Honestly, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have been reeling since the Caribbean Flop Tour in March. They’re still talking about it and still pushing stories about how they – William and Kate – now believe that they need to modernize the monarchy and make everything less formal and fussy. Ever since they started pushing those stories, I have genuinely noticed a change in how British outlets write about them too. As in, so many people are just back to calling her “Kate Middleton.” That wasn’t what they meant though! William still wants people to call her Catherine. And Catherine still wants people to call her HRH the Duchess of Cambridge. She didn’t waity all those years to hear people call her Buttons or Wiglet or Waity Katie. Anyway, that’s just a sidenote. The real story is that Kate/Buttons is suddenly very worried that her children will have to work for the firm because everyone else will be too old to cover for them.

Kate Middleton faces a “painful dilemma” as her kids will carry the burden of ensuring the monarchy’s future, a royal expert has claimed. George, Charlotte and Louis will be under “intense pressure” to fulfil duties as they get older thanks to dwindling numbers in the Firm, according to Daniela Elser.

The royal commentator reckons the three youngsters won’t be given the same freedoms as Harry and Meghan, and therefore their children Archie and Lilibet – despite the aging workforce. And when George one day becomes king, demand on Charlotte and Louis will really ramp up.

Writing in the New Zealand Herald, Elser questioned how Kate must be feeling as mother when faced with such an uncertain future. She said: “The pressure on them is going to be intense to help ensure the survival of the British monarchy, an institution which can be easily traced back to the ninth century. Imagine having the weight of more than 1,200 hundred years of history constantly on your shoulders. It must be painful for Kate to know that while other kids look at the future with goggle-eyed wonder, her children’s paths look set in Portland stone.”

Elser added: “One thing that has never been speculated about or reported on in any of the approximately 8,774,573,498 stories about Megxit are any concerns they might have had leaving the Royal family short-staffed. There is no way that I can see that, at this stage, Charlotte and Louis will have anywhere near the latitude and freedom to ever make a similar choice. The only possible candidates to step in and help [George] carry the burden here are his siblings, meaning that like it or not, all three of the Cambridge children could very well be dragooned into working royal life whether they fancy the gig or not. That simple joy of imagining what you might be when you grow up is a privilege George, and very possibly Charlotte and Louis, will never really get.”

[From The Sun]

Yeah, no one feels sorry for Kate in this specific regard. She and William did the most to ensure Harry and Meghan’s exile and they spearheaded the smear campaign. They did it because they were short-sighted, bitter and jealous, and they wanted all of the attention, all of the glory, all of the embiggening. Now they’ve got it and there’s nowhere to hide for them or their kids. When everything begins shifting around, that white hot spotlight is going to hit Will and Kate like never before. They won’t even be able to use their children as human shields.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid and Instar.

As of this moment, I’ve yet to see any kind of concerted campaign by Buckingham Palace or Clarence House to kneecap the Duke and Duchess of Sussex ahead of their Jubbly trip. It’s been interesting. There’s negativity, of course, and the negativity falls into two categories: 1) pissy royal commentators looking to stoke drama around the Sussexes’ visit and 2) pissy Kensington Palace people showing their asses. It really does feel like the Queen and Prince Charles want very little advanced drama though. There will be drama enough during and after Harry and Meghan’s visit, I’m sure. Still, it says something. That something: Charles and the Queen need a “win” with Harry and Meghan more than the Sussexes need any of this. What’s interesting to see is that some royal commentators are even coming close to admitting that:

The Royal Family will use events around the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee to bring Harry and Meghan closer to the rest of the family, according to one expert. After years of bad blood, Kate Mansey, assistant editor at the Mail on Sunday says she believes that the Queen wants a rapprochement with the Sussexes who quit royal working life in 2020.

‘There is generally a sense that they want to bring the Sussexes in, I think. They will be invited to lots of family occasions, just not the big, official numbers,’ she tells our royal talk show Palace Confidential.

That doesn’t mean the initial encounters won’t be awkward says the Daily Mail’s Royal Editor Rebecca English, with much speculation about how the Sussexes will interact with the rest of the royals at a Jubilee thanksgiving service at St Paul’s Cathedral on June 3.

‘The amount of time that they’re seen interacting with other family members on camera will be fairly limited,’ she tells the programme. ‘But as one source said to me the other week, the body language is going to be fascinating. I just hope for the Queen’s sake it doesn’t overshadow everything else that’s going on over the weekend.’

The Mail on Sunday’s Editor At Large Charlotte Griffiths says the royal balcony will miss Harry’s humour. ‘Harry could have been the Duke of Edinburgh Mark Two, and we kind of need that,’ she says. ‘The Royal Family do take themselves very seriously but there is a fun side to them and Harry just would have been brilliant at that and he could have brought a jocular side to balcony moments and things like that and we’ve lost that now.’

[From The Daily Mail]

So… even the Mail commentators are sounding somewhat conciliatory. They really want those photos. They really want those leaks from Kensington Palace. They really want that fresh gossip. If they’re lucky, a week-long visit from the Sussex Family will keep the Mail in royal storylines for an entire summer. And I love how, after all the bitching, the moaning, the leaking, the exiling, the tantrums and the incandescence, people are like “but the Windsors would love it if Harry and Meghan came back!” Are you not embarrassed?

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Instar and WENN.

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The Daily Mail and other British media outlets keep talking about Prince William getting booed at the FA Cup final. It’s amazing. It went from “wow, William really got booed like crazy” to “how dare a public figure be publicly jeered at a sacred and orderly football match, where is the decency??” in a matter of about six hours. I can’t even tell if some outlets are being tongue-in-cheek. Suddenly, the Mail is full of woke warriors who want to cancel Liverpool fans’ freedom of speech. It’s a stunning turn of events. What makes it even funnier is that Liverpool’s MPs (all Labour) haven’t condemned the fans’ behavior. Neither did Liverpool’s manager.

Downing Street has today slapped down Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp’s defence of fans who jeered the National Anthem and Prince William at the FA Cup final. Reds fans sparked fury after boos echoed around Wembley Stadium while Prince William – the President of the FA – was introduced to Chelsea and Liverpool players ahead of their cup final clash on Saturday. Supporters also drowned out singer-songwriter RAYE’s rendition of ‘God Save The Queen’, as well as the hymn ‘Abide With Me’ – a much-loved FA cup final tradition.

The jeers were condemned by some, including Commons speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle, who described the booing as ‘totally shameful’. Lib Dem leader Ed Davey, added to the condemnation, saying those involved ‘do not represent their clubs or our country’.

But when asked about the incident Reds boss Klopp appeared to justify the actions of Liverpool fans, describing them as ‘wonderful’ and suggesting there may be historical ‘reasons’ for their jeers.

‘They wouldn’t do if there was no reason,’ he told reporters at a pre-match press conference on Monday.

But minutes after his comments – made ahead of Liverpool’s Premier League clash with Southampton tomorrow night – Downing Street appeared to slap down Klopp’s defence. Asked in a briefing if Klopp was right to say Liverpool had a reason to boo the national anthem, the Prime Minister’s official spokesperson replied ‘No’. The spokesperson added that the booing was a ‘great shame’ given the FA Cup was meant to ‘bring people together’.

[From The Daily Mail]

The FA Cup did bring people together. They were all together in the stands, cheerfully booing Prince William and screaming “f–k the Tories.” They were all brought together by their love of Liverpool and their hatred of the Conservative Party and Tory stooge Baldemort. The way the Mail frames this is insane as well – Jurgen Klopp didn’t condemn Liverpool fans, he sympathized with them and said they had their reasons. And the Mail turns that into “the Prime Minister slapped down the Liverpool manager!!”

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Photos courtesy of Getty, Avalon Red.

Kourtney Kardashian & Travis Barker had a real, legal wedding ceremony over the weekend, but it didn’t appear as if any of Kourt’s sisters were there? [Just Jared]
The best signs from the NYC choice rallies. [Buzzfeed]
Yoga Barbie is clearly here to destroy Christianity, I’m sure. Just wait until Mattel releases Tantric Barbie. [Dlisted]
Ewan McGregor really looks great these days. [LaineyGossip]
The Innocents sounds like an interesting film concept. [Pajiba]
The Eurovision semifinals: who made the cut? [Go Fug Yourself]
I’m genuinely mad that iPods are no more! [Gawker]
Ruth Negga in a severe look… I don’t know about her style. [Tom & Lorenzo]
Pro-choice rallies around the US. [Towleroad]
Corinna Kopf was briefly banned by Twitch. [Egotastic]
ABC renewed a bunch of their hit shows. [Seriously OMG]
Millie Bobbie Brown is dramatically blonde right now. [RCFA]

I got tagged a few times with this Vanity Fair story and I agree with everyone, it’s kind of bizarre. The VF headline is: “How Kate Middleton Became the Data-Driven Royal Expert on Early Childhood Education.” Written by Erin Vanderhoof, but I believe the piece was probably written in concert with Kensington Palace, especially given that their talking points and keenery are throughout. There’s no new information here, no new work, no new data. There’s not even a new promise to be keen about Early Years. It’s just a rehash and repackaging of old stories with the twist of “Kate loves data!” Loving idiotic pie charts and nonsensical bar graphs doesn’t make someone “data-driven.” Here’s one excerpt from the piece:

Because Kate is a mother herself and so clearly comfortable with children—she and Prince William have a running joke that she gets “broody” at events where she holds infants—it often gets lost that the duchess’s interest in this is very scientific. That statistic about the prevalence of mental illness during and after pregnancy comes from the NHS, but it was discussed extensively in a June 2021 report from the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood, which Kate founded last year.

The report, which is a fascinating read, lays out a credible plan for changing Britain’s approach to early childhood by raising awareness, building a mentally healthier society, and supporting parents and childcare workers. From her new patronage to her appearance on the BBC Children’s show Bedtime Stories in February, Kate is trying to drive home the fact that the first five years of life are decisive for a child’s development and that parental well-being can affect a child’s emotional state. Throughout the reports that the Royal Foundation has released on the subject, the organization has established itself as being “informed by the data” and focused on spreading the scientific consensus that crucial brain development happens in infancy, with major consequences for a child’s—and a society’s—future. Without breaking a sweat, Kate has spent the last few years becoming the world’s most visible spokesperson for developmental neurology.

[From Vanity Fair]

Vanderhoof also mentions that during a March 2018 speech, “A fully formed future queen had arrived, and few noticed.” There are also mentions of Kate “mastering the Diana playbook for charity appearances” and turning her Early Years project into a “socially relevant career.” As I said, it reads like a puff piece organized by Kensington Palace. I would expect this from People Magazine. It’s a bit weird seeing it in VF.

So let me say this, about data and Kate’s Early Years work… there’s not much there. Her Five Big Questions project was unscientific busy work thrown together at the last minute so that Kate could have a “project” like Meghan. The whole idea that Kate even needed a big, signature project didn’t come up until Meghan got engaged to Harry. Vanderhoof mentions that Kate has organized “her spheres of influence into a coherent scientific paradigm with measurable goals” and I have to ask: where and how? Where is this coherent scientific paradigm? Even Kensington Palace has quietly briefed reporters that no one should actually *expect* anything to come of this. There will be no program, no campaign, no book, no lobbying effort, no fundraiser. This is Kate telling and not showing. This is Kate’s team continuously telling people that Kate is “credible” and she’s a serious academic on the subject of child development, all because she wanders around saying “the early years are important.”

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, WENN, Instar and Kensington Palace.

Pretty funny how right-wing figures are all about “mah freedom of speech” until people say something which upsets them. So it is with Prince William’s colonialist ass getting booed at the FA Cup final over the weekend. As soon as William walked out on the pitch, the boos began. When his name was announced, the boos got louder and louder. It was wonderful. Now those right-wingers are suddenly very concerned about how people (people from Liverpool, specifically) should not have the right to… boo a prince in public.

Prince William was booed by sections of the crowd as he appeared on the pitch before the FA Cup final at Wembley. The jeering started when the Duke of Cambridge, who is the president of the Football Association, was introduced to fans during the pre-match BBC television coverage. The booing continued as William moved down to the pitch where he met and shook hands with Chelsea and Liverpool players prior to the match starting on Saturday.

Some fans in the stadium also seemed to take umbrage with the national anthem and a rendition of Christian hymn Abide With Me, which were also the targets of booing.

The behaviour of some fans at the stadium prompted condemnation from MPs. Commons speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle told MailOnline: “I utterly condemn any fans who booed Prince William at Wembley today. The FA Cup final should be an occasion when we come together as a country. It should not be ruined by a minority of fans’ totally shameful behaviour. In this year of all years – the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee – this is dreadful.”

And Sir Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats said: “We have the most wonderful Monarch and those fans who booed do not represent their clubs or our country.”

The Duke of Cambridge seemed unruffled by the earlier booing and handed the FA Cup trophy to a jubilant Liverpool after their win against Chelsea at Wembley Stadium.

[From The Independent]

I don’t know, maybe just STFU and take it? It’s public jeering, no one actually took a sh-t on the crown. People are entitled to their feelings and their feelings about Baldemort are apparently pretty negative. The Daily Mail isn’t letting this go either – the Mail has a story about how Liverpool’s five Labour MPs have NOT criticized the Liverpool fans who booed William. LMAO. I bet at least one of those Labour MPs was probably at the match, booing William alongside his or her fellow Liverpudlians.

Meanwhile, William was sent to the UAE to pay his respects to the late Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan. It feels like Charles sent William out of the country right after that bitch got booed. Hilarious.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instar.

Queen Elizabeth II managed to make it to the final evening of the Royal Windsor Horse Show on Sunday, meaning she came out on Friday and Sunday, and made a point of walking to her seat with the aid of a cane. On Sunday, the Queen watched “The Gallop Through History” show, and she saw her granddaughter Lady Louise Windsor do her carriage driving thing. Tom Cruise was there, so was Helen Mirren. Cruise in particular has been cozying up a lot to royalty recently and I’m not exactly sure why. He was selected to introduce a horsey collection which celebrated the four nations of the United Kingdom. One of the more bizarre moments came from Alan Titchmarsh, who was acting as sort of an MC for the event. This is what he said:

Television presenter Alan Titchmarsh said “our identity, heart and soul is embodied by Her Majesty the Queen”.

The gardening guru and writer told presenters Phillip Schofield and Julie Etchingham: “This is a remarkable year, 70 years for a remarkable woman whom I’ve met quite a lot and been bowled over by because she’s such ferociously good company.”

“She has enormous quiet charisma, like Nelson Mandela did. He had a kind of grace and the Queen’s the same.It’s important in our lives, particularly this past couple of years, that we have special. If we don’t know our own family history, we know hers, and she in a way shares her lineage with us and her history is our history, and that matters to us. Whether we’re conscious of it or not.”

[From The Telegraph]

I understand that a lot of people are embiggening the Queen during her Jubbly year and I realize that she’s a big part of the British national consciousness, but… can we not compare her to Nelson Mandela? My goodness. Shocked no one has said “the Queen is just like Mahatma Gandhi too.”

Seriously, what is Tom Cruise doing? Which member of the Royal Family is about to become a Scientologist?

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Photos courtesy of Getty, Instar.

In March of this year, Samantha Grant (who goes by “Samantha Markle” in the media) filed a defamation lawsuit against her half-sister, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex. How did Meghan allegedly “defame” her half-sister? It was never very clear! Meghan spoke about being industrious and living on a budget throughout her childhood and in Meghan’s interview, she’s never even publicly mentioned her deranged sister. Still, Samantha believes that Meghan defamed her and hurt the sales of Samantha’s pathetic little book. Now Meghan’s lawyers have filed a motion to dismiss Samantha’s struggle lawsuit. Not only that, Meghan wants Samantha to pay for her legal fees. You can read the full document here.

Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, on Friday filed a motion to dismiss the defamation lawsuit brought against her by her half-sister Samantha Markle, describing the case as “without merit” and based on allegations that are “demonstrably false.” The duchess also asked a Florida federal court to order her half-sister to cover attorneys’ fees.

In the complaint filed March 3, Samantha Markle, 57, alleged that Meghan “published and disseminated false and malicious lies designed to destroy [her] reputation” and expose her to “humiliation, shame and hatred on a worldwide scale” in order to paint a false narrative of her childhood. Markle is suing the duchess for damages in excess of $75,000, claiming harm to her reputation as well as lost employment and lost income from the sale of her autobiography The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister.

“We feel confident that we’ll survive a motion to dismiss based on the allegations and the specific falsities that were made by [the duchess],” Markle’s attorney Jamie Sasson told BuzzFeed News Friday.

Although Samantha Markle claims that her half-sister made three defamatory statements during Meghan’s March 2021 blockbuster interview with Oprah Winfrey, the bulk of the case concerns information reported in a 2020 biography of Meghan and her husband Prince Harry titled Finding Freedom.

In the motion to dismiss filed Friday, Meghan’s lawyers denied all of Markle’s allegations — and stated that even if they were true, the duchess’s half-sister would still have no case. First, because the statements that Meghan made about Markle in her 2018 briefing email to Knauf were made outside of Florida’s two-year statute of limitations for defamation. Second, because Meghan didn’t write Finding Freedom. And finally, because Meghan’s statements about her half-sister in the email and in the Oprah interview are substantially true — and protected by the First Amendment. The filing included an itemized list of responses to all 17 of the statements that Markle claimed were defamatory.

The motion’s request that Markle be compelled to pay Meghan’s legal fees is based on a Florida law that prohibits lawsuits filed against individuals who are exercising their right to free speech in connection with public issues.

[From Buzzfeed News]

My guess is that Samantha believed Meghan would throw some money at her to shut up, and/or Samantha is such a deranged famewhore that she believed this lawsuit would get her more time on British TV shows. In either case, Meghan isn’t playing. It’s my hope that when all is said and done here, Meghan wipes the floor with Samantha, takes all of her money and exposes her for being the nasty piece of trash she is. Samantha is such a big part of the hate campaign online against Meghan as well.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid and WENN.

On Saturday, Prince William went solo at the FA Cup final. The final was Chelsea vs. Liverpool, and the match was at Wembley. William is the Football Association president, an honorary title which means “watching football” counts as work for him. Are you surprised that the Duchess of Cambridge and little Prince George didn’t come? I’m surprised. George is reportedly all about football and he’s come out for football and rugby matches previously. Maybe Will and Kate made the choice not to bring George to the FA Cup final because of all of the sh-t that went down in the Euro final last summer. In the end, it was probably a smart choice because when William went out to the pitch to shake hands with both teams, he was booed:

An unexpected moment at today’s #FACupFinal, where Liverpool fans booed Prince William and National Anthem. My understanding (correct me if I’m wrong, Twitter) is that it’s still felt there was an establishment cover-up over the Hillsborough disaster and getting justice for it. pic.twitter.com/uFLAJEJp30

— Omid Scobie (@scobie) May 14, 2022

I had to listen to it a couple of times to actually understand that there was a significant uptick in “boooooooo” just as William was announced. It could be as Scobie says, about Hillsborough disaster which happened at the 1989 FA Cup semifinal, and left 97 people dead. There was a cover-up and people are still trying to get justice. I’m sure that was part of the reason why there were so many boos. But surely some people were simply booing Prince William? I mean, Occam’s Razor!

Meanwhile, don’t let this slip through the cracks: Friday night, William went to an exclusive private club for dinner with “friends.” The Daily Mail studiously avoided naming the friends or even noting the gender of the friends. The club is Oswald’s, and it’s super-exclusive and for men and women. The Mail wrote that William “was photographed leaving Oswald’s in central London at 11pm last night after a three-hour catch up with a friend.” So now he was only dining with one friend? William was also accompanied by three security guards. No Kate, obviously. And no Kate at the FA Cup. This story is hiding in plain sight.

Prince William enjoys a rare meal out with friends https://t.co/iNwQwO3AAd

— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) May 14, 2022

How it started vs How it is going pic.twitter.com/2okqzCbA3H

— Behroze Patel (@Bkmalegamwala) May 14, 2022

Wow! Some serious booing at Wembley for Prince William…

— Simon Lancaster (@bespokespeeches) May 14, 2022

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Photos courtesy of Getty, Avalon Red, Instar.

Thursday was the first day of the Royal Windsor Horse Show. Queen Elizabeth was scheduled to make an appearance, and the photographers had set up in their positions and everything was a go… until it wasn’t. The Queen’s aides canceled at the last minute, then they were told that the Queen visited her horses privately that day. Then Friday, the Queen made a “surprise” appearance at the horse show. She sat in the car for a bit, then she reportedly got of the SUV, used her cane and “moved slowly” to an elevator platform, then she was able to walk to her seat in the stands. She sat in between Penny Mountbatten (Philip’s special friend) and Prince Edward.

So… are we surprised? I was surprised. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised though. The Queen’s horses are the one thing which will get her out of the castle. Her horses are her greatest joy. Still, I didn’t think she would be able to manage even this cautious, carefully stage-managed public appearance. Notice that there are barely any photos of the Queen walking with a cane, or walking to and from the car. The papers and photographers gave her a wide berth with the understanding that they could photograph her freely in her seat and in her car.

Speaking of the Queen’s mobility issues, it seems that her BFF has now moved in with her. That’s right, Angela Kelly has moved into Windsor Castle.

The Queen has moved her “best friend” Angela Kelly into Windsor Castle apartments as she grapples with her mobility issues. Angela, 69, who has been Her Majesty’s dresser and closest aide for 28 years, is staying in a suite next to her private quarters. The Queen is struggling to walk far and is refusing to use a wheelchair at home.

Angela first moved in during the Covid lockdown as part of the HMS Bubble team and helped Her Majesty with day-to-day care. A source told The Sun: “She lives there now. She has moved in.” Angela is said to have a 42in telly in her rooms.

[From The Sun]

If you ask me, AK and QEII have had a close, intimate relationship for decades. I’m not saying it’s sexual, but I completely believe that AK has thoroughly wormed her way into the Queen’s private confidence and AK is one of the most important voices (if not the most important voice) in the Queen’s circle. I think AK’s presence is also what Prince Harry referenced when he spoke about the Queen needing “the right people” around her.

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Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Getty.