One of my least favorite things about the American media is that they tend to believe that they need to “bring in” British commentators to whitesplain the Windsors. It feels less icky when, say, the Today Show does a link-up interview with Roya Nikkhah. But when the New York Times is quoting someone like Tom Bower in their coverage? It’s insane. Bower is a disgrace. Bower is on the record, telling the world that he’s “after Meghan” and he literally called her a “brazen hussy” for the crime of “smiling” and “waving.” He’s a decrepit misogynist and racist. So why did the Times quote him? From this NY Times piece about the “royal feud” between Prince Harry and Prince William:

“The question is, who is challenging who?” said Tom Bower, author of several books on the royal family. “Whether it’s going on Oprah Winfrey, or the interviews with Variety or The Cut, or a speech accepting the Kennedy Award coinciding with the Earthshot Awards in Boston, the initiative for rivalry is always coming from the Sussexes. They’re the ones on the attack.”

“Harry said that he would help William when he became king, and that he was willing to help him through his mental and emotional problems,” Mr. Bower added, alluding to the transparency with which Prince Harry has discussed mental health struggles, including his own. In 2016, Harry, William and Kate started Heads Together, an initiative that encouraged people to have conversations about psychological well-being.

“He had his own life and was very happy for William and Kate,” Mr. Bower said. “As a trio they got on terribly well. Meghan has been the agent of destruction in the brothers’ relationship.”

“Battlelines are drawn,” Mr. Bower said. “And it will only get worse unless William steps in and gives an interview to rebut the allegations made by Meghan and Harry.”

[From The NY Times]

I hope William does give an interview. It’s not unheard of, even though the pearl-clutchers will lie and say it’s never happened before. William’s parents would regularly do sit-down interviews with friendly journalists. Prince Philip regularly spoke to journalists on the record, including sitting for press conferences. It does feel like the Sussexes have been almost hoping that someone in the family would go on the record and say sh-t so that the Sussexes can then drop receipts. Anyway, Bower is a f–king tool – the sheer pathetic foolery of “Harry said that he would help William when he became king” is cracking me up – oh noes, Harry PROMISED! Why is William so mentally and emotionally deficient that he needed his brother to be a wingman forever? Not just a wingman – Harry wasn’t supposed to get married or have a family or leave William, ever.

Photos courtesy of Instar and Cover Images.

Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer will be out next summer, with a release date of July 21. From what I’ve heard about the film thus far, it will be visually stunning, as most of Nolan’s films are. That being said, it feels like pretty heavy subject matter for a summer release. Perhaps it’s counter-programming, especially for a core audience of History Channel Dads. As for the visually stunning part of this endeavor… well, the subject matter is about the Manhattan Project and how America developed atomic weapons. Nolan delves into the history, including the tests. Apparently, Nolan didn’t want to use CGI for the imagery of the atomic bombs’ detonation. Did Christopher Nolan set off atomic weapons to get the shot???

Christopher Nolan revealed to Total Film magazine that he recreated the first nuclear weapon detonation without CGI effects as part of the production for his new movie “Oppenehimer.” The film stars longtime Nolan collaborator Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, a leading figure of the Manhattan Project and the creation the atomic bomb during World War II. Nolan has always favored practical effects over VFX (he even blew up a real Boeing 747 for “Tenet”), so it’s no surprise he went the practical route when it came time to film a nuclear weapon explosion.

“I think recreating the Trinity test [the first nuclear weapon detonation, in New Mexico] without the use of computer graphics was a huge challenge to take on,” Nolan said. “Andrew Jackson — my visual effects supervisor, I got him on board early on — was looking at how we could do a lot of the visual elements of the film practically, from representing quantum dynamics and quantum physics to the Trinity test itself, to recreating, with my team, Los Alamos up on a mesa in New Mexico in extraordinary weather, a lot of which was needed for the film, in terms of the very harsh conditions out there — there were huge practical challenges.”

Nolan went on to call “Oppenheimer” a “story of immense scope and scale,” adding, “It’s one of the most challenging projects I’ve ever taken on in terms of the scale of it, and in terms of encountering the breadth of Oppenheimer’s story. There were big, logistical challenges, big practical challenges. But I had an extraordinary crew, and they really stepped up. It will be a while before we’re finished. But certainly as I watch the results come in, and as I’m putting the film together, I’m thrilled with what my team has been able to achieve.”

[From Variety]

Wow, he’s really taking pains to talk around the idea that he set off atomic bombs to get a shot for a movie. My guess is that Nolan really wanted to create that “mushroom cloud” effect in real life, and he also wanted to show the actors reacting to a real atomic “pulse.” While I think much of the CGI in movies today is utter trash, literal cartoon bullsh-t, this is one of those rare moments where I wish a director was like “let’s send this to the visual effects team, I don’t need to put my actors and crew in danger just to get a pretty shot.”

*detonates nuclear weapons for a gender reveal*

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Universal.

The Sunday Times (of London) had yet another lengthy piece about the fallout from Netflix’s Harry & Meghan. Salt Island is not in full panic mode yet, probably because all of the bad stuff (for them) is in the second half of the series. Right now, the Windsors are in general ass-covering mode, lying constantly and trying to exert control over the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s narrative. What’s interesting is what the palace is deciding to nitpick about the series so far, like Meghan’s claim about how there wasn’t any “princess training.” Some highlights (via the Daily Beast):

William won’t watch the series: A friend told The Sunday Times: “He (William) says he will never watch it and I know he definitely won’t.”

Meghan’s princess training. A source described as “a total lie” the claim Meghan was left utterly in the dark over royal protocol. It’s “a total lie,” a royal source told the Times. “There was prep for everything, walkabouts—even though she was engaged to someone who’d done hundreds of them—clothes, everything. The level of support was intense.” The Times says that before they married in May 2018, Harry’s then private secretary, Ed Lane Fox, known as “Elf,” gave Meghan a 30-point dossier, with a full guide to the royal life she was taking on, with advice and contacts included.

Meghan’s niece Ashleigh: A royal source also told the Times that it was incorrect to claim, as Meghan did, that she was encouraged not to invite her niece, Ashleigh Hale, to the wedding. “That just didn’t happen,” a source said. “We never gave any advice, steer or guidance on who of her family or friends should or shouldn’t come to her wedding. I have a very clear memory of her [Meghan] saying that she had a niece who she would in other circumstances have liked to invite, but she didn’t want to invite her because it would have put her under intense scrutiny. It was not a question she put to us. We would never tell her not to invite her own niece to the wedding and we would never get involved in any management of personal relationships.”

Meghan & Harry’s engagement interview: Royal sources say that Meghan’s claim that her and Harry’s engagement interview with BBC presenter Mishal Husain was an “orchestrated reality show” was also untrue. “Every word of that interview was what they wanted to say. She controlled every micro-detail of how their engagement publicly went.”

Harry’s comment about how royal men don’t follow their hearts in marriage: An old friend of both brothers told the Times: “That was so cheeky, that’s a love match if ever there was one. Catherine doesn’t even fit the mould—she’s not an earl’s daughter or blue-blooded. The sadness is Harry was so close to Catherine.”

The Waleses and Sussexes will exchange Christmas gifts: The Times reports that William and Kate have bought Christmas presents for Harry and Meghan’s kids Archie and Lilibet, while Harry and Meghan have bought presents for George, Charlotte, and Louis.

[From The Daily Beast]

I think the princess-training issue is probably a much more complicated one than either side will acknowledge. Meghan thought that there would be a book or actual lessons for everything involved with a public role, from dressing to waving to what to say at a reception, etc. What ended up happening is that they sent Susan Hussey and a bunch of decrepit old men to talk to Meghan and they gave her limited – and likely contradictory – advice. Meghan thought she would get actual lessons. What she got was a memo and a bunch of racists condescending to her.

What else? The Ashleigh stuff is interesting, I guess. I absolutely believe both things can be true at once, which is that Meghan was being told that it would be too controversial or too whatever to invite her niece AND Meghan was like “I need to protect and shield Ashleigh.” Meghan has done that with a lot of her friends too – there was and still is an overzealous, racist press looking over every one of Meghan’s connections and trying to find scandals or weaknesses to be exploited.

As for William and Kate’s “love match” – lmao. Sure. And while it’s true that Kate wasn’t an aristocrat and it’s true that no one in the royal family wanted William to marry such a lazy peasant, it’s also true that Kate “fits the mold” because she’s willingly a silent Victorian ghost who has subverted her entire personality to fit into the mold.

Photos courtesy of Netflix, Avalon Red.

Considering what likely awaits us in Volume 2 of Netflix’s Harry & Meghan, what do you think about the pacing? I get the idea behind “volume 1 is their love story and volume 2 is where they survive the onslaught.” Part of me questions the pacing of it, even if I understand why Liz Garbus has done it this way. We have to buy into the fairytale before we see the wicked forces try to tear them apart. That being said, I actually understand why some people had some good-faith criticisms of Volume 1 – there was a lot of space given to “who called which friend during the courtship and here’s a photo to prove it.” I wonder if – once we see the whole project – that was time which should have been better spent elsewhere in the narrative. The question is, do you think Howard Stern is criticizing the series in good faith? Eh.

Howard Stern is fed up with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle following the rollout of the couple’s new Netflix documentary series “Harry & Meghan.” The streamer debuted the first three episodes of the show on Dec. 8, with three more episodes set to follow on Dec. 15.

“It’s been painful,” Stern said of watching the series (via Mediaite). “I don’t — I wouldn’t stay with it, but my wife wants to watch it, so, you know, we have shows we watch, but they come off like such whiny bitches. I gotta tell you man, I just don’t get it.”

“I get Prince Harry being pissed off at the monarchy for his mother,” Stern continued. “They treated her like sh-t…I feel bad for Prince Harry losing his mother and all that. So you got my empathy there. But Jesus Christ, when those two start whining about ‘wah wah wah, and they don’t like me’ and she wants to be beloved in this country…it’s just very weird to watch two people who keep screaming, ‘We wanted our privacy, we wanted the press to leave us alone.’ And then what is their special that they put out on Netflix — showing you them and their kids and their life. It’s like the Kardashians except boring. You know what I mean?”

Stern expressed confusion over what Harry and Meghan want out of releasing their six-part Netflix series, asking, “Where do you go with this? Is this your career…talking about how humiliated you were being part of, I don’t know, living in a castle — and it’s hard to relate to. It’s like, it looks pretty terrific to me. If it was me, I never had to worry about money and never had to worry about work.”

Stern predicted that one day Harry will leave Meghan, telling his listeners, “I think he’s eventually not gonna dig her. I’m telling you.”

[From Variety]

I think this shows that the Windsors’ and British media’s talking points have absolutely infiltrated the American media and American consciousness. Stern is mimicking a lot of what’s being said on the Daily Mail, The Telegraph, The Daily Express, the idea that Harry & Meghan had a wonderful life in the UK and they threw it all away by whining about privacy. Which brings me back to the pacing of the series, and how Netflix split it up into two volumes – I do wonder if some of the giddy-and-effusive-love-story space in Volume 1 would have been better spent building up the behind-the-scenes moves to show that nothing was at it seems, that there were already big forces working against them from the start.

As for Stern’s comment about Harry leaving Meghan eventually… again, that’s mimicking a talking point from Britain. Maybe that was Stern’s genuine reaction to the series, but it definitely plays into a years-long campaign to convince everyone that Harry will eventually leave Meghan and “come back” to the UK. And of course, Stern also seems to have a big problem with Black women having nice things or showing off their wealth and success. It must be particularly triggering for Stern to see a white prince loving and adoring his Black wife.

Photos courtesy of Netflix, Avalon Red.

One of the tricks the British media has tried to pull is to act as if the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are “whining” about stuff that happened years ago, stuff which they should have “gotten over” by now. To which I say, the threats against them are still happening, and the palaces gleefully brief against them still, to this day. They have every right to tell their story in general, and especially because it’s still happening. They can talk their sh-t as far as I’m concerned. For every three hours of Netflix programming, we’re getting weeks of high drama from palace sources, briefings from royal insiders and wall-to-wall smears from royal experts. It’s also worth noting that up until now, Harry and Meghan have never sat down and said “these are the people who briefed against us, these are the people who didn’t care that I was suicidal, these people wanted to exile us to Africa.” I was thinking of all of this as I read through the Telegraph’s coverage about whether Harry and Meghan will “look forward” after this series.

The second tranche of the series, released on Thursday, is expected to cover the couple’s dramatic exit from royal life, their thwarted hopes of creating a hybrid, half-in, half-out model, and the negotiations that shaped the family’s crisis talks at Sandringham. As such, Buckingham Palace is braced for impact.

Aides who maintained a dignified silence last week, opting to rise above the fray, have reserved the right to hit back next week when their “weary sadness” could be replaced with anger.

The first three episodes generated a wealth of criticism on both sides of the Atlantic, with reviewers largely united in asking when the whining would end.

The Duke and Duchess, it noted, are clearly at the mercy of their paymasters. We should pity them, it suggests, as “even after breaking free of Buckingham Palace, they’re still someone’s subjects”.

However, those close to them insist that they set out to document their love story and that, regardless of anything else, viewers are given a front row seat as that story develops.

“People at least feel like they know them a little bit better or they understand why they’re so in love and why they’re so protective of one another,” one said. “They’ve proved it’s not a sham.”

A friend dismissed the negative reaction. “Some of the most beloved movies have the worst reviews,” they said.

The couple are said to feel relieved that after almost three years it is finally out there and that they made good on their commitment – having told their story as they promised to do. “This is the end,” one source said. “They are ready to move on.”

There is also the small matter of Harry’s memoir, Spare, which will bring a fresh onslaught when it is published on January 10. While the Netflix documentary spans the couple’s experiences of royal life over the six years they have been together, friends note that the Duke has had “38 years of not being able to share his story”. The book is expected to focus far more on his younger years and the trauma of his mother’s death.

“Once that’s out there, they’re said and done,” one source close to them insisted.

“Let’s see,” a palace aide said drily.

[From The Telegraph]

Spoiler: Aides did not maintain a dignified silence. They were, as always, briefing against the Sussexes and “fact-checking” the series and describing (in gory detail) how much Prince William “f–king hates Meghan.” “The Duke and Duchess, it noted, are clearly at the mercy of their paymasters” – this continues to be one of the most asinine talking points, right up there with “I thought they wanted privacy!!1!” Netflix is not dictating what the Sussexes say about anything, these are their own words and their story. They produced the show, and it’s being done under the Archewell banner. Anyway, I hope that there are more projects on the horizon exposing the Windsors. I hope at some point Prince Harry speaks or writes about the f–king bullsh-t his family put him through this year, especially when QEII died.

Photos courtesy of Netflix.

One of the funniest things to come out of the hysteria around Netflix’s Harry & Meghan is the British media’s insistence on doing business as usual. Meaning, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are clearly calling out the collusion between various royal courts and British media, so we get “royal sources” insisting that royal sources never brief against anyone. We also get royal sources insisting that the Windsor will not respond to the Sussexes, all while the Windsors’ snipers try to attack Harry and Meghan point by point. All of this is the focus of Omid Scobie’s latest Yahoo column – “The palace DID brief against Harry and Meghan – what’s the point in denying something so obvious?” You can read the full piece here. Some highlights:

Of course royal sources brief against the Sussexes: When I saw a British tabloid article quoting a “royal source” (that’s usually code for someone at the palace who doesn’t want to go on the record) insisting that it was “absolutely wrong” to suggest the Sussexes had been briefed against, I had to reread the sentence a second time just to be sure I wasn’t hallucinating. It was gaslighting to the extreme. Remember the 2018 tabloid stories moaning about Meghan’s 5am emails? The drama around her tiara? These reports, and many others, included anonymous quotes from palace sources and aides.

A palace culture of leaking & briefing: The reality is, people working at the Palace did brief against Harry and Meghan while they were working royals. Regularly. And it was hardly a secret, either. While writing the book Finding Freedom, a number of the staff I spoke to complained about the culture of leaking and negative briefings within the institution. Some felt it was out of jealousy of the couple’s unrivaled popularity at the time, others shrugged and said that’s just how it goes, and a couple believed that much of it came from a place of disliking Meghan.

Aides brief against other royals: Palace aides also brief against other royals. With three different households back then—Clarence House, Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace—all with their own teams, it wasn’t (and still isn’t) uncommon for an aide to look out for their boss by using information about another member of the family (from a different household, and usually less senior) as currency to curry favour with the outlets you never want to be on the wrong side of. This doesn’t really happen with TV media, but is common with print and online press.

The “William worried about Fragile Harry” story in 2019: On a 2021 primetime royal documentary, I suggested that it was no coincidence that stories of Prince William’s “fears” for Harry’s “fragile” state of mind had appeared in newspapers less than a day after the Duke of Sussex revealed the growing distance between the brothers during a TV special. The fact that a senior member of the then-Duke of Cambridge’s staff had used supposed concerns about Harry’s mental health as an opportunity for positive press about brother William was very much noticed by the Sussexes, I added. Kensington Palace quickly intervened. And producers behind the show were put under pressure to remove my words. Aides for Prince William warned that it was “potentially defamatory”.

KP will complain & explain often enough: The tug-of-war went as far as executive level at the network until an 11th hour agreement to mute the audio of my voice for several seconds in the airing of the documentary was made. Certain journalists were then briefed by Kensington Palace—who did not reach out to me beforehand—that I had “no evidence” to support my claim. “It provided a vivid example that Kensington Palace is certainly more prepared to wade in to influence media coverage when it chooses to,” says director of the William and Harry: What Went Wrong? documentary, Richard Sanders. “On the day of transmission, the Palace demanded that we remove [the] quote. People more important than myself acquiesced, although it seemed to me perfectly legally defensible.”

How Scobie learned of the “fragile Harry” briefing in 2019: For full transparency, these articles were not my confirmation on the origins of the original briefing. I was briefed by a senior aide at another royal household. The individual—who, at the time, felt strongly about a line being crossed by someone working for William—had sent me text messages about the briefings relating to William’s concerns for Harry’s mental health the night the newspaper stories went to print with the information. This is just one example of the games that have long gone on behind the scenes at the palace. And what so many there, including some of the family, get dragged into, no matter how much they resist.

[From Yahoo UK]

Yeah, I’m glad at least someone is saying it. Personally, I think the British media is rolling their eyes as they play along with the Windsors’ idiotic position that no one in any palace briefs against other royals. The media is going along with it because they know they have skin in the game too – in this particular instance, the Windsors and the British media are on the same side, with their interests perfectly aligned, because Harry is targeting them both. The Windsors know full well how badly they’ve mistreated Harry, and the British media knows full well that they went along with every unhinged briefing straight from Jason Knauf, a salty Pegasus and a backcombed wig.

Photos courtesy of Kensington Palace, Netflix and the Sunday Times.

Did Victoria Beckham get a nose job? Well, she denied it. [Dlisted]
Taylor Swift, director and filmmaker. [LaineyGossip]
Martin Short & Steve Martin roast Jimmy Fallon to his face. [Gawker]
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio is an antiwar story?? [Pajiba]
I could see Princess Kate in so many of these terrible Erdem looks. [Go Fug Yourself]
Last minute Christmas gifts under $25. [Buzzfeed]
Martin Short & Steve Martin spoofed A Christmas Carol. [Seriously OMG]
Marjorie Taylor Greene has the strangest obsessions. [Jezebel]
Margot Robbie is shilling Babylon so hard. [Just Jared]
Tara Reid is making a comeback? [Egotastic]
This Versace gown is sooo good. [RCFA]
Cardi B got her ass fillers removed. [Towleroad]

In the latest trailer for Netflix’s Harry & Meghan docuseries, Prince Harry says, on camera: “They were happy to lie to protect my brother. They were never willing to tell the truth to protect us.” Combined with Harry saying “to see this institutional gaslighting” combined with Meghan’s “I wasn’t being thrown to the wolves, I was being fed to the wolves.” Thank you – for longtime royal-watchers and royal-gossipers, it’s been insane and it’s been one of the craziest gaslighting campaigns I’ve ever seen. I’m glad that Meghan and Harry are going there. While Meghan said something similar on Oprah – “They were willing to lie to protect other members of the family, but they weren’t willing to tell the truth to protect me and my husband.” Now it’s Harry saying it, but he’s being much more specific: they lied to protect William.

So, for no particular reason, I’m including photos from a June 2016 charity fundraiser at Houghton Hall in Norfolk. The fundraiser was hosted by David Rocksavage, the 7th Marquess of Cholmondeley, and his wife Rose, the Marchioness of Cholmondeley. Rose’s maiden name is Rose Hanbury and she was a model and socialite before she married her husband. Now she operates Houghton Hall, which is just a stone’s throw from Prince William and Kate’s Anmer Hall, on the Sandringham estate. For years, Rose and Kate were friends. Then the gossip came out in March 2019 that Kate was trying to “phase out” her “rural rival.” That was the beginning of months of undercover scandal about just what exactly happened and who slept with whom. If you need a recap, you can visit our Rose Hanbury archives.

Note by Celebitchy: Sign up for our mailing list and get the top 5 stories about Prince William’s alleged affair!

Again, the Rose Hanbury story broke into public consciousness in March 2019. That was the Duchess of Sussex’s last trimester of her pregnancy with Archie. The British media was already being savagely racist towards her, but there was absolutely a HUGE volume of anti-Sussex bullsh-t around this time. William was protected and coddled by the institution and the media, all while Meghan was violently smeared on an hourly basis.

From James Palmer, an editor at Foreign Policy.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

While the Duchess of Sussex’s Archetypes podcast was dropping every Tuesday, I found it very curious how often the Windsors made a huge show of being booked-and-busy on Tuesdays. Suddenly, there was a flurry of activity for weeks in a row, always centered on Monday-evenings or Tuesday mornings. The Windsors are as obvious as they are desperate, which is why it was particularly hilarious that the Sussexes’ Netflix trailer dropped in the middle of the Waleses’ Boston Flop Tour. I don’t even think the Sussexes were in charge of when the trailer came out, but I doubt they were mad about Netflix’s decision. Meanwhile, King Charles ordered the Princess of Wales to dust off her puffiest Nashville Wiglet last Wednesday and attend the diplomatic reception whilst wearing a tiara. That was just hours before the first three episodes of Harry & Meghan dropped on Netflix.

So what do the Windsors have planned for Harry & Meghan Volume 2? As we’ve known for weeks, the Princess of Wales’s Christmas Carol special will film on December 15, the same day that the final three Netflix episodes will air. The Windsors will pull out all of the stops and make complete asses out of themselves, prepare yourselves. I’m picturing Kate organizing a piano-synced recital as King Charles warbles “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” to Camilla, who will be clad in looted diamonds from head to toe.

Ahead of the filming – and remember, the special won’t air until Christmas Eve – ITV released the photo at the top of this post. This is Kate wearing a £460 Needle & Thread dress, one which has been in her closet since 2020. She wore it to a palace reception. It looks a lot like the Packham she wore last week, but the Packham was full-length and this one is tea-length. No one is saying where this photograph was taken but it looks like a fake-home set. How did ITV organize this? Are we going to get another photoshoot of Kate in a doll wig, pretending to decorate Westminster Abbey for Christmas? Something tells me the Windsors will want Kate to really spend the whole week hyping the special, so I suspect lots of Christmas buttons and doll wigs are coming.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images and ITV.

To be clear, I don’t want any physical or mortal harm to come to the Windsors. I want them to fail, I want them to embarrass themselves, and I want at least one egg to make contact with King Charles. I’ll also be clear about something else: the Duchess of Sussex has been in mortal danger from the violent racists in the UK for years now. We still don’t know the extent of the danger she and her children were in, but we know that the threats were rarely taken seriously, and we know that the institution has utterly disregarded the Sussexes’ need for security and safety this whole time. Over the past week, the Windsors have tried to convince everyone (and themselves) that Netflix’s Harry & Meghan series wasn’t noteworthy, important or damaging to the Windsors or their reputations. Now a new narrative: the Netflix series is so damaging, it represents a mortal threat to the monarchy.

Harry and Meghan’s Netflix documentary is putting the Royal family at risk from extremists, the former head of royalty protection has warned. Security expert Dai Davies, a former divisional commander in the Metropolitan Police, who guarded Queen Elizabeth II and other members of the Royal family, said the couple had raised a “credible threat” by attacking their relatives on race grounds.

“There’s a small minority that think Meghan walks on water,” he said. “I’ve always said there’s a greater risk from fixated individuals than there is from terrorists. Because their narrative has been attached to race to the extent it has – you could have those at the extreme end of the taking knee variety having a go at members of the Royal family. I really think it could create a small minority who might. I think it’s a credible threat and I think it should be taken very seriously, especially now the documentary has come out.”

Referring to the King twice being at the receiving end of egg throwing since he took the throne, the former senior policeman added: “Twice now Charles has had eggs thrown at him. I was surprised the first time at the slowness of the reaction. I think it’s a real possibility that they do face these sorts of incidents especially as the King and Queen Consort and the Prince and Princess of Wales are in such close contact with the public.”

His comments came as former US policeman George R Franks, associate professor at Stephen F Austin University in Texas raised concerns that “the destructive and damaging comments and allegations made by Harry and Meghan Markle are placing the life and safety of members of the Royal Family in jeopardy.”

He said: “I have been studying their increasingly tenacious attack on the character of the Royals and the institution of the monarchy for the past several months with a growing concern for the safety of the members of the “working royals”, but also for the children of the Prince and Princess of Wales.

“I have experience with cases where individuals have committed or attempted to commit violent crimes in support of the cause of another towards whom they have become enamoured and protective. All we need is one individual becoming obsessed with creating a situation that would place Harry as the heir apparent, and we could have a disastrous outcome.”

[From The Telegraph]

Again, I’m not dismissing the idea/reality that the Windsors have security issues. Of course they do, but I believe their biggest threats are “republicans,” the mentally unwell and “people who simply don’t like the monarchy in general,” not specifically Sussex fans. I also believe that protection should follow the threat, not the rank. That’s something Charles disagrees with, that’s something William disagrees with, that’s something the palace courtiers disagree with – to them, Harry and Meghan’s lives were and are expendable because they don’t have a high enough rank, and thus, their security should be less than the Drab Four’s security. Not to mention, the Windsors have been implicitly and explicitly goading the violent rhetoric against the Sussexes for years, but now they’re suddenly worried because their complicity has unleashed a larger lack of respect for the institution in the populace. The Drab Four made it clear that Harry, Meghan and their children are expendable, and now they’re shocked that some people might find the Windsors (in general) expendable.

Not for nothing, but the Windsors probably should have taken pains to look less gleeful when QEII died? The Windsors’ palpable joy at an old lady’s death kind of set the tone for a lot of this too, I’m just sayin’.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Buckingham Palace.