost sales or lost bookability. Given that their constituency is young, progressive, minority, I think there’s probably quite a lot more for them to do.”

[From Vanity Fair]

I just… don’t get it. Their Netflix docuseries was a huge hit and I’m sure Netflix was very pleased. Harry will have his Invictus series out this year. Clearly, they have other projects which are close-hold. And, by the way, Harry just took a huge personal, professional, reputational and emotional gamble by publishing his memoir, which is going to be one of the biggest bestsellers of the year. Despite all of the industry moaning about “Sussex pity parties,” there are still millions of people who DO care, who want to support Harry and Meghan and their projects. Plus, it’s kind of crazy that all of these industry executives and media critics are shrieking “SO BORING” when Harry has literally written about being violently assaulted by the heir to the throne, and he’s calling out the current queen’s open collusion with the media? Like, make no mistake – Harry broke news in Spare and it’s part of the historical record of one of the most powerful families in history. Why is everyone in such a rush to diminish what’s actually being said and written by the Sussexes?

Photos courtesy of Netflix.

I have a lot of favorite royal-gossip subsets. I love the “Kate is obsessed with buttons” subset. I love the “Sophie tells everyone that she was QEII’s favorite” subset. I love the “Camilla is a boozehound” subset. I’m quickly developing a new favorite about Camilla though: “Sources close to Camilla brief the media that Camilla never briefs the media.” Prince Harry thoroughly exposed Camilla’s horsey press shenanigans and the ancient boozehound just can’t stop herself. She’s been at it so long, all she does is neigh to reporters. The Daily Beast’s Royalist spoke to several of Camilla’s unnamed “friends” for a hilariously obvious piece wherein these friends swear up and down that Camilla never “schemed to be queen.” No, she just ripped Harry and Diana to shreds for the love of the game (I halfway believe that).

While courtiers in the king and queen’s private offices are remaining silent, personal friends of Camilla have been quick to defend her to The Daily Beast. When asked if they believed Camilla had actively sought to be queen, one friend said: “All Camilla ever did was have the bad luck to fall in love with a prince. Literally the last thing she could care about is being queen. It’s absurd, and anyone who knows her knows it is absurd.”

The friend added that while it was well known that Charles wanted her to be queen, the issue was “at the bottom” of Camilla’s priority list, saying, “All she ever wanted was to support the man she loved.”

Another source, who has also known the family for many years, said the attacks on Camilla represented a watershed moment. “It’s profoundly unfair to drag Camilla into it,” the source said, adding of Charles, “He is betrayed, bewildered and angered by what Harry is doing.”

Vanity Fair was told by “a close friend of Queen Consort Camilla” that she has been left “just astounded by the whole thing.”

Other friends have spoken out publicly. The conservative journalist Simon Heffer wrote in the Telegraph, for example, that Harry’s description of her as a mendacious schemer “couldn’t be further from the woman that I have met over the years.” While one might respond that of course Heffer would say that, wouldn’t he, he makes the point that it was the “express wish of the late queen” that Camilla should be queen consort, although Harry’s supporters would no doubt question his assertion that this demonstration of trust “more than counters any of the halfwittery and fantasy history that the duke expends on his stepmother in his bizarre book.”

[From The Daily Beast]

Just a quick fact-check on “Queen Elizabeth wanted Camilla to be queen consort” – then why did Charles always have to maintain this bizarre half-measure of pretending that Camilla would be called “Princess Consort”? It wasn’t until Charles’s obvious quid pro quo with QEII this time last year – when she wanted to give money to Prince Andrew to pay off his rape victim – that Charles finally had the necessary leverage to force his mother into signing off on “Queen Camilla.” If QEII really wanted to see Camilla wear a crown, she would have said so long before 2022. Incidentally, it was shortly after QEII signed off “Queen Camilla” that Charles “accidentally” infected QEII with Covid. I still find that suspicious as hell.

Now, that being said, I think it’s far more likely that “Queen Camilla” was more Charles’s dream than Camilla’s. In Spare, Prince Harry makes it sound like Camilla had many goals, not one singular goal of being queen. Camilla wanted to destroy Charles’s first marriage, then she wanted to marry Charles and have financial security and the spoils. She also wanted to cause trouble and rehabilitate her (entirely well-deserved) terrible reputation.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

I’ve been reading Prince Harry’s Spare in the evenings and I’m in the 2015 section, when Harry has left the Army and he’s been dealing with PTSD, agoraphobia and panic attacks for years. He’s also looking for a wife – I know what’s coming up, but I just have to say, he was absolutely primed to meet Meghan. He was ready, his light was on, but more than that, he was desperate to find solutions to his many mental health struggles. We know that Meghan didn’t give him a choice in the matter – if he didn’t get into therapy and begin dealing with his issues head-on, she would have been out of there. Thus, Prince William and Queen Camilla believe that Harry has been “kidnapped by psychotherapists and Meghan.”

Yesterday, the Prince and Princess of Wales traveled to Liverpool to visit a new hospital and mental health charities in the area. The focus was on NHS resources, but also on the mental health programs available. It was at the mental health charity Open Door that Kate spoke about how talk therapy isn’t for everyone:

Kate Middleton raised eyebrows during her first public outing since Prince Harry’s memoir was released by commenting that therapy does not work for everyone. The Prince and Princess of Wales were in Merseyside yesterday visiting mental health charity Open Door, when Kate said: ‘Talking therapies don’t work for some.’

Will and Kate met several teenagers at the Open Door Charity, who use arts and dance to help with mental health.

The Sun reported that Kate asked: ‘Has producing music and taking part in those workshops helped? Has it helped with your personal lives?’

One boy replied that using music as a tool helps him express his emotions through something he enjoys. He said: ‘Producing music and letting out what you’re feeling is better than saying it in a clinical atmosphere. I can put it into words. That was tough to explain!’

Kate said: ‘Talking therapies don’t work for some people, they’re not for everybody. It’s so important to have a range of therapies.’

She added: ‘Everyone is talking a lot more about mental health. There have often been negative connotations around it. But if we get across that there are these more positive spaces and experiences out there, then we are changing how we talk about it.’

[From The Daily Mail]

These people, I swear to God. William and Kate want to promote themselves as mental health advocates while also smearing Harry has “having too much therapy.” Not to mention the fact that these two a–holes bullied and abused Harry and Meghan so much that the Sussexes had to leave the g–damn country. The absolute audacity of Kate to simper about therapy and mental health. F–k off.

Fashion notes: Kate’s coat was from Holland and Cooper, and as I said yesterday, she got it after she saw Meghan wear a similar one from Burberry. Kate’s dress was from Cefinn, retailing for £290.

Friday’s Sun: Talking Therapies Don’t Work For Everyone #TomorrowsPapersToday #TheSun #Sun pic.twitter.com/xGMZCHHWAy

— Tomorrows Papers Today (@TmorrowsPapers) January 12, 2023

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.

For most of the afternoon and early evening on Thursday, there were blaring headlines about Lisa Marie Presley being rushed to the hospital in Los Angeles. They said “cardiac arrest” and I thought “well, the doctors will save her, she’s only 54 years old.” They couldn’t save her. Lisa Marie Presley passed away last night in Los Angeles. Her mother Priscilla Presley issued the family’s statement:

“It is with a heavy heart that I must share the devastating news that my beautiful daughter Lisa Marie has left us,” Priscilla confirmed in a statement to PEOPLE Thursday evening. “She was the most passionate, strong and loving woman I have ever known. We ask for privacy as we try to deal with this profound loss. Thank you for the love and prayers. At this time there will be no further comment.”

[From People]

It feels like she was way too young. So much tragedy with this family. Lisa Marie was Priscilla and Elvis Presley’s only child. She grew up in LA and Memphis, and she inherited the Presley estate when her father died when she was 9 years old. She was married four times, to Danny Keough, Michael Jackson, Nicholas Cage and Michael Lockwood. She gave birth to four children and she is survived by three children: Riley Keough, 33, and 14-year-old twins Harper Vivienne and Finley Lockwood. Lisa Marie’s son Benjamin died by suicide in 2020, and she was reportedly devastated and still very deep in grief for the son she called her “beautiful angel.” Her heart was broken.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the extended Presley/Keough/Lockwood family.

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I appreciate how open Ashley Tisdale is about issues that don’t get much attention. She talks about hot button topics, but she also brings up stuff that is less sexy. Granted some see her as sharing too much, but then she talks about stuff like alopecia and we get to share hair loss tips. In Ashley’s latest Frenshe newsletter, she talks about dealing with hair loss from stress and how it affected her self-esteem. To combat the issue, she changed her outlook, her diet, and incorporated a very expensive and painful platelet rich plasma treatment that helps hair growth. Okay, so maybe not totally relatable.

Ashley Tisdale has a few strategies for managing hair loss.

The High School Musical alum, who welcomed her daughter Jupiter in 2021 with her husband Christopher French, took to her blog Frenshe on Wednesday to discuss how she’s dealing with alopecia. She said that she noticed her hair falling out a few months earlier, which mirrored the hair loss she suffered years ago while dealing with intense stress.

“Alopecia and hair loss are fairly common, but a lot of people feel embarrassed to talk about these issues,” Tisdale wrote. “Any type of hair loss can affect your self-esteem, especially if you feel like you’re the only one going through it. That’s why I want to talk about it openly — because it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Sometimes it’s connected to hormones, other times to heredity, and for me, it’s connected to stress overload.”

The 37-year-old then shared how she manages her alopecia, writing “don’t let worry take over” as the first point on her list, as when she battled alopecia years ago, her “worries began to spiral.” She was “scared that it would get much worse,” and the anxiety only exasperated her stress.

“When I focused on the present and accepted what was happening, I was then ready to make a plan to address my hair loss,” she explained.

She also listed “manage stress” as one way to cope, and wrote that meditation and self-care rituals helped lower her stress levels.

Another way she dealt with stress included changing up her diet.

“Eating with a focus on gut health also helps me thrive,” she said. “Whatever your self-care plan may be, embrace it.”

Tisdale also wrote about seeking treatment for hair loss, something that she has previously shared on social media. She added that she has seen great results from platelet-rich plasma (PRP) treatment, which involves injecting platelets from one’s blood back into the scalp.
“It’s expensive and it is certainly not the most pleasant experience — it involves microneedling the scalp, after all — but it made my hair grow back amazingly fast, and research shows that it works,” she said.

The former Disney Channel actress also reminded her readers that it’s OK to also embrace hair loss, whether that be sporting a wig or embracing a hairless look.

[From Yahoo!]

My hair has thinned some with age. And I have two bald spots at my temples, so I was very interested in what Ashley had to say about hair loss. Mine could be stress, but more likely hormones and obviously I’m not too embarrassed to talk about it. I have never been successful at not letting “the worry take over.” Worry runs roughshod over me whenever it wants, especially when I’m in the present. I’m not being cute, I wish I could just Let It Go, but I’ve never mastered that. I do think diet helps. CB suggested pre-natal vitamins and that is great for both hair and nails. As for micro needling my head with plasma to get my hair to grow back? I won’t lie, if had the money, I’d do it. My bald patches are right in the front and if I pull my hair back, it’s obvious. They affect how I wear my hair so yeah, I’d take a permanent fix if I could.

But I doubt a platelet-rich boost to my hairline is in my budget. I’ve always wanted to invest in wigs. I love the idea of changing my hair with every outfit. I need to do my research, though, because I can’t afford the ones that look good. But I’m sure there are some nice ones out there I can afford. For now I’m trying Vegamour oil, which was highly recommended to help stimulate hair growth. I also use Better Not Younger shampoo and conditioner with a Virtue mask on the weekends. And I just got some Boldify hairline powder to cover the spots. And I am using the ol’ acupressure mat that I swear by for stress along with the aforementioned pre-natal vitamins.

This is not a sponsored post. Amazon will give us a portion if you use these links, but I do use those products mentioned. Except for the mask, I use the Virtue Flourish mask for thinning hair from Sephora but it’s twice as much. My intent is more to get a conversation going. Feel free to talk about what works for you.

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After a great premiere season last summer, The Bear was renewed for a second season and production begins this month. Since the first season, the internet has been thirsting over Jeremy Allen White and a lot of people want his Carmy character and Ayo Edebiri’s Sydney character to kiss. Ayo has said before that she doesn’t think it would be a good idea and the series’ creator told Variety that wasn’t his intention and that he actually wanted to do a show without a romantic plotline. But people keep asking! Ayo talked to US Weekly at the Golden Globes and made the answer sound like more of a “maybe eventually” than the previous statements. Hm.

Not yet chef. Ayo Edebiri has a message for The Bear fans hoping to see a Carmy and Sydney romance — you will need to wait.

“They got a lot of trauma on both sides. Like if even that [was explored] — I don’t think that window is open,” Edebiri, 27, exclusively told Us Weekly during an interview at the 2023 Golden Globes on Tuesday, January 10. “But if it were, there would need to be like two seasons where it’s just them doing therapy individually before that would even be an option.”

According to the actress, The Bear didn’t initially plan to explore a romantic story line between the coworkers.

“I think when we were making it, neither of us [me nor Jeremy Allen White] were thinking about that,” she shared with Us. “It did feel really nice to get to do something that felt different. There aren’t that many platonic male [and] female relationships.”

One month after the show’s premiere, White, 31, hinted at the obstacles the pair still needs to face. “You’ve still got this tension, with Carmy and Sydney, and this power balance that they’re still gonna be struggling with. Yes, he apologized, kind of. Yes, she sort of accepted it. Yes, they both have a shared passion for this thing,” the Shameless alum told Collider in July 2022. “But there’s certainly a lot for them to sort out with one another still left.”

Creator Christopher Storer also addressed whether Carmy and Sydney would take their relationship to the next level in the future.

“We wanted to make something that was about friendship and a partnership,” he told Variety earlier this month. “It really is so funny that that is one of the things that people took away — of all the heavy s—t that’s going on in the show! It was interesting because Ayo and Jeremy, since they are our friends and are such wonderful people, I think there is this charisma that comes off both of them.”

He added: “From the beginning, it was like, ‘We should just show people being really good at their jobs and pushing each other.’ Selfishly, I hadn’t seen a show without a romantic plot and was like, ‘That could be kind of cool and interesting.’”

As the cast prepares to film season 2, Edebiri said she was excited to see where the show would go from here. “We’re going back next month to [film] it,” she teased to Us on Tuesday. “Chris hasn’t really told us too much yet. … I trust the writers so much. I really, really do. So, I have no input until we get on set and then I’m like, ‘I have 700 opinions.’”

[From US Weekly]

I’ve said before: I don’t think they should go there. I get why people want this. They’re both attractive people in a high-tension environment. But that’s the perfect reason not to get together. Also, Sydney is Carmy’s sous chef. I like that they have a serious professional connection and I like that this show isn’t all about relationships. I agree with the creator that it’s more interesting this way. Pretty much all shows have some other romantic plotline and there’s more to life than that and some people simply don’t have that in their lives at times. But Ayo’s response now sounds like they are vaguely leaving the door open for the future, in several years, once the characters have dealt with their trauma. I wonder if that’s legit or if she’s just saying what people clearly want to hear so they’ll stop asking. “Maybe eventually” is more hopeful than a “nope.” Regardless of how the show unfolds, I’m still skeptical of whether this will work, even eventually. Law and Order seems to be trying to shoehorn Benson and Stabler together as the loves of each other’s lives now for fan service and it seems forced. The vibe might be the similar with The Bear.

They do look great together, but they also look like BFFs!

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There were low-key whispers in aristo circles about Prince William and Rose Hanbury for months before the infamous “Rural Rivals” story appeared in the Sun in the last week of March 2019. It was said that the then-Duchess of Cambridge was trying to “phase out” the powerful Marchioness of Cholmondeley (Rose) over some unknown beef. A sprinkling of breadcrumbs and British euphemisms meant people quickly got the gist of the beef: Kate was mad that Rose was allegedly banging William, and Kate was trying to Mean Girl the marchioness, only the Turnip Toffs were taking Rose’s side. Soon enough – like, within a day or two – William basically contacted Richard Kay at the Daily Mail and Kay wrote a completely bonkers piece which was clearly based on William’s ass-covering story. William spent the next few months getting his lawyers to send out threats to any British outlet trying to get to the bottom of the story.

That’s the timeline of stories and events as they happened in the media, from late March through April 2019. During that same time, there was wall-to-wall abuse and character assassination of the Duchess of Sussex. It’s long believed that William engaged in an explicit quid pro quo with the media: bury the Rose story and I’ll give you stories about Meghan. This curious passage appears in Prince Harry’s Spare:

Towards the end of April 2019, days before Meg was due to give birth, Willy rang. I took the call in our new garden.

Something had happened between him and Pa and Camilla. I couldn’t get the whole story, he was talking too fast, and was way too upset. He was seething actually. I gathered that Pa and Camilla’s people had planted a story or stories about him and Kate, and the kids, and he wasn’t going to take it anymore. Give Pa and Camilla an inch, he said, they take a mile.

They’ve done this to me for the last time.

I got it. They’d done the same to me and Meg as well.

But it wasn’t them, technically, it was the most gung-ho member of Pa’s comms team, a true believer who’d devised and launched a new campaign of getting good press for Pa and Camilla at the expense of bad press for us. For some time this person had been peddling unflattering stories, fake stories, about the Heir and Spare, to all the papers.

I suspected that this person had been the lone source for stories about a hunting trip I’d made to Germany in 2017, stories that made me out to be some fat-bottomed seventeenth-century baron who craved blood and trophies, when in reality I was working with German farmers to cull wild boar and save their crops. I believed the story had been offered as a straight swap, in exchange for greater access to Pa, and also as a reward for the suppression of stories about Camilla’s son, who’d been gadding around London, generating tawdry rumors. I was displeased about being used like this, and livid about it being done to Meg, but I had to admit it was happening much more often lately to Willy. And he was justifiably incandescent.

He’d already confronted Pa once about this woman, face-to-face. I’d gone along for moral support. The scene took place at Clarence House, in Pa’s study… Willy put it to Pa: How can you be letting a stranger do this to your sons?

Pa instantly got upset. He began shouting that Willy was paranoid. We both were. Just because we were getting bad press, and he was getting good, that didn’t mean his staff was behind it. But we had proof. Reporters, inside actual newsrooms, assuring us that this woman was selling us out. Pa refused to listen. His response was churlish, pathetic. Granny has her person, why can’t I have mine? By Granny’s person he meant Angela. Among the many services she performed for Granny, she was said to be skilled at planting stories.

What a rubbish comparison, Willy said. Why would anyone in their right mind, let alone a grown man, want their own Angela? But Pa just kept saying it. Granny had her person, Granny had her person. High time he had a person too.

[From Spare, by Prince Harry]

After that, Harry tried to compare what William was going through with how the media was coming after Meghan. That’s when, Harry writes, “Willy snapped: I’ve got different issues with you two! In a blink he shifted all his rage onto me.” Harry doesn’t repeat what William was raging about, but he makes it clear that William was screaming his head off over the phone. William was so loud that Meghan came outside to hear what all the racket was and she overheard some of what William was screaming about. She walked back inside the house, crying.

Anyway… yeah… if William’s original rage was about people in Charles and Camilla’s selling him out, I wouldn’t be surprised if Clarence House was behind some of the stories in that time period. Harry is repeating the conversations he had, of course, and he’s not doing investigative journalism, after all. I always believed that the Rural Rivals story came from Norfolk, not Clarence House. I believe that Rose and William were indiscreet, and/or Kate was indiscreet when she tried to phase out Rose.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Genuinely thought that the Prince of Wales and Princess of Wales wouldn’t do an event until Friday, but King Charles must have told them to hustle their lazy bums to a hospital and look happy. This, then, is the official response from the Windsors: carrying on. We know they’re not keeping calm. William has absolutely been rage-shrieking at everyone and everything. But outwardly, he’s trying to pretend to be calm.

The event today was a visit to Liverpool, to the Royal Liverpool University Hospital. William and Kate are “highlighting the work being done by those working in healthcare and mental health support services. The couple wanted to thank healthcare staff for their ongoing contribution through the harsh winter months.” William and Camilla literally joined forces to push a narrative about Harry being “kidnapped by psychotherapists,” but sure. Reporters tried to shout questions at Will and Kate as they entered the hospital, but they didn’t respond.

I haven’t seen an ID yet on Kate’s ensemble but it definitely looks like Kate is trying to emphasize her near-constant copykeening of Meghan. During Meghan’s first trip to Edinburgh, she wore a blue and green tartan coat from Burberry. Kate is absolutely psychotic for this, the way she keeps copying Meghan so plainly.

William asked about the comments in Harry’s book as he arrives with Kate at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital #spare #princeharry pic.twitter.com/c8hmg4Td0P

— Simon Perry (@SPerryPeoplemag) January 12, 2023

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.