Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy is Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. [Just Jared]
Kylie Jenner & Travis Scott made the same Florida-to-California journey within minutes in their separate private jets. Disgusting. [Dlisted]
Netflix is the winner of the all of the Sussex-Windsor drama. [LaineyGossip]
Trump Org. convicted of lying, cheating, defrauding, etc. [Towleroad]
Joe Biden is putting women of color on the bench!! [Jezebel]
The tragedy of Qatar hosting the World Cup. [Pajiba]
Claire Foy’s dress is delightfully weird. [Go Fug Yourself]
Some of the most cursed images you’ll ever see! [OMG Blog]
Buzzfeed is doing a massive layoff. [Gawker]
Kate Upton is moving to New York. [Egotastic]
Diamond earrings and “gift anxiety.” [Buzzfeed]
YES!!! Netflix will do a Jewish Matchmaking show!! [Starcasm]

As always, the Daily Mail’s headlines are doing way too much: “The show must go on! Senior royals ‘out-glitz’ Harry and Meghan at dazzling Buckingham Palace reception after difficult 36 hours which saw Sussexes release Netflix trailer and King Charles targeted with an egg for the second time in a month.” Seriously, that’s the actual headline. I’m covering the egg situation separately (because hahahaha) but if the whole point is “out-glitzing” the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, surely you shouldn’t telegraph how the Sussexes live rent-free in the minds of the Windsors and the British media? Besides that, chronologically speaking, the Buckingham Palace diplomatic reception happened hours before the Sussexes’ appearance at the Ripple of Hope Award ceremony. This was an effort to PRE-glitz the Sussexes because all of these people have zero chill.

So, I believe it went down this way: King Charles ordered William and Kate to attend the diplomatic reception as a way to distract from the Sussexes. Kate was happy to oblige and she dutifully dusted off her Emergency Loretta Lynn Wiglet and Valley of the Dolls Bump-It, slapped those onto her empty head and secured the mess in place with the Lotus Flower Tiara. She also wore a new-to-us Jenny Packham gown which is fine. Sartorially, it looks like something Laura Bush would have worn to a state dinner (and I’m quite positive she did). She also wore a pair of QEII’s earrings, plus her medals and honors, which she got for staying with Peg.

Queen Camilla wore the Belgian Sapphire Tiara and a sapphire-and-diamond suite. At some point, doesn’t it look tacky that Camilla and Kate are so gleefully looting the Royal Collection jewels?

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex flew into New York on Tuesday via a private jet, cue a lot of performative hand-wringing. It did not appear as if they brought Archie and Lili to New York, possibly because their whole purpose for traveling to New York was to attend last night’s Ripple of Hope Awards. Once again, we don’t have any idea where they’re staying, which makes me think that the rumor about the Sussexes staying in United Nations housing – intended for visiting foreign diplomats and VIPs – is probably true.

So, here are some photos of Meghan and Harry at last night’s Ripple of Hope Awards. Meghan wore a custom, off-the-shoulder Louis Vuitton dress with a front slit. While LV isn’t my particular jam, this was a very good look for Meghan. It hit that perfect area where it wasn’t too young or too “cool,” yet it’s interesting and sophisticated without being dowdy or pageant-queen. Her styling is amazing too, this is the best chignon I’ve ever seen her do. Makeup on point, jewelry on point. She wore Diana’s aquamarine cocktail ring, the one Diana bought for herself post-divorce. The Freedom Ring. As the Sussexes were honored, they also took time to honor Robert F. Kennedy:

Kerry Kennedy — who presented them with the award — praised them for “showing up” and revealed that the RFK Foundation was handing them their award for fighting racism within the royal family.

Markle praised Kerry’s father, Robert F. Kennedy, saying, “The enduring dream of RFK of a just and peaceful world is so much more than a simple hope. It’s a direct ask, a specific challenge, a call to action, a test of individual courage and collective spirit. And his appeal to humanity is as relevant today as it was in 1966 when he stood before the University of Cape Town, a place we’ve visited and hold close to our hearts. And he delivered a vision for the common good of society.”

Harry, 38, added, “Bobby Kennedy said, ‘Each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.’”

In their pre-taped video speech, the former actress, 41, continued, “He also said those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

Harry added: “And as we all face a complete and challenging time in the world, we choose the path of optimism of care for each other and our communities. We understand this honor, not about the culmination of a life’s work, but instead and in many ways for us, a beginning.”

The couple — who held hands throughout the ceremony — then announced they were teaming up with the RFK Foundation to launch a new student film award called the Archewell Foundation Award for Gender Equity In Film.

[From Page Six]

Beautiful speech. Man, Salt Island is so mad that Harry and Meghan were recognized for standing up to racism. The British media mocked them and mocked this award. But they continue to show why they deserve this kind of recognition.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex could have moved to Toledo, Ohio and the Daily Mail would have run exclusives from their Toledo insiders within hours. The fact that Harry and Meghan actually moved to a very wealthy, private and A-list enclave in California is an even bigger problem for the British media though. It’s because Montecito sounds like paradise – Harry and Meghan have a big, beautiful mansion, they live very close to the beach, they have all of the privacy and work space they could ever want and their neighbors don’t bug them or gossip about them. The British media simply can’t admit that the Sussexes had every right to step away from the abusive situation in the UK and that the Sussexes are thriving and happy in a Montecito paradise. Over the past two years, the British media has tried different angles to attack the Sussexes and/or Montecito, including a story about a “foul smell” from a bird sanctuary, because these lunatics are completely f–king obsessed. The latest is that Tatler (via the Mail) reports that Montecito’s old-money crowd. Oh noes, I’m sure they’ll cry about it on their way to Oprah’s house.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are ‘not popular with the rich, old-guard Montecito crowd’, a US-based British ‘power player’ has reportedly told Tatler. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex settled in a £11million mansion in the A-lister playground in California following their decision to step back from their royal duties.

However, despite making a home for themselves in the US, the couple, who share son Archie, three, and 17-month-old daughter Lilibet, are apparently still ‘very polarising’ when it comes to Americans’ views towards them.

‘There’s no middle ground: they are either loved or loathed. Some think she is a champion for women and racial equality; others think they are money-grabbing,’ claimed the unnamed West Coaster. They told the publication: ‘They are not popular with the rich, old-guard Montecito crowd.’

Meanwhile, New-York based writer George Wayne, who Tatler notes is ‘known for publishing an annual list of zeitgeisty-y New Yorkers’ claimed: ‘There is no one that I know, or care to know, who is a fan of the calculating, mousy subterfuge of Meghan.’

[From The Daily Mail]

Ah, “calculating.” We keep adding subjects for Archetypes’ second season. I want Meghan to devote an episode to “exoticism” and biraciality, and now I want her to do an episode on “calculating,” a descriptor solely used for women. As for the Montecito stuff, I actually wouldn’t be surprised if the snootiest snoots of the old-money crowd weren’t impressed by the Sussexes. But here’s the thing: the truly old-money, old-guard people wouldn’t gossip to Tatler. Please. They’re not like some horse-faced British aristocrat. American old-money people play by a completely different set of rules. I also think the fact that Harry spent the summer playing polo at the Santa Barbara Polo Club probably won over some hearts and minds in the Old Money Tightass clique.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.

There’s some insidious stuff happening in the American and British press right now, which speaks volumes about the panic in the British media, the British royal family and the British establishment. That panic is all about Netflix’s Harry & Meghan docuseries, the first three episodes of which drop overnight. The Washington Post has a very strange preview with the headline “Prince Harry and Meghan in Netflix documentary seek to control their story.” The piece was written by Karla Adam, WaPo’s London correspondent and William Booth, WaPo’s London bureau chief. Why are the London-based writers covering the Sussexes? Why is the docuseries being previewed through the lens of “British people are so mad about it.” Here are some particularly interesting parts:

British people are definitely centering themselves in the Sussex story: At the end of one of the trailers released by Netflix, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, looks at the camera and asks: “Doesn’t it make more sense to hear our story from us?” Some royal watchers here might say no, not really. In contrast to the United States, where the couple who quit their royal jobs and took refuge in California are looked upon somewhat warmly, members of the British public view the Sussexes with more hurt, more suspicion.

How can Meghan & Harry exist during the cost-of-living crisis? Some agree with Harry and Meghan’s take that the palace wasn’t supportive enough, that the tabloids were racist. But especially in a winter when soaring rents and heating costs are a recurring topic of conversation, people seem reluctant to extend much sympathy to the rebel royals — and don’t buy their argument that the Metropolitan Police should be responsible for their security when in Britain.

Christopher Bouzy spoke to the Post: He told The Post that he was interviewed for the documentary for two hours in March. “Based on what I know on targeted campaigning, it’s important for folks to understand what this couple has gone through. It’s important to get their side of the story from them,” he said.

Valentine Low also spoke to the Post: On the whole, the promotional material conveys “an incredibly strong sense of victimhood,” said Valentine Low, author of “Courtiers: Intrigue, Ambition and the Power Players Behind the House of Windsor.” “There is a reasonable debate to have” about whether the royal institution has done enough to support those who marry into it, Low said in an interview with The Post. “But [Harry] loses me when he says no one knows the full truth but them, implying they have a monopoly on truth. What about those women who say they were bullied by Meghan? They have a truth, too.”

[From WaPo]

Yeah, WaPo also quotes a particularly vile Spectator article about the Sussexes, as well as Piers Morgan (who is just vile, in general). Why is the Washington Post carrying water for the Windsors and the British racists? Why should the Sussexes silence themselves because of Britain’s cost-of-living crisis? The Valentine Low quote is especially noteworthy because the Windsors are dusting off the bullying bullsh-t right now. From the Mail:

A former Buckingham Palace employee who claims to have been bullied by the Duchess of Sussex has urged it to release staff from non-disclosure arrangements so they can reject Harry and Meghan’s ‘lies’ ahead of their Netflix series.

The former staffer, who signed a confidentiality agreement, has urged the palace to lift non-disclosure agreements so they can respond to ‘attacks’ from the Sussexes.

‘The only way to end it once for good is for us to be allowed to speak, and for the palace to firmly reject their lies,’ the former employee told The Times. ‘I certainly have chosen to remain silent out of respect for the crown, but if they keep attacking us and our characters, reputation etc. we need to feel we are equally supported by the Royal Family.’

Palace staff are said to be ‘seething with rage’ after the series trailers were released, a source told the newspaper. Royal sources have insisted it was ‘absolutely wrong’ to suggest the couple had been briefed against and insisted ‘unprecedented steps’ had been taken to support them.

One insider told The Daily Telegraph that royal staff were instead ‘bending over backwards to work with them’.

[From The Daily Mail]

So, that’s where we are. The lazy, incompetent racist staffers are crying about how they need to be released from their confidentiality agreements so they can tell their stories about how Meghan made them cry by asking them to complete a task one time. The whole bullying “investigation” was settled a while ago too, and the palace never allowed Meghan to defend herself from the accusations, nor were Meghan’s receipts ever allowed to be part of the investigation. So, whatever. Pathetic, desperate lunatics waging a pathetic, desperate smear campaign. Still, I’m shocked that the Washington Post would carry water for Salt Island that way.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Netflix.

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Hilary Duff looks amazing. She did a nude photo shoot earlier this year and you can tell she’s been working on her physical routine and working hard. She’s talked in interviews about using fitness as therapy as well. Hilary shed more light on that recently when she spoke to Women’s Health Australia about her “horrifying” eating disorder when she was 17 and trying to stay “actress thin.” Now Hilary has learned to love her body and found a way to keep fit that works for her. In the article, her trainer, Dominic Leeder, gave some tips on how to workout and eat more effectively. It’s pretty good advice, too, like focusing on resistance training over cardio and not cutting carbohydrates out of your diet. They’re fine… and delicious.

Make obtainable goals: The most common unrealistic goal people have is wanting to lose a significant amount of weight, fast. I feel that it’s exacerbated by a lot of famous people who have gone on, what I would call, a fad diet, and lost an incredible amount of weight. They take photos, you see it, but no one knows what happens after that. And often with fad diets, things deteriorate straight away afterwards.

Don’t focus so much on cardio: When I met Hilary, we decided to focus on resistance training, because we wanted to build lean muscle mass and up her metabolism. Her diet was also a huge factor and I wanted to make sure that she was eating the correct amount of macros for the goal that she needed. I know a lot of people like to avoid weights because they feel like they’re going to get big and bulky. But what I tell my clients is that if you only realised how hard it is to get big and bulky! You don’t just pick up a weight and then suddenly you build muscles.

Carbs are not the enemy: There’s a huge misconception that carbohydrates are the devil. Complex carbs, in my opinion, are imperative. If you don’t have carbs, your body will use other things for energy, like protein. And because of the way I work with resistance training, we want that protein to go to the lean muscle build to help their metabolism. We need carbs, and the right carbs are gonna one satiate you. For Hilary’s macro split, we did 50 per cent complex carbs, 30 per cent healthy fats, and 20 per cent protein.

Maintainess is hard:After reaching her initial goal, we had to find a new goal around [her priorities]. It was down to me to work out how best to maintain what we have [achieved], while she’s also enjoying her life and doing what she needs to do as a human being that has three children, a job, and so many other things. So I think it’s useful for people to know that it was a struggle.

Setting the new goal [with Hilary] was a struggle. What we ended up going with was, well, our goal right now is to maintain what we have while still having a fantastic life work/balance that’s important to her. She then went into filming for another show so it became even more difficult [to train together]. But because that was our goal, we more times than not managed to keep that going, so she can stay mentally happy. And then when she finishes that work, we’ll ramp back up again and we’ll find some new goals.

[From Women’s Health]

I want to talk about all of this, especially around the holidays, because that’s when food and body issues are especially difficult for some. I’m one of them, particularly this year. That’s why the goals portion of the article really jumped out at me. My trainer and I just had this conversation. She’s always been cautious of what counting calories can trigger with my eating disorder and constantly checks in with where I am mentally. I hit my weight goal and my trainer, like Dominic, wanted to know what was next for me. My goal is just to get through the holidays. Because it’s such a tricky time. I purposefully dropped below goal so I could add some back on and not feel bad. But guess what? I added and felt still bad because some demons just won’t get off our backs. That’s also why those fad diets Dominic addresses are so misleading. Because you feel great dropping all that weight, but you beat yourself up when you can’t maintain it – and you cannot maintain results.

But a trainer isn’t an option for everyone. I went through my budget and cut three things so I could afford one. But not everyone can do that. That’s why I like advice like Dominic’s above, it’s practical. You can find resistance training on YouTube and articles about complex carbohydrates online. I got a trainer because I need accountability. One thing that has helped immensely is the camaraderie. So let’s support each other, offer tips, be nice to ourselves, and just get through these holidays. Because from where I’m sitting, you all look fabulous.

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A post shared by Hilary Duff (@hilaryduff)

Photo credit: Women’s Health Australia and Instagram

Thank god, Senator Raphael Warnock won reelection in the Georgia runoff. Warnock won the election in November too, but the margins were so tight, a runoff election was called. Warnock and Herschel Walker spent the past four weeks campaigning (to various degrees) as Walker tried to ignore the persistent stories about how many times he demanded his girlfriends and mistresses have abortions. At the end of the day (or, as of Wednesday early morning), Warnock won the runoff by about 100,000 votes, which meant that he won 51.4% of the vote. It should not have been that close, but here we are. A win is a win.

Senator Raphael Warnock defeated his Republican challenger, Herschel Walker, in a runoff election that capped a grueling and costly campaign, secured a 51-seat Democratic majority and gave the first Black senator from Georgia a full six-year term.

Mr. Warnock’s victory was called by The Associated Press late Tuesday evening as the senator’s lead was expanding to 51 percent compared with Mr. Walker’s 49 percent. It ended a marathon midterm election cycle in which Democrats defied history, as they limited the loss of House seats that typically greets the party that holds the White House and now gain a seat in the Senate.

Throughout one of the most expensive Senate races in American history, Mr. Warnock used the cadences and lofty language he honed as the senior pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church to ask Georgia voters to rise above the acrimony and division of Donald J. Trump’s politics.

“I am Georgia,” he proclaimed Tuesday night in Atlanta, invoking the martyrs and heroes of the civil rights movement and the small towns and growing cities of his childhood. “I am an example and an iteration of its history, of its peril and promise, of the brutality and the possibilities. But because this is America, because we always have a path to make our country greater against unspeakable odds, here we stand together.”

He uttered what he called the four most powerful words in a democracy: “The people have spoken.”

[From The NY Times]

It’s still so amazing to me that Georgia has two Democratic senators. And they’re great senators too, Warnock and Jon Osoff are incredibly charismatic pols. Fingers crossed that Georgia Democrats are building something which lasts for a long time. And hurray, Senate Dems have 51 seats!!

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Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Getty.

David Harbour’s Christmas movie, Violent Night, came out last Friday. I’m not sure if I’ll see it. I think it’s probably a helluva romp, it’s just not the sort of thing I usually watch. But I’ve seen so many people saying good things about it, it might change my mind. Either way, it has David out doing press and I always enjoy that. Reading his Role Recall, I realized there’s so much of his career I missed. I had no idea David was in Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom. And I don’t remember him from Brokeback Mountain or Revolutionary Road. Plus, David was cut out of Spielberg’s War of the World, in which he had a scene opposite Tom Cruise. Speaking of Revolutionary Road, David apparently didn’t understand the significance of the film when he was making it. He knew it would be a good film, but he didn’t quite grasp the whole Leo DiCaprio/Kate Winslet post-Titanic reunion thing. That reunion eclipsing the film itself changed how David viewed movie hype going forward.

Why I might see Violent Night: It has all the action set pieces and it has this kind of Die Hard train to it, but underneath it all, it has this little girl believing in Santa Claus. There’s something about that that’s so funny and disarming and charming to have this bloody old Santa just being like, ‘Thank you for believing in me.’ There’s just a lot of deeply funny stuff in it… I’ve never seen a movie like this and I’ve never seen a movie that attempts to do what we attempt to do in this movie, which is to make a Christmas movie a kick-ass action John Wick movie. It’s insane. So I like that swing.

Ang Lee’s odd direction on Brokeback Mountain: You could just feel that we were making something really creative and really beautiful. And then I remember Ang would just say some weird stuff occasionally. Like he gave me a note as he came in for a real tight closeup at one point and I did a couple takes of it. He wasn’t quite happy… And then finally he came over to me, came up right close to me and went ‘More, uh, more handsome.’ And then he ran away and I was like, ‘Bro, I think that’s a note for your casting director.’ But I took it as best I could and tried to square my jaw off. And he liked it [laughs].

He missed the hype around Revolutionary Road: It was sort of a weird thing because it was the first time in my career where I wasn’t smart enough to understand the hype machine as it is. So I believed it. It was kind of this moment where everyone was like, ‘Oh oh oh, you’re making a piece of history right now and people are going to know your name.’ And we were all patting each other on the back like it was a big deal. And then the movie came out and… you know, the movie’s all right. And I was all right, but nobody really cared all that much. So I was like, ‘Wait a minute.’ So it sort of allowed me, in terms of this business, to understand that whatever people say, whatever the hype is, whatever the thing is, this thing has an independent life of its own.

“And you should never believe what people think or say… It’s like [famed producer] Robert Evans said, ‘Nobody knows anything in this business.’ I mean, really, nobody knows anything. And I think that was my real first tangible example of that. I thought that this was a big shiny thing and it just didn’t quite happen in that particular way. And so it’s been a really refreshing way to allow your expectations to be what they are and allow things to sort of breathe as opposed to get so attached to having something be more than what it is.

This is actually a good argument for Green Hornet: Green Hornet was really cool. I mean, it was such a mess in a certain way… It wasn’t a mess because of the inadequacy of its parts. It was almost the too muchness of its parts. It had Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg who were writing it, and Seth is the lead, right? Terrific comedy writers, really strong take on an anti-superhero movie. Then you have Neal Moritz producing it, from Fast and Furious, and just like a huge Hollywood blow-up producer. And then you have Michel Gondry, like this weird independent filmmaker making it. And something about the Bermuda Triangle of those three just made it this weird unwieldy thing where each of them are so talented in their own particular directions, but it just pulled in so many weird ways that, in the end, it doesn’t quite coalesce in the right way.

You don’t mess with Aaron Sorkin’s dialogue: Normally in movies you could play around with dialogue and you can play around with stuff. It’s like we have this term where, ‘It’s not Shakespeare.’ You tend to interpret your character in that way. And here, you had the script supervisor running over to you if you’re in the middle of a big speech… She’d be like, ‘David, it’s somebody, not someone.’ So yeah, it was a very meticulous process.

On the failure of Hellboy: I learned not to f*** with established IP, that’s for sure. A beloved and established IP. I mean, I guess that’s the biggest lesson learned. I feel like whatever failures or successes that movie was, of which there are many, the movie itself had such a thing going into it that it was like almost impossible. Whereas something like Stranger Things or even Violent Night, it’s an original idea. And so people can judge it for whatever it is when it comes out or when they see it, but they don’t have going into it so much stuff. And I feel like that to me is what’s so difficult about existing IP. It’s difficult about Star Wars, it’s difficult about these things that are beloved.

Black Widow helped him lick his wounds from Hellboy: Black Widow was something that was a different beast. [Red Guardian] is a character not really well known in the comics. You’re allowed to mess with him. And [Marvel] really is the Cadillac of all brands in terms of that particular genre… And then they really allow you creative freedom to play. And I’ve never seen anything like that sort of confidence with their brand and with what they’re doing. So yeah, making that movie was an extraordinarily wonderful experience for me.

[From Yahoo Entertainment]

On the one hand, I agree with David that you probably should never believe what people say in Hollywood. On the other hand, how could anyone who wasn’t living under a rock post-Titanic not know that Revolutionary Road was going to be hyped on Leo and Kate’s reunion? I agree with David too, the movie was just “all right,” so the hype was kind of necessary.

Again, I’m impressed by David’s reel. He only hit my radar with Stranger Things, although I’ve obviously seen him in other things since I’ve watched many of those mentioned. I think maybe David was in too many successful projects early on, if that’s a thing. Because he can’t process when they fall flat, it seems. That’s especially true for Hellboy which he is taking very hard. I get how fronting his first huge action film and it tanking would be tough. But even though I didn’t see it, I’m sure it wasn’t all David’s fault. As to his comment about not messing with beloved IP, you don’t get it both ways though. The reason filmmakers keep churning out those projects is because they rely on the “beloved IP” to bring people into the theater. So there needs to be some concession to give them what they want once they get them there.

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Kirstie Alley passed away after a cancer battle at the age of 71. [Seriously OMG]
Lainey on Prince William’s nothingburger “Super Bowl” mess. [LaineyGossip]
George Clooney was feted at the Kennedy Center Honors. [Dlisted]
Jodie Turner-Smith looked incredible in Saudi Arabia. [Tom & Lorenzo]
I can’t believe AppleTV has paid for four seasons of Servant. [Pajiba]
Jenna Ortega had Covid when she filmed that Wednesday dance scene!! [JustJared]
Kate Winslet is in Avatar 2 & she wore leather pants. [GFY]
Again, Elizabeth Debicki looked amazeballs last night. [RCFA]
Honestly, I would love a McDonald’s gold card. [Buzzfeed]
It’s about time for a queer reimagining of Hamlet! [Towleroad]
Barbara Palvin wants us to buy coffee or something. [Egotastic]
This is true – Absolutely Fabulous is an ageless classic (with thin ankles). [Gawker]

After Netflix released the first and second Harry & Meghan trailer, a new industry sprang up within hours: an industry of sourcing all of the images used in the trailers. There are already complaints that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are using images taken from some Katie Price court case and a 2011 Harry Potter premiere to illustrate how Harry & Meghan were “hounded.” The royal commentators are, as always, doing a lot. Here’s how I answer all of those inane criticisms: the docuseries is about a lot more than “how Meghan was treated,” it’s about how the British media works in total. Liz Garbus clearly used B-roll to illustrate and heighten certain conversations about the media, and that B-roll was also spliced into the trailer. Considering many royal commentators couldn’t even properly source the year in which certain royal photos were taken, maybe they don’t have the franchise on this particular issue?

Speaking of, alongside the performative “concerns” about the B-roll used in the docu-series, we also have the Daily Mail, the Telegraph and other British media outlets using royal sources to royalsplain how they never leaked anything negative about the Sussexes, ever. This is very “Royal Sources Claim Royal Sources Don’t Exist.”

In clips for the show, Harry, 38, took aim at royal aides, smirking as he commented: ‘It’s a dirty game.’ But royal sources insisted it was ‘absolutely wrong’ to suggest Harry and Meghan had been briefed against and ‘unprecedented steps’ had been taken to support them.

The couple’s claims sparked incredulity amongst royal insiders, some of whom were keen to make clear they are only speaking out because of the nature of the allegations from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. One said: ‘The truth is that the Palace took unprecedented steps to support the couple. They were given their own dedicated household, office, press office, home and staff. That is unheard of for a member of the Royal Family in their position [not a direct heir to the throne]. The Queen even sent her most trusted personal staff to support Meghan, not that she wanted any of their advice. Both the duke and duchess always thought they knew best.’

The source pointed out that not only were the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting asked to personally advise Meghan, but Harry’s grandmother persuaded her deputy private secretary, Sam Cohen, to stay on for six months to guide the couple.

Another source adds: ‘Yes, this was a very new situation for the Royal Household but they were excited about Harry and Meghan’s potential and what they could achieve as a couple for the monarchy and the country. They were keen to put in the framework for them to succeed. It’s why Her late Majesty handed them plum jobs within the Commonwealth. Could the Palace have done more? Very possibly. Can it be quite slow and unwieldy sometimes? Definitely. Certainly too slow for the likes of Harry and Meghan, who were very impatient. The Palace’s starting point always is “but what is our precedent?” And of course there was none here. But it is absolutely wrong to suggest that they were unsupported or, worse, that people were briefing against them.

‘It would actually be laughable, if it wasn’t so serious. The Harry and Meghan show was a very different beast from the one they [the Palace] were used to. But they tried, they really did.’

One royal source added that far from leaking or placing negative stories about the couple in the media, Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace actively tried to quash rumours that all was not well behind closed doors.

On the issue of the ‘family hierarchy’, a well-placed insider said: ‘Is there a hierarchy in the family? Of course there is. It’s like any other company or public institution. There’s a CEO, chief executives, department heads … That’s how big organisations work. They would be ungovernable otherwise. There’s a structure and it’s there for a reason.

[From The Daily Mail]

“But it is absolutely wrong to suggest that they were unsupported or, worse, that people were briefing against them.” Are you sh-tting me? I guess little elves and fairies were telling Tatler that Kensington Palace called Meghan “Me-Gain,” and that Meghan “made Kate cry.” I guess all of those royal reporters were lying when they said in interviews that Kensington Palace and Clarence House leaked against the Sussexes. I guess it was the Gossip Buttons telling the Times that William and his staff were drawing up plans to exile the popular Sussexes and eventually send them to Africa. I guess it was Kate’s Harvard Wiglet briefing the media last week that Prince William thinks the Sussexes “are like the Kardashians.”

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.