View this post on Instagram

A post shared by kristen bell (@kristenanniebell)

While appearing on The Endless Honeymoon podcast, Dax Shepard said his daughter Delta, seven, had a lot to thank her sister Lincoln, nine, for. Namely her existence. Dax said he and wife Kristen Bell wanted to stop after one kid because three was the perfect sized family for their busy lifestyles. But they realized having a second child was best for Lincoln. So they had Delta, whom of course they adore.

Dax Shepard is sharing details behind the decision to have a second child.
During an appearance on the Endless Honeymoon podcast, Shepard, 47, opened up about his two daughters — Lincoln, 9, and Delta, 7 — both of whom he shares with wife Kristen Bell.

“We did not want a second child,” he explained to a couple who called in for advice about growing their family. “It’s a bizarre conversation to start because [a family unit of three] is perfect, and it’s so much easier. You can take that little Subway sandwich anywhere, as I’m sure you guys are doing.”

The Parenthood alum explained that as Lincoln started growing, he and Bell realized it may be beneficial to have a second child so she can have a “playmate,” not just on their travels, but for the long haul of life.

“One is, we travel a lot. It’s not fair to bring this little human everywhere we go and deal only with adults. Like, we owe it to her to give her a playmate that travels with us everywhere,” he explained. “We love [Lincoln] enough to do something we don’t really wanna do, which is have a second, because we were so absolutely happy with just the one.”
Another reason for the decision, he later quipped, was to minimize the chances for Lincoln to become “spoiled” as an only child.

“Our kids already are so privileged beyond belief,” he said. “It rattles both of us being from very, you know, modest backgrounds. So, to make the spoiled bitch, my first born, live in the same room with another person [when she gets older] and have to share everything, like, I needed [Lincoln to learn] the force of compromise and sharing discomfort because I wasn’t going to give it to her any other way. So we just thought it would be really helpful to make her a better person, to have to deal with someone else.”

Another piece of advice Shepard gave was, should anyone decide to have a second child, to do it “as quick as possible.” His own daughters were born 20 months apart.

“Our kids are under two years apart, and for a minute that was difficult because you know, when you’re 5 and the baby is 3, that’s no fun,” he said. “I will say the corner we’ve turned is, like, now they party. Not only do they party together, they’re united against us, which I love.”

He added, “If I’m giving it to one of the girls, the other one comes over, ‘You’re not being nice to Lincoln. You didn’t listen to what she said.’ And I’m like, ‘That’s right. That’s your role. You guys gang up and kill me. It’s you two against the world.’ That stuff, I think, the lesser the age gap the easier it is to achieve.”

[From Yahoo]

I know plenty of you have already dismissed all of this because you dislike both Kristen and Dax, so – mm’kay. For those of you still with me, obviously the only real family planning advice is to do what you’re comfortable with. My take on what Dax said is mixed. I understand his logic about one child being easier to travel with. When they’re young, the difference of traveling with one child vs. two young children is huge. But when they get older, it’s not an issue, they manage themselves. (It is, however, a lot more expensive!) I agreed with him on the playmate thing and wanted more than one kid for that reason. However, that was because I knew I wasn’t going to be enough for my kid. I know plenty of single kids who loved being only children. It’s not sure Dax’s universal logic. The spoiled brat point I don’t get. I would think that’s on them not to spoil however many kids they have.

As for age spacing, meh. I had my kids close together due to my age. They’re best friends. My mother had my brothers and I with years between us because of blood type issues. We’re best friends. All involved looked out for each other, regardless of how close or far they were spaced. I’ve always felt the relationship of the siblings was the personalities involved (including the parents) and not the age gap.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by kristen bell (@kristenanniebell)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by kristen bell (@kristenanniebell)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Dax Shepard (@daxshepard)

Photo credit: Instagram

North West seems to be the basketball player of the family, while Saint West is the soccer player. Kim Kardashian juggles the kids’ extracurriculars, and she must inform Kanye’s team about when certain games are happening. Kim and Kanye still aren’t speaking – when he was stalking and harassing her and Pete Davidson earlier this year, Kim began to phase out direct communications with Kanye, and now they coordinate between third-parties. Because he’s still obsessed with Kim and obsessed with making an ass out of himself, Kanye does show up to his kids’ games and he tries to draw out Kim or get her attention. It feels like Kim is grey-rocking him, and good for her. But that means he’s probably going to escalate in those rare moments when they’re at the same event. Which is what happened over the weekend:

Kanye West was very clearly agitated on social media over the weekend, but his anger was also apparent at his son’s soccer game, getting into a heated exchange with another parent.

We’ve obtained video taken Saturday while Saint played soccer. You can see Kim Kardashian sitting in a lawn chair and surrounded by security while an animated Kanye stands about 30 feet away. It’s unclear exactly what he’s upset about, but you see Kanye waving his arms in frustration.

From there, another woman — who is a family friend — approaches Ye, appears to say something to him and then he storms off. A witness tells us Kanye came back a few minutes later, seemingly after he had cooled off, and watched the rest of the game without incident.

As we’ve told you, Kim and Kanye aren’t talking — and that appears to remain true in the video from the weekend. It was a few weeks ago at North’s basketball game when Ye showed up wearing a “White Lives Matter” shirt … we’re told Kim didn’t interact with Kanye at all during the game. Kanye’s been suspended from Instagram for 30 days after posting a text message exchange between himself and Russell Simmons where he once again made disparaging remarks against Jewish people.

[From TMZ]

I’m including the video below, and I’ve watched it a few times to see all the moving parts – Kim is seated, but she’s looking over at Kanye as he seems to be getting louder and more agitated. The other woman comes over to him and says something in a matter-of-fact manner. It looks to me like Kanye was actually directing his tirade at Kim from a distance, almost like he wanted to approach her but her security and the other parents stopped him. I think a lot of this is about Kim, or should I say, a lot of this is about Kanye trying to get Kim’s attention, trying to get Kim to “take care of him.” Also: while Kanye was suspended from Instagram yet again, he’s still on Parler (that other Nazi hellsite) and he was apparently going on another antisemitic rant.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

The British royal commentators are playing a dangerous game with Netflix, The Crown and the monarchy. Their gleeful commentary about the “lurid, unflattering” Netflix series shows their eagerness to exploit all of these tragedies all over again, all while assuming an air of performative fury on behalf of King Charles. Does Charles really understand what he’s unleashed? Netflix is laughing all the way to the bank, especially with Salt Island’s media giving The Crown millions in free publicity. Even more than the free publicity, the commentators are making The Crown sound like the most epic royal takedown ever. The Mail’s Christopher Stevens has seen the whole (still embargoed) season 5. And he couldn’t help but throw a huge tantrum about all of it.

There are no depths of bad taste that writer Peter Morgan does not plumb in the new ten-part series of The Crown on Netflix. Divorces, infidelities, the most intimate conversations, the infamous interview with Princess Diana and Martin Bashir, even the death of a five-year-old from cancer, all are exploited for lurid drama. As the eight-and-a-half hours of new film were made available to journalists last night, under a stringent embargo, the sheer virulence of the storylines became shockingly clear.

Charles, Philip and at times the Queen herself are portrayed with disdain bordering on mockery. A teenage Prince William is also shown in an unflattering light, as slightly dim and sulky, though his younger brother Harry is let off lightly and barely features. Netflix may well find that, with the international grief and mourning that marked the death of the Queen less than two months ago, viewers’ appetite for royal muck-raking has disappeared.

Insiders at the streaming video giant say the mood in the company is already uneasy, with some American executives surprised by the backlash from fans who fear the death of the Princess of Wales will be re-enacted in graphic detail. This series stops short of that moment. It ends with Diana, divorced from Charles, preparing for a Mediterranean holiday with her friend Dodi Fayed.

Full reviews, with assessments of individual performances and an analysis of how far the script strays from historical fact, are embargoed until Saturday morning. But no spoiler alert is needed when I say that this series of The Crown is unrecognisable in its tone, compared to the original series in 2016. This show with its almost unlimited budget and all-star cast has become a monstrous perversion of itself.

At the beginning, The Crown charted the affectionate romance of the Princess Elizabeth and her prince, the Duke of Edinburgh, played with touching vulnerability by Claire Foy and Matt Smith. But it has descended into scandal-mongering, intent on inflicting every possible embarrassment on the Royal Family. The Crown is now a nakedly republican polemic, using embarrassment as its chief weapon against the monarchy.

Chief victim is the monarch himself. Perhaps Morgan and his Netflix paymasters imagined, like most of us, that the Queen would survive, ruling above reproach, for a number of years to come – and that the Prince of Wales was fair game. Certainly, none of the preview episodes (labelled, it ought to be said, as ‘work in progress’) carried an acknowledgment of Her Majesty’s death. Any viewers expecting a respectful caption, saluting her 70 years on the throne, will be disappointed.

But from the outset, the campaign against Charles is lacerating. In scene after scene, he is depicted as devious, impatient, resentful, devoid of self-awareness in his desperation to be king. This prince is a plotter whose mind works constantly, even during holidays with friends, on ways to dislodge his mother and force her aside. His aides talk of little else.

Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles – now the King and Queen Consort, a fact shamefully ignored by Netflix – suffer greater indignity still, with the replay of that excruciating phonecall. Dominic West as Charles and Olivia Williams as Camilla, then his married mistress, re-enact every word of it… including that awful extended metaphor about being reincarnated as a tampon. It is performed without mercy, and to emphasise the humiliation we see the reaction of other royals when the transcript is published. Princess Margaret reads it in bed. Diana holds her head in her hands.

[From The Daily Mail]

Charles “is depicted as devious, impatient, resentful, devoid of self-awareness.” “The Crown is now a nakedly republican polemic, using embarrassment as its chief weapon against the monarchy.” DON’T THREATEN ME WITH A GOOD TIME!!! Omg, I was genuinely worried that Peter Morgan was going to soft-pedal some stuff but I guess not! Apparently, Diana’s Panorama interview stretches over two episodes, which is pretty fair – it was the biggest f–king thing to happen to the monarchy in decades. I love all of the agitation about “they didn’t acknowledge that Charles and Camilla are king and queen now” and “they didn’t acknowledge QEII’s death!!” My dude, this is a dramatization of what happened in the ‘90s, not a documentary. In fact, the monarchy has run a huge campaign against the Crown to emphasize that it’s not a documentary. Anyway, one more week!!!

Photos courtesy of Netflix.

As if we didn’t have enough to handle with covid still hanging around, officials are now predicting this is likely to be the worst flu season in 13 years. Officials look at various data to track flu season activity and patterns and apparently pretty much everything just points to bad news. The flu lingered for longer than usual last season, this season it is hitting earlier and harder than is typical, and it is not following the same patterns as it usually does in either hemisphere.

Influenza is hitting the United States unusually early and hard, resulting in the most hospitalizations at this point in the season in more than a decade and underscoring the potential for a perilous winter of respiratory viruses, according to federal health data released Friday.

While flu season is usually between October and May, peaking in December and January, it’s arrived about six weeks earlier this year with uncharacteristically high illness. There have already been at least 880,000 cases of influenza illness, 6,900 hospitalizations and 360 flu-related deaths nationally, including one child, according to estimates released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Not since the 2009 H1N1 swine flu pandemic has there been such a high burden of flu, a metric the CDC uses to estimate a season’s severity based on laboratory-confirmed cases, doctor visits, hospitalizations and deaths.

“It’s unusual, but we’re coming out of an unusual covid pandemic that has really affected influenza and other respiratory viruses that are circulating,” said Lynnette Brammer, an epidemiologist who heads the CDC’s domestic influenza surveillance team.

Activity is high in the U.S. south and southeast, and is starting to move up the Atlantic coast.

The CDC uses a variety of measures to track the flu, including estimating the percentage of doctor visits for flu-like illness. But given the similar symptoms that could include people seeking care for covid-19 or RSV, another respiratory virus with similar symptoms, the laboratory data leaves no doubt.

“The data are ominous,” said William Schaffner, medical director for the nonprofit National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and a professor of infectious diseases at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. “Not only is flu early, it also looks very severe. This is not just a preview of coming attractions. We’re already starting to see this movie. I would call it a scary movie.”

Adding to his concern, he said, is that influenza vaccination is lagging behind where it usually is at this point in the season. About 128 million doses of flu vaccine have been distributed so far, compared with 139 million at this point last year and 154 million the year before, according to the CDC.

“That makes me doubly worried,” Schaffner said. The high burden of the flu “certainly looks like the start of what could be the worst flu season in 13 years.”

The number of flu cases this season is already one-eighth of last season’s total estimate of 8 to 13 million cases.

The flu vaccine’s effectiveness in preventing a doctor visit, hospitalization or death is uneven from year to year, and in years past, has hovered between 40 and 60 percent, according to the CDC. But Brammer and others say this season’s vaccine is well matched against circulating strains. That offers a “little ray of sunshine” for what could be a bleak winter, Schaffner said.

[From The Washington Post]

Not only has the flu arrived early, but it looks more severe than it usually does. The number of flu cases at this point in the season is already one-eighth of last year’s total. So we are on track to beat last year’s record. Lovely. Basically, get your flu shots, people. The shot is said to be pretty effective against this year’s strains. And officials attribute part of this flu’s particular strength to covid, the currently circulating respiratory illnesses, and the reluctance to vaccinate. So get the shot and protect yourself and others. Even if you think you can handle the illness, you shouldn’t have to and the people you come into contact with certainly shouldn’t have to either. The flu could affect people for weeks after recovery and could result in complications for the very young, the elderly, and people with chronic health conditions. The only way to guard against this triple threat (covid, flu, and RSV in children) is to get as vaccinated as possible.

Photos credit: Andrea Piacquadio and Cottonbro on Pexels and CDC on Unsplash

I can’t really remember when I became aware of Florence Pugh. I guess it was around Midsomer, but she’d already established herself by then. I didn’t even see Midsomer, it was just like one day Florence was unknown to me an then she was everywhere I looked. But I’ve loved her in everything I have seen her in. Her opening scene in Hawkeye was such a fantastic introduction – and her character already had a whole-@$$ movie going into that series. Florence, or I guess Miss Flo if you’re nasty, got the Hollywood treatment, though, like so many other perfectly lovely, talented women. After finding early fame due to her enormous talent, those in the industry told her to slim down and change the shape of her face. Fortunately, Florence had the wherewithal to tell them ‘nope.’

Florence Pugh has revealed Hollywood bigwigs told her to slim down and change the shape of her face if she wanted success in the industry.

The 26-year-old actress said she was specifically told to “lose weight” and “change the shape” of her face if she wanted to bag the big roles and become a household name.

“I felt very lucky and grateful, and couldn’t believe that I had got this top-of-the-game job…” she said.

“[But] all the things that they were trying to change about me, whether it was my weight, my look, the shape of my face, the shape of my eyebrows, that was so not what I wanted to do, or the industry I wanted to work in.”

The Don’t Worry, Darling star, who has this week opened up about her early days in the entertainment industry, landed her first big role in 2014 movie The Falling.

She went on to land a part in a US TV movie Studio City, but was so disappointed in her experience on the show that she feared she’d made the wrong career choice.

She added to The Telegraph: “I’d thought the film business would be like [my experience of making] The Falling, but actually, this was what the top of the game looked like, and I felt I’d made a massive mistake.”

She added: “I think it’s far too easy for people in this industry to push you left and right and I was lucky enough to discover when I was 19 what kind of a performer I wanted to be.

[From Yahoo]

Of course it was the US studio that wanted to change everything about the woman they’d just hired. Thank goodness Florence had it in her to stand her ground at 19. I wish talent was enough. Florence is clearly gifted, and she has plenty of personality to bring to the promotions. She’s a beautiful young woman. I realize it’s not the Hollywood Way to accept people as is, though. What an awful message to send anyone, let alone a young woman just leaving her teens. I hope that other young women realize that Florence didn’t make those changes and is now calling the shots in her career at the age of 26.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Florence Pugh (@florencepugh)

Photo credit: Ana M. Wiggins/Avalon Red and Instagram

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. paid for Julia Roberts’s hospital birth. [Just Jared]
Here are some photos of celebrities dressed up for Halloween. [Buzzfeed]
Who will Tom Brady date next? Larsa Pippen? [Gawker]
Goodwill is no longer accepting Yeezy donations. [Dlisted]
So far, Brad Pitt is nowhere to be seen during She Said’s promotion. [LaineyGossip]
Photos from the Forever Valentino event/exhibition. [RCFA]
This woman is desperate for paranormal experiences. [Jezebel]
Wait, is Kody Brown a gun runner? [Starcasm]
Julia Fox still wants attention. [Go Fug Yourself]
A review of Prey for the Devil. [Pajiba]
Kanye West still owns 5% of Kim Kardashian’s Skims?! [Egotastic]
The Supreme Court is probably going to end diversity quotas at universities. [Towleroad]

Embed from Getty Images

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by SELF-PORTRAIT (@mrselfportrait)

Back in August, Bradley Cooper and Irina Shayk went on a family vacation together, with their daughter Lea. B-Coop and Irina have always seemed close following their breakup, and they seem to effortlessly co-parent their daughter. They’re both New York-based and I think they live pretty close to each other. Despite the rumors that Bradley was seeing Huma Abedin earlier this year, I believe that Bradley and Irina have quietly gotten back together. They’ve been spending a lot of time together in recent months, and they just seem to be in a different place in their relationship.

Well, for Halloween “weekend,” they were out together again. They went to a party in New York hosted by the label Self-Portrait. They were even photographed together, although they didn’t look particularly loved-up or anything. It feels like this has all been a soft-launch of their reunion/reconciliation. Not that it would be earth-shattering if they got back together – it’s just a nice story, honestly. It also wouldn’t surprise me if they have another child together – reportedly, Irina would like another baby, and they would love for Lea to have a sibling. I kind of hope it happens.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Instagram.

At the Wakanda Forever premiere in LA last week, Lupita Nyong’o wore De Beers jewelry. I didn’t think much of it, because most celebrities borrow jewelry specifically for red carpets and it’s not news. But it looks like that red carpet was the announcement of Lupita’s new brand ambassadorship with De Beers. She’s the face of the jewelry company’s new “Where It Begins” campaign. It looks like this is a very specific quid pro quo – De Beers is a company famously built on exploitation and colonization of the African continent, and now that have an African woman as the face of the company, but in exchange, Lupita got them to support a host of issues near and dear to her heart.

As part of the partnership, she will star in the brand’s new campaign — ‘De Beers: Where It Begins’ — which tells the story of the global luxury brand. Through the campaign, Nyong’o is followed as she discovers a rough diamond and watches it magically transform into magnificent jewellery. Shot by renowned Australian photographer and director Lachlan Bailey, the campaign will launch globally with integrated media activations across multiple touchpoints on November 3.

Likewise, through the partnership Nyong’o will support De Beers’ ‘Building Forever’ commitment, which aims to advance women and girls where its diamonds are discovered. In particular, De Beers will work with Nyong’o in pursuit of the brand’s public goals to engage 10,000 girls in STEM, support 10,000 women entrepreneurs and invest at least $10 million across southern Africa to achieve these goals by 2030.

“With her rare magnetism and elegance, Lupita Nyong’o is a testament to the power of boundless possibilities. Embodying modern and responsible luxury, Lupita is an inspiration for all of us. De Beers is proud that Lupita has joined our Building Forever commitment to people and the planet and we stand with her as she embarks on an exciting chapter in her career,” said Marc Jacheet, De Beers CEO, brands.

Nyong’o added: ”I’m honored to be the first global ambassador for De Beers. This campaign brings to life the transformative power that I feel when I wear De Beers’ diamond creations, and the pride in knowing where they come from and the good they do. Even more importantly, my partnership with De Beers allows me to extend my advocacy for women and girls around the world.”

[From Fashion Network]

I’ve seen some criticism already for Lupita, like how could she partner with a company responsible for so much damage to Africa for more than a century? But let me come at a different way: why is Lupita being held accountable so much more than a white brand ambassador ever would be? Lupita’s not stupid, I believe she went into this partnership with her eyes open, and she had specific goals about getting De Beers to fund certain programs. It’s ridiculous to assume that Lupita is unaware of the damage De Beers has done, just as it would be ridiculous to hold her accountable for, what? Not getting De Beers to pay reparations? It looks like she *is* getting them to pay reparations, only they’re not calling it that.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by De Beers (@debeersofficial)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by De Beers (@debeersofficial)

Photos courtesy of Cover Images and De Beers’ IG.

Katharine McPhee and David Foster have always been an odd couple. Foster is 72 and McPhee is 38, meaning she’s younger than four of his five daughters (Allison, 52, Amy, 49, Sara, 41, Erin, 40, and Jordan, 36). Katharine and David welcomed their son Rennie last year, and everything still seems to be going smoothly. So smoothly that David and Katherine have now recorded a Christmas album/EP called, obviously enough, Christmas Songs. To promote the EP, they chatted with People magazine and they sort of admitted that, yeah, they’re a weird couple but it works for them. David also talks about being a father to this tiny baby after raising all of his daughters forty years ago. Some highlights:

Katharine on their musical taste: “People will always ask us at a dinner, ‘What music are you listening to right now?’ And he and I both just smile and look at each other and say, ‘We don’t really listen to music.’ We don’t listen to music in the car, though I do love putting on some jazzy stuff for dinner parties and stuff.” Adds Foster: “It’s not our thing to come home and put on music. We have a full life outside of music.”

Rennie travels with them: “He’s so much fun,” McPhee says. “We’re having such a great time, and we’re incredibly busy. We wish we weren’t traveling quite as much, but we get to take our little guy with us for most of this stuff.” So far, Rennie has traveled internationally to Mexico, Tokyo and Europe and domestically to Hawaii, Omaha, South Dakota, North Dakota and Las Vegas with his parents on their An Intimate Evening with David Foster & Katharine McPhee tour — and McPhee jokes “he won’t remember any of it.”

Foster’s dreams for his son: Still, Foster says “every day” with Rennie “is an adventure” — and he’s already showing his musical talents on the piano and his electronic drum pad. “We think [he’ll be musical], but we don’t know,” he says. “Kids, strangely, will do something for a while and then it’ll amaze you and then they just drop it and they don’t do it anymore. So we don’t know if the drumming thing is here to stay — I’d rather he have a tennis racket in his hand than a drumstick to tell you the truth. But anyway, if he ends up being a drummer, that would be great too. He loves watching our drummer, JR Robinson.”

Foster on welcoming another child in his 70s: For Foster, having a new baby was “not something” he thought was going to happen in his 70s, but “I haven’t regretted a single day of it. I’ve loved every single day. It’s the standard thing of like, ‘Oh, well you were so young when you had your children and you were working day and night, you never saw them.’ And there is some truth to that, sadly, for my [older] kids. I was just working a lot. Even though I’m working a lot now, I’ll cancel anything just to hang with him. It’s just different.”

Foster on his age difference with Katharine: Though Foster says he and McPhee “know we’re an unconventional couple,” they are certain they are the right fit for each other. “With Céline and [late husband] René Angélil, there was a big age difference, and after I was working with them for a long time it just became Céline and René. It just looked and felt normal. But it was, of course, kind of odd in the beginning. But I think we’re over that hump now with five years of being together, and hopefully people just start looking like we belong together because we feel like we do.” Adds McPhee: “Even if they don’t, we don’t care. We just love our history, how we met and where we are now. Sometimes we look at each other like, ‘This is so wild that we’re together.’”

[From People]

Yeah, the age and experience difference is a lot, but it’s not like they got together when Katharine was fresh out of high school. She was in her 30s, she already had one marriage and divorce under her belt, and I think she probably just wanted the peace and security Foster could provide her. As for Foster becoming a father in his 70s… like, I couldn’t do that, but whatever. It is what it is and while I have plenty of thoughts, I’ll mind my business. I imagine he does have more time to be a hands-on father these days, as opposed to when his daughters were young. That being said, comparing himself and Katharine to Celine and Rene?? LMAO!!!

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Xavier Collin / Image Press Agency / Avalon.

Last week, we heard that Prince William will be “too busy” to attend the upcoming World Cup in Qatar. The FIFA World Cup starts on November 20 (group stages) and the final will be held on December 18. There are huge human rights concerns around Qatar’s hosting of the World Cup – the government used and abused migrants to build all of the stadiums and hotels, and Qatar has a number of anti-LGBTQ laws, meaning gay football fans are being told to stay away from the World Cup. Given the human rights abuses and anti-LGBTQ issues, one would think it would be pretty easy for Football Association President Peggington to make a solid excuse as to why he will not attend the games. He did not – his office has let it be known that William will be “too busy” to attend the games. The only thing he has scheduled for that four-week period is the trip to Boston for Earthshot. Otherwise, the dude is free as a bird. So, even activists are calling out the lazy Peg, especially since William’s office has backtracked and said it’s possible he’ll attend the World Cup if England makes it to the final.

Prince William ’s indecision over whether he will snub the Qatar World Cup due to diary clashes has been branded “implausible” by human rights campaigners. The Prince of Wales currently has “no plans” to travel to the Middle East in time for England’s opening game against Iran on November 21.

But royal sources today confirmed the heir, who is President of the Football Association, could try and clear his diary to make the trip if the England team reach the final on December 18. The controversial hosts have been hit with protests over its poor working conditions for stadium workers during the build-up to the competition, as well as same-sex relationships being illegal there. Sources close to William, 40, have blamed a busy diary during the World Cup for him not attending.

Leading activist Peter Tatchell, who was stopped by police in Qatar this week while holding a solo protest on the country’s abysmal human rights record and treatment of LGBTQ+ citizens, questioned William’s excuses over his busy schedule.

He said: “The suggested excuse that Prince William’s decision is because of a diary clash is implausible, given that the dates of the WC have been well known for over a year. This is a human rights issue, not a political one, so the Prince is entirely justified, morally and constitutionally, to speak out.”

A Kensington Palace spokesperson said the prince could not make the journey “due to the busy winter schedule”, but insisted the heir would “explore” options to travel should England end up in the final as part of a government delegation.

[From The Daily Mirror]

I understand the argument being made to William, where his Tory advisors are telling him that he can’t be “political” at all, meaning he can’t explicitly refuse to attend the World Cup because of human rights concerns. But that brings up several other issues. One, it’s not political to say: LGBTQ people should not be criminalized. It’s not political to say: it’s extremely problematic that the government of Qatar used slave labor to build the stadiums. That fact that William thinks he can side-step those “political statements” by merely claiming to have a booked schedule shows William’s lack of leadership and lack of political sensitivity. It will also look f–king awful if, after all of that, England makes it to the semifinals or finals and William isn’t there OR if he does show up. This is a delicate diplomatic situation and instead of coming into it with some nuance and sensitivity, William’s Tory advisors have carefully positioned him to be screwed no matter what.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instar.