Alexandra Daddario looked so ‘90s at the Mayfair Witches premiere. [Go Fug Yourself]
Toni Collette’s twenty-year marriage is over. [Dlisted]
Adam Sandler & Brendan Fraser: good friends. [LaineyGossip]
Jerrod Carmichael is great, but why did he sign on to host the Golden Globes? [Pajiba]
Aubrey Plaza responds to fan-questions from the internet. [OMG Blog]
The GOP’s Senator Thom Tillis doesn’t want pregnant women to have bathroom breaks at their workplace. Someone stomp on his bladder. [Jezebel]
Zooey Deschanel & her Property Bro are doing a White House Xmas special? [Gawker]
Brittney Griner landed back in the US!! [Just Jared]
Brie Larson has a home sauna. [Egotastic]
People are shocked that 35-year-old Hilary Duff is still hot? [Buzzfeed]
Todd & Julie Chrisley will have to sell all of their stuff. [Starcasm]
Congress codifies marriage equality! [Towleroad]

I’m enjoying the layers within certain stories told by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex on Netflix’s Harry & Meghan. In one part, Meghan describes how ignorant she was of British royal “protocol” and how she was so American in her way of thinking, to the point where those salty British tightasses were probably aghast. At the surface layer, she is simply telling the truth from her perspective, she didn’t know that she wasn’t supposed to hug people or put on shoes when William and Kate came over for dinner. On another layer, she’s actually telling us why she annoyed them right away – she was so natural, so unencumbered by protocol, so warm, so undeferential, so demonstrative, so normal. Of course they hated her from day 1.

Meghan Markle says she learned the realities of royal life from Kate Middleton and Prince William.

“When Will and Kate came over and I had met her for the first time, they came over for dinner,” Meghan said in Harry & Meghan. “I remember I was in ripped jeans and barefoot.”

“Like I was a hugger, always been a hugger,” she added. “I didn’t realize that that is really jarring for a lot of Brits.”

“I guess I’d start to understand very quickly that the formality on the outside, carried through on the inside,” she continued about the multiple etiquette rules followed by the royal family, which she mistakenly believed were only observed in public.

“There is a forward-facing way of being and then you close the door and you relax now,” she added about how she expected the etiquette to be left at the door once the work day had finished. “But that formality carries over on both sides. And that was surprising to me.”

“It’s so funny if I look back at it now because now I know so much,” she continued about her inside knowledge of royal life. “And I’m so glad I didn’t then because I could just authentically be myself without so much preparedness.”

[From People]

It’s sort of like “when keeping it real goes wrong” though – yes, she was authentically herself, but she’s got to admit that she probably annoyed a lot of royal-ecosystem people by being so “authentic.” That was probably a huge issue, a thread connecting so many of the larger issues between the Sussexes, the press and the Windsors – she lacked deference to their tightass, stage-managed, emotionally constipated way of living. Meghan thought she could breeze in and there would be some inherent egalitarianism in private (at the very least). This is at the heart of so many “how dare she?” stories. She dared because she didn’t know any better, because their tightass hierarchy cannot be navigated by “outsiders.”

Also: imagine the look on Wiglet’s face when a barefoot peasant like Meghan tried to hug her. LMAO.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Instar.

In this week’s Gossip with Celebitchy podcast (which will be out on Saturday!), CB and I talked about Netflix’s Harry & Meghan and whether there was much “new” information. If you’ve read Finding Freedom, you probably do know a lot about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s courtship already, although the Netflix show definitely had tons of never-before-seen personal photos and videos. In the third episode, there was some really big new information though: the introduction of Meghan’s niece to the narrative. Meghan’s niece Ashleigh is Samantha Markle/Grant’s daughter. Samantha lost custody of Ashleigh when Ashleigh was very young, and Ashleigh was raised by her paternal grandparents. Ashleigh reconnected with Samantha in adulthood, and Thomas Markle told Meghan about it and Meghan asked for her niece’s number. They began talking and hanging out and Meghan was the “cool aunt” who took her niece on trips, etc. Meghan was basically a big sister to her niece and they were and are very close. When it came time time to send out the wedding invitations though, Kensington Palace told Meghan that she shouldn’t invite Ashleigh.

In the new Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex shared that while she was not close to her half-sister Samantha Markle, she had a close bond with Samantha’s daughter, Ashleigh Hale. However, things got tricky when it came to the guest list for the couple’s royal wedding in 2018.

“How do we explain that this half-sister isn’t invited to the wedding, but that the half-sister’s daughter is?” said Meghan, 41. “With Ashleigh, the guidance at the time was to not have her come to our wedding. I was in the car with H. I had her on speakerphone and we talked her through what guidance we were given and why this assessment was made … and that’s painful.”

“I think I said I was hurt on some level, but I understood where it was coming from,” Ashleigh said. “To know that it was because of my biological mother that this relationship that’s so important to me was impacted in that way … to feel like, because of her it was taken away, has been hard.”

Ashleigh, an immigration attorney, said she and her brother were raised by their paternal grandparents, whom she considers her parents. She had not seen Samantha, 58, since she was 6 until they reconnected in 2007. That was also when Meghan reached out to her niece — a relationship that started with “these long emails back to each other,” Ashleigh recalled. “And then texts and calls. After a while, I think we were talking, on some level, several days a week.”

Meghan said that she believes she and Ashleigh “craved the same thing,” explaining, “I wanted a sister, and she was like a little sister. Ash was put through quite a bit by the media, just by association. And I didn’t want her life to be plagued with all that drama.”

Added Ashleigh of the time when Meghan’s relationship with Harry, 38, became public, “After the news first broke, Samantha pretty quickly began expressing a lot of angry words about Meg towards me. What was communicated to me was maybe some resentment. And it felt like no matter what I said, her perspective didn’t change and seemed to get angrier and bigger, and we stopped talking. Some people you just can’t reason with.”

[From People]

I realize that Meghan was, at that time, in her people-pleaser mode and she didn’t want to ruffle feathers, but I kind of feel like she should have argued with the palace about inviting Ashleigh to the wedding. It would have been such a smart move that would have spoken volumes about Meghan’s lack of relationship with Samantha, but emphasized that Meghan is very close to Ashleigh (the daughter Samantha didn’t raise).

Meghan also spoke on camera about how the British media wanted the Black side of her family to be dramatic, but it was “the other side of my family that is just acting differently.” The White Markles are awful. Meghan spoke about Samantha too:

“My half-sister, who I hadn’t seen for over a decade, and that was only for a day and a half — suddenly it felt like she was everywhere. I don’t know your middle name. I don’t know your birthday. You’re telling these people that you raised me and you’ve coined me Princess Pushy….

“I don’t remember seeing [Samantha] when I was a kid at my dad’s house, if and when they would come around. And then the last time that I saw her that I remember is when I was in my early 20s. I hadn’t had [a falling] out with her. We didn’t have a closeness to be able to have that. And I wanted a sister!”

[From People]

Yeah, Samantha was always vile trash. But she didn’t do that alone – the British media platformed her and paid her to hate on Meghan and they all did so gleefully. Anyway, this is the point in the story where I believe there were some insidious forces working against Meghan – this was the lead-up to the wedding, the bullsh-t with Thomas Markle, and the palace working against Meghan already.

Photos courtesy of Netflix.

One of the strongest parts of Netflix’s Harry & Meghan series is the added historical context. There’s the immediate context of the modern political situation in Britain, overlaid in the timeline of their relationship, notably everything having to do with Brexit and the rise of racist, right-wing politics within the UK (and America and Europe). But that wasn’t all – the series also delves into British’s bloody, shameful, colonialist history and its equally shameful history with the transatlantic slave trade. Both issues – British colonialism and the slave trade – are intimately connected to the British monarchy. The monarchy directly profited from the slave trade, just as the monarchy has been a tool of oppression in the colonies it “rules” over. The point is made within the series that the Commonwealth is just a rebranded “British empire,” and that the living imperialist history is the tie that binds. It’s been fascinating to watch the British media try to talk about these parts of the Netflix series without actually going into the larger conversations. Take, for example, this piece in the Telegraph:

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s Netflix documentary has been accused of attacking Queen Elizabeth II’s legacy after the Commonwealth was described as “Empire 2.0” in the programme. The series has landed a “direct hit” at the late monarch’s decades of work to lead the Commonwealth into a new era, royal sources believe, describing it as “deeply offensive” to her memory.

Contributors to the Sussexes’ series – part of their multi-million pound Netflix deal – called the Commonwealth a “privileged club of formally colonised nations”. They said it was an economic bloc that has kept countries “intergenerationally poor”, with millions of Britons described as having “incredibly painful” memories of the Empire.

The documentary also makes claims about the Royal family’s financing of the historic slave trade. Writer Afua Hirsch told viewers: “It’s often said that Britain had a Deep South that was just as brutal, that actually enslaved more Africans than the United States of America did. But that Deep South was the Caribbean.”

On Thursday, sources condemned the description of the Commonwealth as “appalling and factually inaccurate”, with one palace insider adding it was a “good job” the late Queen “is not here to have to see this”.

Another royal source said: “Some of this is deeply offensive to all those in the Commonwealth, and of course the late Queen’s legacy. The real risk is that people are learning about the Commonwealth for the first time through hearing this.”

A source close to the palace said there was a feeling of “sadness” around the documentary, in which the Duke and Duchess criticise members of their family, including the “formality” of the Prince and Princess of Wales. The feeling behind palace walls, the source said, was “that it’s quite sad that it’s come to this”.

“Today is a day when you’re reminded that they’re human beings,” they said of the Royal family. “It’s sad to see it playing out in this way.”

[From The Telegraph]

I’m sorry what??? “The documentary also makes claims about the Royal family’s financing of the historic slave trade.” As I always say, beware of the historical passive voice. The British monarchy was intimately and financially involved in the slave trade. That’s a fact, not a claim. None of those statements were wild accusations or claims out of nowhere – Afua Hirsch was dropping facts about Britain’s history of oppression, its history as looters of blood, sweat and treasure from colonized nations. Harry’s point, when he was on camera, was that you can’t simply brush that history under the rug and rebrand colonialism as a commonwealth of nations, especially not when the Windsors have all of the wealth which they stole from the commoners.

Now, is it slightly funny that QEII appointed Harry and Meghan to the Queen’s Commonwealth Trust and then stripped them of those titles when they put their own safety and mental health first? Yes. The whole reason QEII gave Meghan and Harry those gaudy Commonwealth titles was tokenism – they all believed that they could throw a biracial Black woman into a fancy Commonwealth role and all of those Black folks in Her Majesty’s former colonies would be placated. The thing is, all of those Commonwealth nations watched as the Windsors and British press heaped racist abuse on Meghan. Plus, the fact that the Waleses and Wessexes went on back-to-back Caribbean Flop Tours didn’t help either. You can’t solve that kind of baked-in racism and oppression with one diversity hire.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.

Wonder Woman 3 is not happening, the studio passed. [Seriously OMG]
Nia Long looks amazing after splitting from Ime Udoka. [JustJared]
Whoopi Goldberg doesn’t want any posthumous bio-pics. [LaineyGossip]
The first reviews of Avatar: The Way of Water are… good? [Dlisted]
Lily Collins & the EIP ladies brought out some exciting fashion. [Tom & Lorenzo]
What’s the problem with Yellowstone? [Pajiba]
Margot Robbie’s pretty young for all of these lifetime achievement awards. [GFY]
Michaela Coel looks amazing in Balmain. [RCFA]
My take: Christian Walker is as much of a grifter as his father. [Buzzfeed]
NYT Union is staging a walkout today. [Towleroad]
Jenna Ortega wore a corset. [Egotastic]
Matt Lucas is leaving GBBO, good riddance. [Gawker]

King Charles was out and about in London today, doing an event for “Christian communities in King’s Cross.” Reportedly, one of the royal rota (Richard Palmer) asked if Charles had seen Netflix’s Harry & Meghan, and Charles “sidestepped the question.” It safe to say that the Windsors and the British media had hyped themselves up into an enraged lather ahead of the Netflix series and, as always, they were doing way too much and telling on themselves. Just ahead of the release of the docuseries, the Daily Beast’s Royalist column did a piece on how King Charles will eventually punish Harry and Meghan. What’s he going to do? They literally live in America, make their own money and pay for their own security. The only left to “take” from them is their titles. So that’s probably what will happen, but it will only happen after Charles’s coronation next year:

King Charles could strip Meghan Markle and Prince Harry of their princely titles if they continue to make incendiary allegations against the royal family, but is essentially powerless to remove their duke and duchess honorifics, a well-placed source told The Daily Beast Wednesday, as temperatures rose ahead of the launch of the couple’s Netflix series on Thursday.

The monarch is understood to have the power to stop Harry from using the title “prince,” meaning Meghan would also lose her status as a princess (although given Meghan rarely uses her “princess” style this would not be much of a punishment). The model for any forfeiture could be based on how the late queen approached the matter when the couple were simply asked to stop using their HRH (His or Her Royal Highness) titles. They were also asked not to use the word “royal” in any commercial branding—and, somewhat grudgingly, agreed to both requests.

The source said: “Charles will be very cautious of repeating the mistakes made with Diana. When she was stripped of her HRH after the divorce, it fed into her narrative that the palace was a vindictive and cruel establishment. Imagine if they did something similar to Harry. He would be able to go on Oprah all over again and say, ‘They did it to my mother and now they are doing it to me.’ It would completely play into their victim narrative.”

The source added that while, theoretically, steps could be taken by the monarch to get Parliament to formally strip Harry and Meghan of their Duke and Duchess of Sussex titles, to do so would open up a “Pandora’s box” of problems.

The Daily Beast’s source, who is not a palace staffer but has acted as an informal adviser to the royals for several years, said that the palace will move slowly and cautiously, and is unlikely to move against the couple to remove their princely titles in the heat of the moment, instead adopting a “wait and see” approach.

“Nothing is going to happen before the Coronation anyway,” the source said. Charles’ coronation is scheduled for May next year. The palace, which did not respond to requests for comment by The Daily Beast for this story, has not confirmed if Harry and Meghan will attend. However, they are still generally expected to be invited despite the conflict in the family. The source said the couple are unlikely to be told to stop using their “duke” and “duchess” titles, as these can only be legally removed by an Act of Parliament.

[From The Daily Beast]

So basically, next June, we can expect the newly coronated King Charles to make a series of announcements regarding the Sussexes, not just about their HRHs (which they still “have” but aren’t allowed to use), but their Sussex ducal titles and Harry’s prince title. Charles will also “make the decision” about whether or not to remove Lili and Archie’s titles, since they technically are Prince Archie and Princess Lili right now, as grandchildren of the monarch. That’s literally all Charles has left, this petty title stuff and empty threats. Is this your king?

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

WNBA star Brittney Griner has been held in Russia since February of this year. When Russia invaded Ukraine, the American State Department told Americans in Russia to GTFO as soon as possible. Griner was stopped at the airport and the Russian security found her carrying weed cartridges, so they got her on a drug charge. Since February, Russia has made an example of Griner, allowing the Western media glimpses of her in prison and in court. She was convicted of smuggling in August, and sentenced to nine years in a penal colony. We’ve known this whole time that the State Dept and Biden administration has been negotiating her release, and we also knew a prisoner swap was likely on the table. Finally, the government got it done. Brittney was released today!!

Brittney Griner, the WNBA star who was held for months in Russian prisons on drug charges, was released Thursday in a one-for-one prisoner swap for international arms dealer Viktor Bout, according to a U.S. official. The one-for-one exchange agreement negotiated with Moscow in recent weeks was given final approval by President Biden within just the last week, according to sources familiar with the deal. The swap, first reported by CBS News, took place on Thursday in the United Arab Emirates.

Five former U.S. officials told CBS News the agreement had been reached as of last Thursday.

A White House official said President Biden was in the Oval Office Thursday morning on the phone, speaking with Griner and her wife, and that Vice President Kamala Harris was also in the room. Per standard procedure for freed U.S. prisoners, Griner was expected to quickly undergo a medical evaluation.

To secure Griner’s release, the president ordered Bout to be freed and returned to Russia. Mr. Biden signed the commutation order cutting short Bout’s 25-year federal prison sentence.

Notably, the Griner-for-Bout exchange leaves retired U.S. Marine Paul Whelan imprisoned in Russia. Whelan has been in Russian custody for nearly four years. He was convicted on espionage charges that the U.S. has called false.

[From CBS News]

In November, there was a flurry of activity and reporting around the negotiations and some even said that Russia might have walked away from the table. But they absolutely wanted Viktor Bout back and so here we are. Griner was always going to be treated differently by both countries – Russia was eager to make an example out of the star American athlete, and America was eager to get a high-profile celebrity back home. I’m honestly surprised that it’s such a straight-forward one-for-one prisoner swap, although there’s probably other stuff that we don’t know about right now. Also: there are so many rumors that Vladimir Putin’s health is in serious decline. I wonder if that was a factor too? Hm.

Moments ago I spoke to Brittney Griner.

She is safe.
She is on a plane.
She is on her way home. pic.twitter.com/FmHgfzrcDT

— President Biden (@POTUS) December 8, 2022

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instagram.

The first three episodes of Netflix’s Harry & Meghan have been out since 3 am EST and 8am GMT (in London). The British media is doing wall-to-wall coverage of the series but there’s a palpable sense of relief so far, relief that the British media’s insanely negative hype about the show hasn’t panned out. I mean, yes, Harry got some digs in and there are some pointed comments, but no one has said outright that William and Kate are two jealous, petty, racist, vile imbeciles who gleefully briefed against Meghan in the hopes of driving her to suicide. Thankfully, the Daily Beast’s Royalist column has unnamed “friends of William and Kate” telling the world just how much the Waleses “f–king hate Meghan.”

Friends of the royal family brushed off the first three episodes of the new Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan Thursday, expressing relief that the show hadn’t made any fresh serious allegations against the royal family. However one source said that the show was nonetheless a betrayal, and that it would cement the toxic status of relations between William and Harry.

Hours after the episodes dropped, communications were running hot between senior palace aides and advisors, but the over-riding sense was one of relief that the show landed no major blows on the family, largely repeating already well-known stories and focusing on the couple’s widely publicized sense of the wickedness of the media.

One friend of Charles and Camilla told The Daily Beast: “It’s hard to see what Netflix paid $100m for. If this is all they have got to say, I really think the worst is over for the king.”

A friend of Kate and William’s said: “It’s hard to imagine how devastating the last three years have been for William. The brothers were so close, they had such an incredible bond. It’s impossible really to express what a massive, terrible, ongoing headache this has been for William in the past few years. The family blame Meghan for it all, really. They absolutely f–king hate her, basically. It’s a huge disaster. Growing up the brothers were so close. Harry would do anything to be with William. They lost their mum, and their dad was really disengaged so they had this incredible, incredible bond. Everyone knew it.

“And then Meghan came along. Everyone warned him off her but he wouldn’t listen, and she just ripped him away. The bond is gone, completely gone and this film is just the latest betrayal. William really, really, really hates both of them now. It’s really toxic and destructive for all of them. At the end of the day, they are a family, and their whole family life has been ruined by Meghan. You can’t imagine how bad it really is.”

However one ex-staffer who remains loyal to the king and the Prince of Wales was sanguine about the show, expressing a general sense of relief, and saying, “It looks like the truth bombs have failed to detonate.”

[From The Daily Beast]

Look no further than those quotes to tell you everything you need to know about why Harry left and why he chose to protect his wife and children from his family, but mainly to protect Meghan from his brother. The absolute f–king audacity for “friends of William” (and that’s really just “Kensington Palace staffers”) to go on the record about how much William despises Meghan for taking Harry away from him. William wanted to bully and control Harry forever. William can’t stand the fact that Harry fell genuinely in love and wanted to protect his wife. William can’t stand the fact that Harry puts Meghan before William.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

The first two episodes of Netflix’s Harry & Meghan are the two of them telling their love story, the early part of their fairy-tale romance. Prince Harry is very specific: he saw Meghan on a friend’s Instagram and he asked to be set up with her. In the summer of 2016, she had big plans to be a single girl and have a great summer with friends, traveling around and getting into adventures. I don’t think she was expecting to meet her future husband when she was set up on the date with Harry, especially because he was LATE to their first date:

I love that Meghan was immediately like: I have too much self-worth to wait around forever for some chronically late narcissist. Turns out, he really was stuck in traffic and he was a red, sweaty mess by the time he arrived. What I LOVE is that Meghan asked him out for their second date and Harry points out that she was late (by only a few minutes) for their second date. Then for a month, they were just calling and texting and video-chatting, then he asked her to go to Botswana with him and they stayed in a tent for a week. Some more quotes from the two of them:

Meghan on their long-distance relationship: “At the beginning our relationship was this guarded treasure. It was long distance from the beginning. Everything was just texts and Facetimes and we just talked for hours and it just felt exciting. It wasn’t exciting in the way I think people would assume it would be. It was just relaxed and easy. We just got to know each other truly like any other couple where you’re figuring out ‘what do you like to eat? What do you like to cook? What kind of movies do you like?’

Harry on wanting to take Meghan to Africa: “Lesotho gave me the space and the freedom to breathe, to live and to grow. I went to Africa sometimes three months at a time. I’ve got a second family out there, a group of friends that literally brought me up. For me it’s always been quite special so it was absolutely critical to share it with Meg. I was astonished that she said yes. This woman that I’ve only met twice, she’s coming to Botswana and we’re going to be living in a tent for five days. Wow.

Meghan on their Botswana trip: “What if we don’t like each other and we’re stuck in the bush in the middle of a tent. So I get there, it was the first time I’ve seen him in a month. We’re awkward at first, do we kiss? I just remember he handed me a chicken sandwich.

Harry on camping out with Meghan: And then we jumped in a land cruiser and off we went. To start we were sitting next to each other and then we progressed to holding hands and then we squeeze in a kiss. And amid the bumps, and then everything felt totally normal and natural. We had to get to know each other before the rest of the world and before the media joined in. It just felt so right and it felt so normal.

Harry on their two-week rule: “She had a two week rule, which was really smart, which was that we had to see each other in or around two weeks….Those first few months when no one knew, it made much more sense for her to come to me. So that she could come and stay with me on Kensington palace grounds…go for walks around Frogmore and do all these things together so we can get to know each other without someone taking a photograph and it becoming news. Getting her through the police barrier and onto Kensington Palace was risk in itself because people talk right? It’s not about who you trust it’s about who they trust.

Then everything changed just before Halloween 2016, when the British media broke the story that they were dating. Meghan said that “H trying to prepare me of what that might be like, knowing what he’d experienced in the past. He and his brother’s communications secretary, Jason, called to let him know it had been scooped by a tabloid.” Harry and Meghan went out that night, the night before the story broke, and they went to a Halloween party with Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank.

Photos courtesy of Netflix.

I am BEYOND pleased to see Ms. Doria Ragland looking so beautiful and speaking on-camera on Netflix’s Harry & Meghan. Doria is my favorite part so far, and I definitely think it’s worth noting that Doria understood *immediately* that her daughter’s romance with Harry would be seen and discussed through a very specific racial – and racist – lens once their romance became public. Doria knew when Meghan didn’t. Doria wanted to tell Meghan to prepare for it before Meghan was ready to hear it. Doria expressed regret for what (she says) is her failure to properly prepare Meghan for how people would react to her as a biracial Black woman. But Doria is also there to talk about what Meghan was like as a child, and you can see her brimming with pride for her daughter.

Doria’s voice: “The last five years have been challenging. I’m ready to have my voice heard, that’s for sure. A little bit of my experience as her mom.”

When Meghan told her about Harry: “When she told me, we were on the phone and she says, ‘Mommy, I’m going out with Prince Harry,’ and I started whispering, ‘Oh my god!’ She says, ‘You can’t tell anyone.’ So from the beginning, it was very sort of, ‘Oh my god, nobody can know.’

Doria’s first impression of Harry: “He was just like, [this] 6ft 1, handsome man with red hair. Really great manners. He was just really nice. And they looked really happy together. Yeah, like he was the one.”

Raising Meghan after her divorce from Thomas Markle: “We were close to my mom, her grandma. My sister was close by, and my girlfriends were close by. So we had a nice network of women who helped me raise Meg… I remember asking Meg did I feel like her mom, and she told me that I felt like her older, controlling sister. I never forgot that.”

The novelty of her daughter’s relationship: “Once it was announced that they were together, it seemed like a novelty.”

She was harassed too: Doria revealed that she was being “stalked” by paparazzi when Meghan and Harry first got together. “I felt unsafe a lot. I can’t just go walk my dogs, I can’t just go to work. There was always someone there waiting for me, following me to work. I was being stalked by the paparazzi. Once I pulled over and so [the paparazzi] pulled next to me and said, ‘You know, I’m just trying to get a story. You can get a lot of money for this,’ and I just looked at him and said: ‘This is my child. I have nothing to say.’”

[From Yahoo & Hello]

Doria’s silence over the last five years has been pretty epic, and I cannot even imagine the strength of character it took for Doria to do what Meghan asked and not speak publicly, all while her daughter was being smeared, harassed and threatened. Doria has been the strength behind the scenes, and that’s amazing for Meghan and Harry.

Photos courtesy of Netflix, Avalon Red.