Regarding the financial disclosures from the Windsors, I’ll admit that I’m finding some of the numbers confusing. It’s not that I have any desire to cape for the Windsor clan at all, but I do think that it’s worth pointing out that the biggest reason why the accounting looks “off” is because of the renovation of Buckingham Palace. BP is now several years into a complete renovation, most of it necessary work to keep the palace from falling down and/or making people sick. The cost of the reno was always going to be crazy and exorbitant, and the whole thing is projected to cost £369 million over 10 years. The cost seems to be broken down year by year in the Sovereign Grant rather than a bulk figure at the start or end of the reno. That being said, the royals are still spending way too much money.

Spending by the Royal Family exceeded its income from public funds last year and topped £100 million as the programme of repair works on Buckingham Palace was stepped up. The Royal Household spent £16.1 million more than it earned from the Sovereign Grant – the publicly funded part of the Royal Family’s income.

The annual report of palace finances shows it received £51.8 million for the day-to-day running of the monarchy and an extra £34.5 million for the Buckingham Palace redevelopment – referred to by the household as “Reservicing”. But total spending last year was £102.4 million as the building work on the palace reached an intensive phase.

The 40% increase on the repair bills for Buckingham Palace – which is mid-way through a 10 year refit – was needed to get the building ready to host the Platinum Jubilee celebrations at the beginning of June.

The Keeper of the Privy Purse, Sir Michael Stevens, who controls royal finances said: “There was a significant increase in work against a hard deadline to enable Buckingham Palace to be at the centre of the Platinum Jubilee celebrations.”

The total repair bill for the palace re-building works remains the same at £369 million. It means that palace accountants had to take some extra money from the reserve it has built up in previous years when they underspent on the repair works.

[From ITV]

So, let me get this straight – the Sovereign Grant financed the Windsors at a cost of £86.3 million, with £51.8 million towards “core funding” of royals, meaning their travel, their household staff, their office operations, general upkeep of the public residences. Then £34.5 million of the SG was earmarked specifically for the ongoing Buckingham Palace reno. And the royals overspent the £86.3 million by £16.1 million, so they pulled money from… somewhere.

Anyway, this is all kind of insane to me. While I believe that sh-t like publicly owned castles and palaces should be maintained as historical sites, what I can’t get over is how much it costs to just *have* a monarchy. All of those staff salaries and for what? For Bill and Cathy to wander around, being keen at three events a month? For the Queen’s senior aides to bully a 96-year-old woman into making public appearances? What is the benefit to the British taxpayer, what is the return on this extraordinary investment?

Photos courtesy of Instar.

To coincide with the Wimbledon Championships, Vanity Fair published a somewhat bonkers story comparing and contrasting tennis-lovers Anne Boleyn and the Duchess of Cambridge. What’s kind of funny is that while Anne Boleyn and Kate Middleton have a lot of stuff in common, Anne actually comes across so much better than Kate? Anne comes across as forward-thinking, a genuine political asset, and a woman of depth and education. Kate… um, does not come across that way. One of the similarities between the two women is that they are/were big tennis fans. In Boleyn’s day, she would go to Greenwich to watch tennis matches. Kate is a tennis-enthusiast, although she mostly just loves Roger Federer specifically. Some highlights from this very weird story:

Anne was arrested at a tennis match: Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge and England’s future queen consort, is an avid tennis fan and the royal patron to the club that hosts Wimbledon. Every year, tournament spectators eagerly look forward to what Kate will wear, and who will join her. Nearly 500 years ago it was Queen Anne Boleyn who reigned supreme in royal boxes, though her tenure came to a dramatic end in 1536, when she was arrested and charged with adultery and treason while watching a match at Greenwich.

Reputations. “[Anne] was a controversial figure, and that stigma remains for her,” Elizabeth Norton, author of Anne Boleyn: Henry VIII’s Obsession, tells Vanity Fair. Kate, on the other hand, “is immensely popular,” says Robert Lacey, historical consultant of Netflix’s The Crown and author of Monarch: The Life and Reign of Elizabeth II. “She’s a pillar of the royal family [and] very much seen as a future queen consort.”

Anne was educated: Both women received an excellent education, which was rare in Boleyn’s time. A student of music and art, the queen may have spoken and written several languages, and she attended the court of Margaret of Austria. Kate went to some of the U.K.’s best private schools, among them Marlborough College.

The Middletons were just as strategic as the Boleyns: Vanity Fair royal correspondent Katie Nicholl notes that Kate and Prince William met through a mutual friend in the summer of 1999, when Kate was 17. The next year, Kate was ecstatic when she was accepted to University of Edinburgh, where her best friends were also attending, and she planned to enroll in the prestigious art history program. Jasper Selwyn, Kate’s career adviser at school, tells Nicholl that Edinburgh was the first choice on her Universities and Colleges Admissions Service form: “As far as I am aware she had a place confirmed at Edinburgh.” However, Nicholl writes, “Kate had a dramatic and sudden change of heart. She decided to turn down her place at Edinburgh, take a gap year…and reapply for St. Andrews.” At the time, the palace had just announced that William would also take a gap year and attend St. Andrews as opposed to Edinburgh, which was originally his first choice. Society journalist Matthew Bell reported in The Spectator that “although at the time of making her application to universities it was unknown where the prince was intending to go, it has been suggested that her mother persuaded Kate to reject her first choice on hearing the news and take up her offer at St. Andrews instead.”

Royal patronages: The Windsors currently support around 3,000 organizations, with Kate committed to 24, and Queen Anne took her charitable duties quite seriously as well. Weir writes that “when visiting a town or village, she sent her almoner ahead to find out…if there were any needy families in the district.” Anne would then instruct him to assign each family a sum, and she often gave poor individuals clothing she and her ladies had sewn.

[From Vanity Fair]

You mean to tell me that Anne Boleyn’s staff did advance work to learn about the needy families and she brought clothes and money for them? Meanwhile, Kate and William constantly show up empty-handed to events. They don’t even donate to charity directly. It’s also pretty clear that Anne really was educated, political and wise, a true intellectual partner for a king. That… is not clear when we’re talking about Kate. Still, the tennis stuff is news to me. I really didn’t know that Anne was a tennis fan or that she was arrested at a tennis match. Also: is this article weirdly threatening? Like, are they telling Kate “watch out, or you could get Boleyn’d”? Imagine Kate being dragged out of the Royal Box in handcuffs, wiglet askance.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Britney Spears & Sam Asghari have an “ironclad prenup” and he can’t get his hands on any of the money she made before they were married. [Buzzfeed]
That Australian reporter apologized to Rebel Wilson after he spent days/weeks threatening to out her and her girlfriend.[JustJared]
Horoscopes for June! [OMG Blog]
Rest in peace, Philip Baker Hall. [Dlisted]
Right-wing extremists are ramping up their terrorism during Pride Month. [Jezebel]
People keep recommending For All Mankind. [Pajiba]
Patti LuPone won another Tony Award. [GFY]
BTS + Anderson Paak performed together! [LaineyGossip]
Some backstory on a 90 Day Fiance star. [Starcasm]
The Tony Awards were all about Black artists and Wall St. [Towleroad]
Blind item: Bradley Cooper & Lea Michele?? LOL. [Gawker]

Again, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have been talking about moving to Windsor for more than a year. At this time last year, their very public rationale was that they felt excluded from the royal business in London, and they thought retiring to Windsor would… somehow keep them in the royal loop? So much of their move makes no sense if you’re just listening to what their people are saying. Anyway, it turns out that the reports of the keen move to Adelaide Cottage are actually accurate, that’s the “cottage” they’ve settled on. What’s hilarious is that they’re trying to make this “move” into their third dedicated home sound like some kind of keen cost-cutting measure.

Prince William and Kate Middleton will move their family into a four-bedroomed home on the Windsor estate this summer. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, are reportedly set to uproot their family from Kensington, west London, to Adelaide Cottage in Berkshire in order to be closer to the Queen.

Re-erected in 1831, the Cambridge’s new Grade II-listed retreat is just a short walk from St George’s Chapel and Windsor Castle, and sits proudly on the 655-acre royal estate in Berkshire.

Ingrid Seward, editor-in-chief of Majesty Magazine, said: ‘The Queen needs more people like William around her. She is very often on her own apart from staff and so will be delighted William, Kate and her three great-grandchildren will be ten minutes away. The family were very restricted in what they could do during the week at Kensington Palace.’

Sources close to the family suggest the Cambridges were keen to be closer to the Queen, 96, who has suffered episodic mobility issues in recent months and also secure a good school for their three children.

One source told the Sun: ‘Kate and William were very keen for a modest home to start their new lives in Windsor. Adelaide Cottage fits the bill because it is a four-bedroom home and they do not need any more as they have no live-in staff. They had no other demands than a pleasant family home close to schools and the Queen. They were adamant they didn’t want anything too showy or anything that needed renovating or extra security so as not to be a burden on the taxpayer.’

One clear advantage of their new retreat is that is requires no costly refurbishments or added security arrangements, compared to his brother Prince Harry and Meghan Markle splashing £2.6m to fix-up nearby Frogmore Cottage.

[From The Daily Mail]

Again, for the cheap seats, they’re not giving up Anmer Hall or Kensington Palace Apt. 1. William and Kate will maintain those two homes at great cost, especially given that William will likely be needed in London more often in the coming years. Anmer Hall has household staff and people looking after the grounds. KP has household staff and a huge number of office staff in the office complex adjacent to the main palace. And now in their third dedicated home, we’re supposed to give them a gold star because it’s so humble and they’ll have no household staff? Bullsh-t. They’ll have staff, just not live-in staff. I also don’t believe that Adelaide Cottage was their choice. I think it was foisted upon them because Charles and the Queen said no to them when they wanted Fort Belvedere or Frogmore House.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instar.

I’m confused about something involving Marilyn Monroe’s iconic Jean Louis dress. Marilyn wore the dress for one of her last public appearances, and after she passed away, the dress likely traded hands a few times. Then in 2016, the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum purchased the dress at auction for a historic price: $4.8 million. The museum obviously keeps the dress in one of their permanent exhibitions, and they only lent it out for the first time for the Met Gala, for Kim Kardashian to wear (she only wore it briefly on the carpet, then changed into a replica for the dinner). Following the gala, I assumed the dress was returned to the museum.

That was all the long-winded backstory, so here’s my question: the Ripley’s museum is in charge of the dress, correct? They have their own museum people looking after the dress, right? It does not appear so. It appears that while Ripley’s OWNS the dress, they allow the Marilyn Monroe Collection to look after the dress or make repairs as needed. And the MM Collection is NOT happy. The MM Collection’s social media posted several Instagrams about the damage done to the fragile dress by Kim and her team. Several crystals are missing/popped off, the zipper is f–ked and the fabric around the zipper is ripped and frayed.

The MM Collection notes that Ripley’s did try to ensure that the dress was not damaged and that Kim was not alone with the dress, and that the museum could pull the plug on it at any time. But that doesn’t change the fact that the fragile dress never should have been lent out for the Met Gala, especially not for Kim. I’m not criticizing Kim’s figure, but her figure is NOTHING like Marilyn’s. Of course Kim couldn’t fit her giant ass in the dress. Though Marilyn wasn’t as assy as Kim, even Marilyn had to be sewn into the dress! Anyway, a whole mess.

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Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instar and Instagram.

This is just a reminder that Royal Ascot has started this week. People think the Queen might go to Ascot one day, likely Thursday? But I doubt it. I think she’s felt like ten kinds of hell since the Jubbly. Prince Andrew will likely be seen at Ascot too, although I doubt they’ll allow him to ride in a carriage.

Meanwhile, Princess Beatrice and her husband came out for Ascot today. From the looks of it, there were some of the first people to arrive. Bea wore this Zimmerman floral dress which retails for £820. It’s not my style but Beatrice looks comfortable. Edo is arguably the best-dressed married-in dude of the royals.

Is it just me or have Beatrice and Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi been more visible lately? I think they’re doing that on purpose, and I assumed that they were positioning themselves to be more active “royals.” As it turns out, that might actually be the plan. Reportedly, Prince Andrew not only wants his own royal position reinstated, but he’s also pushing for his daughters to be made full-time working royals. This has always been a fight between Charles and Andrew, because Charles wanted his sons to get all of the attention in the streamlined monarchy. But now with the Sussexes gone… yeah, I could actually see Beatrice getting some kind of upgrade in status. I would imagine the Queen wants that too. I doubt Eugenie and Jack want any part of this scheme though.

Her “BY” bag is cute. Those are her initials, Beatrice York.

Embed from Getty Images

Photos courtesy of Instar and Getty.

In all my years, I’ve managed to avoid reading a James Patterson novel. I’ve watched some of his books adapted for the screen, notably the Alex Cross series. My mother used to be a Patterson fan but I think she’s over it. Patterson is one of the most successful writers of all time, and most of his books are simple mass-market fiction. He’s 75 years old and worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Before today, I never realized that his early professional years were spent in advertising, in the 1970s, when women had next to no power in that business or any business. Crash cut fifty years, and this old white man is lamenting the fact that it’s hard out here for… white guys. It’s hard for plain old heterosexual cisgender white guys to get ahead. Patterson said all of this openly in the middle of an interview with the Times of London. Some highlights:

On the Alex Cross franchise: “I just wanted to create a character who happened to be black. I would not have tried to write a serious saga about a black family. It’s different in a detective story because plot is so important.”

He worries about white men getting opportunities: Today, though, he worries that it is hard for white men to get writing gigs in film, theatre, TV or publishing. The problem is “just another form of racism. What’s that all about? Can you get a job? Yes. Is it harder? Yes. It’s even harder for older writers. You don’t meet many 52-year-old white males.”

He’s writing a royal book: It will be a book about Princess Diana, Prince William and Prince Harry co-written with the journalist Chris Mooney. The blurb suggests it could be quite syrupy (“Even after she’s gone, her sons follow their mother’s lead — and her heart”). “I would never have done a book about Diana as a princess. This is about her as a mother and the effect of the Crown on her sons. Harry has said at a certain point, ‘I can’t do this thing,’ and William has said, ‘I can do this thing.’ For these two men there’s all sorts of pressure to act in a certain way. Being a second son it is probably a little easier for Harry to say no.”

He enjoys women: “I like women and women characters. I find men to be a little too monochromatic. They talk about money, sports and cars.”

On Jeffrey Epstein: “I know [most of Epstein’s friends] didn’t know. Why would Epstein tell people? Is it possible there were a dozen friends who knew? Yes, it is likely. I’m not saying Prince Andrew per se was one, but he may have been. Is it possible somebody said, ‘We are not going to have this guy [Epstein] around to testify? Yes, but it is just as possible that he killed himself.”

Caustic: Patterson has a ready-made title for a sequel about Ghislaine Maxwell, “Filthy Bitch”. It’s uncharacteristically caustic for him, although he also lays into an unnamed British writer of a similar vintage to himself known to be “horrible” on US book tours. “You can guess who,” he says correctly.

[From The Times]

Unnamed British writer close to his age? Tina Brown? I don’t know, it could be a fiction author. As for his comments about white dudes… James might have been a hungry writer, starving for legitimacy early in his career, but these days, he’s as insulated and tunnel-visioned as every other rich white man. Men like Patterson see everything zero sum game – if women, BIPOC or LGBTQ people have something, that must mean their something was taken away from white men. Imagine saying with a straight face “where did all of the 50-something white male writers go?” THEY ARE LITERALLY EVERYWHERE, YOU DOUCHE.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Princess Eugenie got a very small tattoo behind her ear. Reportedly, it’s a tattoo in honor of her grandmother or the Jubbly or something. [Gawker]
I totally missed these photos of Gwen Stefani & Blake Shelton! [Go Fug Yourself]
I have watched the kitten-ambush video about 20 times already. [Dlisted]
Nazi dumbasses were arrested in Idaho this weekend. [Towleroad]
Review of the horror film Family Dinner. [Pajiba]
Jennifer Aniston & Sebastian Stan’s Variety talk was boring. [LaineyGossip]
Kate Mara’s Dior look is kind of creepy. [RCFA]
Saoirse Ronan had a lowkey day out with her boyfriend. [Just Jared]
CBS’s Evil has returned! I can’t watch that mess. [Seriously OMG]
Teachers speak about gun violence. [Buzzfeed]
Cool photos from the Tiffany & Co. exhibition. [Tom & Lorenzo]
Hailey Beiber & Ayesha Curry talk in the bathroom. [Egotastic]

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Prince William turns 40 years old on June 21st. In this week’s podcast, I wondered if we would get a full-throttle birthday embiggening, like Kate organized for her 40th. Looks like I’m getting my answer. The headline from the Times was simple enough, about how William is “moving his family to the shires” soon, meaning the Cambridges are moving to Berkshire, which they’ve been talking about for more than a year already. But the Times piece is all about William and his many angry, incandescent emotions and how he’s preparing for the top job or whatever. It’s full of some not-so-interesting quotes which came straight out of the Kensington Palace communications’ office, but there’s some shady sh-t too. Some highlights:

Move to Berkshire: The family is moving from London to Berkshire. Prince George, 8, and Princess Charlotte, 7, will leave their prep school, Thomas’s Battersea, at the end of this term, and are expected to enroll at a private co-educational school in the county that is also home to the duchess’s parents, the Middletons, in Bucklebury, a 45-minute drive from Windsor Castle. Prince Louis, 4, who has acquired new-found fame after his flamboyant display over the Platinum Jubilee weekend, will join them at the new school.

They’re keeping Anmer & KP: Kensington Palace will remain their London home, housing their private and press office, and Anmer Hall, their Norfolk home, will still be used regularly. “They absolutely love it up there, it’s their happy place,” says a friend of William’s. Their future plan is to make Anmer their more permanent base “after the school years”.

So they are getting a place in Windsor: The Cambridges will move to a house on the Queen’s Windsor estate this summer. In time, it is understood they will move into “the big house” as the Prince of Wales does not plan to spend as much time as the Queen at Windsor Castle when he is king. The move will bring a new lifestyle and family dynamic to the Cambridges, who are looking forward to the added freedom for their young children that the vast, secure Windsor estate will provide: “The reality is they are quite confined in what they can do in London,” says a friend. “The kids can’t go into the park and kick a football with friends. Their plan is to be there for the next 10 to 15 years, then move to Anmer, which is so special to them.”

Longing for a different life? Another close friend of William’s says he is “fully accepting of his doing his duty and fulfilling what the public expect of him, without paying too much attention to what he would have liked to have done in another world.”

The future is accelerating: Berkshire is planned as the final move before he gets the top job because “he feels they want to grab that time while they still can”. A close aide: “There is a sense of the future accelerating towards him, which is tinged with profound sadness — though he would never say it publicly — because of the implication that his grandmother would no longer be around, the added pressures on his father and his family being under even more scrutiny.” A friend of William’s adds: “He knows the future [of the monarchy] rests on his, Catherine’s and his kids’ shoulders and that’s a lot of pressure.”

The visibility of the Cambridge children: The Cambridges “appreciate the children have a big role in public life and they felt the jubilee was an appropriate moment for them to be visible, bringing an added nice dynamic which we didn’t all expect”, a reference to Louis’s widely documented high jinks. An aide says the children’s jubilee charm offensive will not be the direction of travel: “As they get older, and for the big family moments, yes, but people shouldn’t expect them turning up to engagements in the coming months.”

Sussex nerves: A friend acknowledges that William was tense ahead of the jubilee and especially during the thanksgiving service — the only event that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex publicly attended — “because he was incredibly worried about having all the family there, and what everyone was going to say. He was so relieved that most of the media made it all about the Queen, Prince Charles and the children — they are the key people — and he was really pleased about that.” But William and Prince Harry spent no private time together over the jubilee, and the broken relationship is not on the brink of being patched up any time soon. Harry and Meghan’s departure from royal life and the ensuing fallout is still raw for William. “He’s still deeply upset about it and feels let down, but he’s moved on,” says a friend.

TikToker Baldemort: A senior aide says: “He is very aware of the need to use new ways of communication and I wouldn’t rule out a Cambridge appearance on TikTok. He understands that a life of public service in the 21st century is going to be done differently to your grandmother and father.”

He can’t wait to get his hands on Duchy money: His next big project will be a push on homelessness, with a long-term initiative launching next year. Aides say his next role as Prince of Wales is also “taking up a lot of his thinking”, as he prepares to take over the Duchy of Cornwall from his father, a 130,000-acre estate generating an annual income of £21 million, which Charles uses to fund himself, the Cambridges and philanthropic work. William is keen to see how the duchy might play a part in his homelessness project, though royal sources stress the estate is “not getting into the business of social housing”.

Diplomat Baldemort: Royal sources say Kensington Palace is “very alive” to positioning William into statesman territory, and his presence at last year’s G7 and Cop26 summits saw him rub shoulders with world leaders. A senior aide says his growing role on the world stage is “incremental” and while “it is important for him, the institution and the UK that he develops the leadership role, he is mindful that he is not the next monarch”. A close friend adds that “he knows it’s not a joint act, and that the Prince of Wales is the prime mover”.

[From The Times]

The Times points out that the Keens have a new communications secretary, Lee Thompson, who apparently starts soon. Thompson worked for NBC Universal and they’re putting him in charge of their planned trip to America this fall for Keenshot. A senior aide told the Times that following the Sussexes’ Oprah interview, “We have a US problem.” Yep. And these crusty, incandescent royals are desperate for Americans to love them and be fascinated by them. They’re desperate for American tourism money, American media coverage and American charitable money. Too bad they didn’t think about that when they were running one of the nastiest f–king smear campaigns on an American woman. William “feels let down” because Harry and Meghan exposed him for what he is.

As for the rest of it… the move to Windsor has been previewed endlessly and I can’t wait to learn which fort or palace they ended up getting. Of course they’re “keeping Anmer” and everything else too – I still say that this Windsor home is mostly a place for Kate and the kids, to make it easier for Will and Kate to live separate lives. That the kids are being enrolled in a school close to Carole and Mike Middleton tells you all you need to know, honestly.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instar.

Here are some photos from Monday’s Order of the Garter service, aka Garter Day. The senior royals and assorted Knights Garter gathered at Windsor Castle. The Duchess of Cornwall was inducted into the Order of the Garter, which meant she got to wear the fancy velvet robe and feathered hat. Camilla joined her husband in the procession, and Tony Blair was there, and Prince William, Prince Edward and others. While several foreign kings are “Stranger Knights,” it does not appear that those kings traveled to Windsor for the day. Like, King Felipe and King Willem-Alexander are Stranger Knights, but they didn’t come (I didn’t see them, maybe I’m wrong). The Queen also skipped the public part of the day, and Prince Andrew was seen driving over to the castle to take his place at the lunch and private ceremony. Andrew was blocked from sashaying around in public in his velvet robes.

Notably, Duchess Kate came out to see and support her husband. She’s frequently made it out for Garter Day. Even when she was simply Waity, William’s official girlfriend, she got invited to view the procession. For this year’s Garter Day, Kate chose a new (?) Alexander McQueen coatdress with a hat by Juliette Botterill. Again, Kate desperately wants this shade of blue to be “Cambridge blue” or her personal signature color or something. I wish she wouldn’t because I simply don’t like this shade. She looks better in reds and burgundy anyway. I suspect she wants to wear so much blue because she has all of those sapphires which belonged to Diana.

Anyway, the coatdress is… meh. She has several versions of the exact same look – most of them from Emilia Wickstead – already in her closet. She also has dozens of McQueen coatdresses in her closet, in all different colors. Why she repeatedly chooses to throw off her own proportions and make herself look long-waisted and short-legged, I’ll never know.

The Countess of Wessex wore some pale pink mess. It’s unflattering but it’s also kind of a “Kate look.” Sophie and Princess Beatrice have both been trying out some Kate-like styles recently.

Photos courtesy of Instar.