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I first noticed actress Brooke Smith when she guested on Ray Donovan. I remember being so impressed with her that I looked her up. I’ve since seen her on Bates Motel and on Big Sky (I only watched half of the first season, it got complicated!) and she can definitely act. I just learned that she was the kidnapping victim in Silence of The Lambs and is best known for her work on Grey’s Anatomy, which I don’t watch. (Peridot is our Grey’s expert! She’s seen every episode.) Brooke, 55, has a new coffee table book out with photos she took of her time on the punk scene in New York City in the 80s. She’s doing interviews to promote it. It was so nostalgic for me to read about that time and to see her photos. I’m a little younger than her but I hung out with the goth crowd in Buffalo, NY in the early 90s. I could relate to so much of what she’s said in interviews about that time in her life. I’m going to quote an interview she did with EVGrieve.com and she also has a new interview about this in People.

As an unhappy teen growing up in Rockland County in the 1980s, Brooke Smith found solace riding the 9A bus into the city.

Once here, she’d take the A train to West Fourth Street. One day decided to keep walking on Eighth Street into the East Village and onto St. Mark’s Place.

Here, she found her home, a place where she felt as if she belonged…

While preparing to move about 12 years ago, Smith found a cardboard box full of the photos she took in the 1980s while part of the punk/hardcore scene on the Lower East Side. This discovery eventually led to a solo show at Primary Gallery.

These photos are the subject of a new photo book, “Sunday Matinee,” which features hundreds of photographs of the East Village in the mid-1980s and bands such as Bad Brains, Agnostic Front, Cro-Mags, Murphy’s Law, Warzone and others. There are also recollections by band members and others involved in the scene.

What were some ways this scene helped you forge your identity?
There was no separation between audience and performer. It was our scene, and we were doing it for ourselves, not to get rich or famous. So I think that helped me. I learned to trust my instincts as an artist, and to stay true to myself and to always be authentic.

What do you hope that people take away from “Sunday Matinee”?
It’s a love letter to that time and place and especially those people. I hope people get the message to be themselves. Don’t try to fit in. If you can find a group of people, or even just one other person who shares your interests, you can create whatever you want.

[From EVGrieve.com]

She was smart to take pictures and save them. I wish I had more photos from college and high school, but we were using disposable cameras and forgetting to get the film developed or losing it. Plus we didn’t have even flip phones at that time, not to mention cameras. As for finding people with your interests, I loved that quote because it reminded me so much of our Celebitchy Zoom group. The women in that group are just incredible. I’ve never known so many people who share my interests and values and it’s been so supportive and loving. Plus we’re all excellent gossips I have to say. Back in the 80s and 90s we met our people out in the wild but with the Internet we can connect with our exact niche of friends and it’s wonderful. I’m not saying one is superior though and am glad that I’ve been alive to be able to experience both sides of that.

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She knew Jeff Buckley!!

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Netflix’s Harry & Meghan is a hit! The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have a real Midas Touch, don’t they? They always sell out, they always top the ratings, everything they touch turns to gold. It looks smarter and smarter that Netflix locked them into a production deal, doesn’t it? Netflix released the early-days viewership for the H&M docuseries – the first three episodes of which dropped on Thursday – and it’s one of Netflix’s biggest shows of the year, especially in the US and UK. According to Netflix’s numbers, Harry & Meghan had 2.4 views in the first 24 hours IN THE UK. The first-day ratings for the docuseries were also double the first-day ratings of The Crown’s Season 5. I would imagine the numbers will be phenomenal for this weekend too – many people didn’t have time to watch the three episodes on Thursday, but they had time this weekend.

Meanwhile, the NY Times did a piece on the director of the series, Liz Garbus, and the background of how she came onto the project. Harry and Meghan handed Garbus fifteen hours of their personal footage, video diaries which they filmed in 2020 as they were Sussexiting. When Garbus was asked how much control the Sussexes had over the series and whether they had final approval, she tells the Times: “It was a collaboration. You can keep asking me, but that’s what I’ll say.” But the most interesting part is where the Sussexes’ spokesperson shuts down one of the British media’s big whines/talking points, which is “Harry and Meghan are hypocrites for crying about privacy and then making this docuseries.” Here’s that section:

Some have questioned why Harry and Meghan chose to make a documentary, suggesting that the couple’s decision to give up their royal duties meant they wanted to lead a more private life. In a statement to The Times, the couple’s global press secretary, Ashley Hansen, disputed this narrative.

“Their statement announcing their decision to step back mentions nothing of privacy and reiterates their desire to continue their roles and public duties,” she said. “Any suggestion otherwise speaks to a key point of this series. They are choosing to share their story, on their terms, and yet the tabloid media has created an entirely untrue narrative that permeates press coverage and public opinion. The facts are right in front of them.”

[From the NYT]

For what it’s worth, Harry was the one who said stuff about privacy over the years, but it’s true that by the time they exited, it was less about privacy and more about escaping from the daily vitriol and attacks. Meghan has never claimed to want “privacy,” because she understands that what she really wants is to set and enforce boundaries. A more cogent criticism might be that Meghan and Harry want “control of their narrative,” to which I say, that’s not a criticism, especially not for royalty. Everyone wants control of their narrative. Everyone wants to set and enforce boundaries. Everyone wants the right to exist without being smeared and lied about constantly. Everyone wants the right to tell their story in their own time and in their own way.

Speaking of, we’re finally getting some fun wedding photos! But I thought they wanted privacy!!! *sobs*

Photos courtesy of Netflix.

It is beyond appalling to watch the Susan Hussey debacle unfold in real time, with Buckingham Palace completely bungling their reaction to the incident from November 29th. To recap, that Tuesday, there was a daytime reception at BP, hosted by Queen Camilla. The whole point of the reception was to bring together activists and advocates attached to work about domestic violence and violence against women. Ngozi Fulani was there representing Sistah Space, a non-profit dealing with violence against Black women specifically. Within minutes of Fulani’s entrance at the reception, Susan Hussey – a long time lady-in-waiting to QEII and an emeritus LIW to Camilla – began her racist interrogation of Fulani.

When Fulani reported Hussey’s comments and behavior the next day, the palace went into ass-covering mode rather than accountability mode. Instead of calling Fulani, apologizing to her and giving her a platform for Sistah Space and her own experiences, the Palace lied about contacting her. They pushed out Hussey and issued a statement about her unacceptable behavior. And that’s it. That’s all that was done. Since then, Hussey has been protected and coddled by the media and the palace while Fulani had to fend for herself as a wave of online and print-media attacks were launched against her. The palace could have and should have stepped in within a day or two and issued a public statement to at least make a pretense of shielding Fulani. They did not. So the attacks and smears continued, and now Sistah Space is temporarily shutting down.

A charity led by a black woman who was repeatedly asked where she was “really” from at a royal event has temporarily stopped its work over safety. Sistah Space was thrown into the spotlight when its founder, Ngozi Fulani, said she felt she was “interrogated” by Lady Susan Hussey at Buckingham Palace last month. It says it has now “ceased many” of its operations over safety.

Ms Fulani has said she suffered online abuse after speaking out. Lady Hussey – Prince William’s godmother and the late Queen’s lady-in-waiting – has since left her honorary role within the Royal Household.

In a statement on its Instagram page, domestic violence charity Sistah Space said: “Thank you for the continued support and messages. Unfortunately recent events meant that we were forced to temporarily cease many of our operations to ensure the safety of our service users and our team. We are overwhelmed by the amount of support and encouragement and look forward to fully reinstating our services as soon as safely possible.”

Ms Fulani said earlier this week that she, her family and team had been put under “immense pressure” and received “horrific abuse” on social media.

[From BBC]

As Fulani said last week, this is what happens when Black women report their abuse, this is what happens when Black women stand up for themselves against racist pigs. It’s completely disgusting that Buckingham Palace still hasn’t done one f–king thing to help or protect Fulani or Sistah Space. I’m not saying that a personal statement from Queen Camilla would stop the harassment of Fulani, but I do think it would minimize the nature of the harassment and abuse. Besides that, it would just be good optics and these people only give a f–k about the optics. Instead, the palace’s silence is their complicity, once again. Over and over. They’re telling us who they are: they fundamentally do not believe that Black women should be protected. Queen Camilla was so eager to take credit for all of this work against domestic violence, then Camilla stands idly by as one of the activists invited to the palace is inundated with abuse over reporting the racism she suffered AT THE PALACE.

Photos courtesy of Sistah Space, Avalon Red, Cover Images & Sky News.

Sydney Sweeney is one of British GQ’s people of the year, part of their big “Men of the Year” issue. Whenever I write about her, people are always like “who?” or “I don’t like her,” but I’m kind of into her. She’s cute, she’s interesting, she’s not cookie-cutter. She hustled a lot for a decade to make it as an actress and she’s hustling a lot now that she has established herself. She’s balancing all that with an engagement, too much interest in her life, supporting herself and her family and a bustling career. You can read her profile here. Some highlights:

She loves playing Cassie on Euphoria: “I love the spiral that Cassie goes down. [The darker material] is the easiest for me. I can access my emotions easily, so that’s just kind of what happens…. I like finding characters who challenge the viewer. I dyed my hair blonde and started dressing up for photoshoots and people thought that is who I am. I worked really hard to change that perception of myself, especially in high school.”

Her teenage years: “I had boobs before other girls and I felt ostracised for it. I was embarrassed and I never wanted to change in the locker room. I think that I put on this weird persona other people had of me because of my body. So I did play every sport and I studied really hard and I did everything that people wouldn’t think I would do, to show them that my body doesn’t define who I am. [I still do that] but now it’s on a whole-world scale.”

Whether she resents nepo babies: “I might have had to work longer to get through the same door they were able to walk through. But there’s nothing I can do. I never knew that existed until I got to this place and then I was like, ‘What the f–k was I doing for 10 years?!’”

The whole “are your parents MAGA” conversation: “Honestly I feel like nothing I say can help the conversation. It’s been turning into a wildfire and nothing I can say will take it back to the correct track.”

She reads the comments: “I’ll see people say, ‘She needs to get media training’. Why, do you want to see a robot? I don’t think there’s any winning.” Does she read the comments? “Sadly, yes.”

She’s seen addiction in her own family: “I come from a family of Cassies and [recovering drug addict in the show] Rues. Mostly Rues. I’ve never actually tried any drug, never drank, because I’ve seen my aunts, uncles, cousins, and the effect not just on that person but the community surrounding them. It’s hard to watch someone want to destroy themselves. It’s hard when people judge people they don’t know.”

On abortion: “When I was doing The Handmaid’s Tale I had a lot of women come up to me and tell me how much the show meant to them.” With the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, the series feels darker and more urgent than ever. “People were like, ‘Oh no that’ll never happen.’ I honestly don’t know how we’re in the place that we’re in.”

Naked screenshots from her work appearing online: “It got to the point where they were tagging my family. My cousins don’t need that. It’s completely disgusting and unfair. You have a character that goes through the scrutiny of being a sexualised person at school and then an audience that does the same thing.”

[From British GQ]

The lack-of-media-training thing is interesting, because from what I’ve seen, she’s managed to deftly side-step a lot of political conversations without saying much of anything. There are media-trained billionaires who can’t accomplish that. Her parents are likely MAGA and she hasn’t thrown them under the bus, nor has she engaged with any of the online conversations about it, and she sidestepped it again here. Her answer on abortion is noncommittal too. We don’t know her personal politics, her fans have just assumed that she’s liberal. She hasn’t indicated either way.

As for developing early… I’ve said this before, but I filled out pretty young too, and I know it warped me, especially with body image, not so much with the way people treated me. My default, to this day, is baggier shirts and sweaters to somehow mask how top heavy I am. Sydney is different – she’s really, um, chest forward these days.

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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.