Justice Clarence Thomas is really wound up about how the Supreme Court has completely dismantled reproductive rights, the right to privacy, the right to birth control and a lot more. Like, he’s mad that people are really freaking out about what he and the other Christofascists on the Supreme Court have already done. Roe v. Wade will not be formally overturned for another month and a half or so, which has given Thomas and the other right-wing justices ample time and space to whine and stomp their feet and pretend like they’re the victims. Thomas made some new comments at a Texas conference set up with the American Enterprise Institute, the Manhattan Institute and the Hoover Institution, meaning he collected a nice paycheck to fly to Texas for a day and tell a bunch of fascists what they want to hear. The “conversation” was conducted by John Yoo, the dude who wrote all of the torture memos during the Bush administration (Yoo clerked for Thomas). Previously, Thomas complained that the authority of the Supreme Court is “undermined” when Americans refuse to “live with outcomes we don’t agree with,” much like his wife attempted to violently overturn a lawful election when she didn’t agree with the outcome. Some highlights from Thomas’s Friday conversation:

The leak of the Alito draft: The leak of a draft opinion has done irreparable damage to the Supreme Court, Justice Clarence Thomas said at a conference in Dallas on Friday night, adding that it had destroyed trust among its members. “What happened at the court is tremendously bad,” Justice Thomas said. “I wonder how long we’re going to have these institutions at the rate we’re undermining them.”

The trust is gone: The leak of the opinion…“like kind of an infidelity,” Justice Thomas said. “Look where we are, where that trust or that belief is gone forever. And when you lose that trust, especially in the institution that I’m in, it changes the institution fundamentally. You begin to look over your shoulder.”

He threw shade at Chief Justice Roberts: He drew a contrast with the court that sat for 11 years without a change in personnel before the arrival of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. in 2005. “This is not the court of that era,” Justice Thomas said, adding: “We actually trusted each other. We may have been a dysfunctional family, but we were a family.”

His thoughts on the peaceful protests outside justices’ houses: “You would never visit Supreme Court justices’ houses when things didn’t go our way. We didn’t throw temper tantrums. It is incumbent on us to always act appropriately, and not to repay tit for tat.”

What?? He added that conservatives had “never trashed a Supreme Court nominee.” He acknowledged that Merrick B. Garland, President Barack Obama’s third Supreme Court nominee, “did not get a hearing, but he was not trashed. You will not see the utter destruction of a single nominee. You will also not see people going to other people’s houses, attacking them at dinner at a restaurant, throwing things on them.” He said Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh had been subjected to particular abuse, but he referred only glancingly to his own brutal confirmation hearings, during which he angrily denied accusations of sexual harassment.

[From The New York Times]

True story, as soon as Christina Blasey Ford’s name came out in reporting, conservative nutjobs doxxed her, harassed her, threatened her and forced her to move several times. True story, peaceful protests outside a justice’s home is nothing compared to the conservative nutjobs screaming and throwing sh-t at every woman and girl entering a Planned Parenthood. Not to mention all of the bombings of abortion clinics, targeted harassment of doctors and healthcare providers, the fact that Dr. George Tiller was murdered in church, and the simple fact that women are going to die soon after Roe is overturned.

The fact that Thomas, Roberts and the Senate Republicans are still so focused on “the leak” is so strange to me. I know they’re running a play and I know they have something set up for this, but it also feels like… not many people are taking the bait? Or maybe I’m just in my own echo chamber. It’s just so bizarre and unsettling to know that Roe is being overturned and the people who did that are assuming the cloak of victimhood because of “the leak” and because of “protests.”

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Instar, Avalon Red.

Margaret Qualley covers AnOther Magazine, and the interview is a lot better than the photos. The photos are too arty, I guess. Qualley is a beauty, but I don’t think her beauty is particularly gritty or hard-edged. She’s just pretty in a gangly-girl-next-door sort of way and the editorial didn’t really reflect that. Qualley spends much of the interview reflecting on her big breaks, which included Fosse/Verdon, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and the Netflix series Maid. She’s only 27 years old, and at some points she talks as if she’s very wise, but most of the interview she sounds much younger than her age. Some highlights:

Working with Brad Pitt. “He’s all the things you want him to be.”

Quentin Tarantino telling her to try whatever she wanted to do: “You forget that you’re supposed to be messy. You’re supposed to take up all the space and make all the mistakes, and you’re supposed to do the thing you feel. But it’s so scary sometimes.”

Growing up in Asheville, North Carolina: “My mom was the only actor in Asheville, so it makes you a bit more on display, and people are interested when there’s nothing really interesting going on.”

Her ballet pursuit: “And then at a certain point I realised that ballet was more sophisticated and the pinnacle of perfection. So I was like, OK, I should do that…. The obsession really was about being perfect.” Aged 16, after attending a summer programme held by the American Ballet Theatre in New York, Qualley had a dark night of the soul. “I realised you don’t even love this. You’re just doing this because you want to be perfect, and you’re about to waste your whole life because you’ll never be perfect.”

She developed an eating disorder in her teens. “I was really hard on myself when I was in high school and modelling, and just trying hard to be perfect at everything, and be a perfect student, and a perfect model,” she says. This was a pre-body-positivity time, when high-fashion models were uniformly size zero. “Hopefully now there’s more body inclusivity and celebrating all of the different variations of bodies, and how beautiful that is, and how versatile beauty is in general. It’s wild that we shift through people with the same criteria in mind, that people have checklists. I’ve been a victim of that, and it’s a dark, ugly place to exist.”

Her mother’s daughter: “I think I’ve been protected in a certain way my entire life because of that. I was put into a different category and there’s definitely a protective shield that I feel is related to being my mother’s daughter.”

She likes being New York-based: “New York feels very cosy to me. LA feels scary. LA feels like I’ll never be good enough.” In New York you can throw a dime in most directions and hit a celebrity. “Nobody gives a sh-t. No one stops me. I really am not terribly recognised. And any recognition I get from my work is great because I want to touch people. I’m telling these stories because I want them to be watched.”

On ‘Maid’: “For young women, we’re often told that our accounts of reality aren’t correct. That the way you feel and the way you’re experiencing the world is somehow your fault, and if you want certain things you should feel bad for wanting those things.” We’re not talking about Alex, or Maddy, or Maid any more. Something bigger. “By proxy of standing up for Alex and standing up for Maddy… I was able to realise that I shouldn’t feel ashamed of certain wants or beliefs or feelings. And that it is literally still hard to say these things, because people are so conditioned and practised not to speak this way.”

She began to reflect on her own approach to relationships. “I’ve been trying to think lately, what allows certain people to not hurt themselves by letting people walk over them, but to take a bullet instead of being resentful and angry and hung up on it. I think that ability to love other people in such a big way comes from loving yourself in a big way. So I’m working on that.” Has she been walked over or treated badly in the past? “Yeah. And I’m really lucky now because I have really amazing people that have the best intentions. I’m really lucky. I’m not getting hurt very much. But you’re not always going to be around those safe, special people. You have to build up those skills and figure out how to navigate the world.”

[From AnOther Magazine]

On one side, she fully admits that she had a level of protection as “Andie McDowell’s daughter” within the industry, but on the other side, she’s really trying to act like she moved to New York as a teen and started modeling and it was all chaotic and messy and she was flying without a net. The AnOther piece even mentioned, in passing, that she was a débutante at Le Bal des Débutantes, the famous A-list Paris ball for rich girls. I mean, she’s all the things – she has enormous privilege and she’s a product of nepotism, and she’s a goofy, over-earnest young woman who works hard.

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Cover and IG courtesy of AnOther.

Dune 2: Rise of the Dunes has some casting news. Christopher Walken will play the Emperor! Florence Pugh & Austin Butler will be in it too. [Just Jared]
Prosecutors want Josh Duggar sentenced to 20 years in prison, and his lawyers say that five years is plenty. Ugh. [Starcasm]
Rose Leslie & Kit Harington looked boring at the premiere of The Time Traveler’s Wife. Kit is just one of those men who needs facial hair. [Go Fug Yourself]
Christina Aguilera did more Spanish-language music. [OMG Blog]
Ezra Miller said words. [Dlisted]
I love the business of Jennifer Lopez. [LaineyGossip]
Tom DeLonge made a movie about aliens. [Pajiba]
There’s a black hole in the middle of the Milky Way. [Gawker]
Handmaidens protested outside Amy Coney Barrett’s home. [Towleroad]
Kim Kardashian was the queen of this back in the day, when she was just a reality show hustler. She would turn up everywhere and pose with products. [Buzzfeed]
It’s a cancelation bloodbath over at CBS. [Seriously OMG]
Ruth Wilson wore Erdem to get her MBE. [RCFA]

I don’t think I’ve ever talked about this, but I am absolutely the person who runs around, turning off lamps at any given moment. I hate when it’s the middle of the day and there are multiple lamps on, especially in a home or a room which already gets a lot of natural light. That was the first thing I saw in this photo of the Kensington Palace Apartment 1 interior: why are there three lamps on in the middle of the day? You can tell there’s natural light coming in from the window on the left of the photo. I realize they’re reading something, but that doesn’t require three lamps!

Anyway, this photo is of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge recording a special message for the “Mental Health Minute.” Because May is Mental Health Awareness Month and William and Kate like to pretend that they didn’t bully and harass a pregnant woman to the brink of suicide.

Kate Middleton and Prince William’s voices are being heard around the U.K. On Friday at 10:59 a.m., every radio station in the U.K. united to play a message from the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge dubbed the Mental Health Minute. The couple, who introduced themselves simply as Catherine and William, began by saying they wanted to talk about loneliness.

“We’re all in different places right now,” Prince William said, with Kate adding, “Not just physically, but mentally.” Prince William continued, “And we can all feel lonely sometimes.”

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which “reminded us of the importance of human relationships,” William said, they encouraged people to do small acts of kindness in order to help people who are feeling isolated.

“So if you think someone you know may be feeling lonely, just give them a ring, send them a text or knock on their door,” Kate said. William followed, “Maybe suggest meeting for a cup of tea or a walk.”

“Because these small acts of kindness can make a big difference and help us all feel less lonely,” Kate added.

Prince William then shared his apologies for “interrupting every radio station in the country.”

“But if we interrupt the lives of those who are feeling alone,” Kate said for William to finish, “We can help lift them out of loneliness.”

[From People]

Eh, whatever. I mean, if this inspires kindness and understanding of mental health, then that’s a good thing. Genuinely don’t believe that William and Kate should be held up as mental health advocates though.

A few superficial notes: in the photo released by Kensington Palace, Kate wore a recycled £1,700 Altuzarra dress. That… is way too expensive for a boring blue dress. Their body language looks “off” too, although I’m sure the Mail’s body-language experts would never say that.

1/ Every radio station across the UK has united for the Mental Health Minute.The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s special message to help “Lift Someone Out of Loneliness”. #MentalHealthMinute #MentalHealth #Vixen101 pic.twitter.com/9EogAFdwJ6

— Vixen 101 (@Vixen101fm) May 13, 2022

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

Tina Brown recently gave an interview to The Cut to promote The Palace Papers. Not to be a broken record, but Brown’s interviews have a much different vibe than the book. The book is bad enough, but at least you can read between the lines and actually see where Brown is being a bit shady about all of the royals. In Brown’s interviews, she’s just saying the quiet parts out loud, like calling Meghan “angry” and suggesting that the Queen gave Commonwealth interests to Meghan so she could deal with “the question of minorities.” I mean, Racist Karen is a Racist Karen. Curious then that Brown’s tone is getting a bit softer in her later interviews. You can read the full piece here at The Cut. Some highlights:

She started working on the book two years ago: “When Prince Philip was still alive, Prince Andrew was still a tolerated oaf doing the rounds at dinner parties, and Meghan and Harry were still beloved members of the royal family…By the time I got two thirds of the way through, the House of Windsor had turned into a dumpster fire, and I was racing to keep ahead of the next explosion…. they do find ways to survive — even if it means eating their young.”

She’s worried about Harry’s book too: “Harry spent so many years inveighing about the press, and now he seems to not be able to stop talking: giving interviews that are pretty explosive and invasive to the rest of his family. He remembers, surely, how much it hurt for him when his privacy was invaded, but he’s about to write a book of his own memoirs which clearly will invade the privacy of other members of his family. So he has a very complex — I would say, confused — attitude about it all.

Everyone felt like Harry would eventually leave: “The queen felt that too. She was not surprised that Harry was going to choose to get out. What surprised them was the combative and angry way it all went down. That’s what really stunned them. And I think that to this day, Charles, apparently, is particularly baffled as to how it got so bad so fast.

Brown thinks there the Sussexit went down the wrong way: “[When] they wanted to bolt for the exit, the really thorny issue being the ability to make money while still retaining their royal patronages and positions. It’s a whole complex, conflict-of-interest mess, because whatever they might say about keeping these interests separate, in their commercial activities, they would be leveraging the crown. That’s why commercial opportunities would come their way, and did come their way; it was about the fact that they were royal. And the monarchy’s about service that is unremunerated. I think that they felt there was a lot of money to be made, and there was, but not as part of the royal system. Having said all that, I think Meghan and Harry are a great loss to the royal family. They were great assets.

William wouldn’t know if his family is racist: “It’s a thousand-year-old institution, it’s a white protestant fortress. Meghan didn’t see anyone who looked like herself any of the time that she was there. So for a woman of color to come into that must’ve been extraordinarily difficult.

On the tension between Kate & Meghan: “It was a very tricky situation, because here’s Harry and his new wife, who actually are more interesting and glamorous and charismatic than the number-one couple: That’s going to lead to tension. Kate is a strong character, very well-educated, very smart. She was the first royal woman, now that I think about it, who had any proper education. She’s impressive, but she’s human, and who needs to be described continually as the Duchess of Dull, compared to the charismatic Meghan?

Meghan & the British press’s racist coverage: “The press started to do a really awful, and typical, chauvinistic and racist tack. The undertone was definitely the lily-white, flawless Kate versus the confounding Meghan. When they were both pregnant, and Kate would be holding her belly — as a pregnant woman tends to do — and it’s, How lovely, Mother Earth Kate. But when Meghan did that, it’s like, What’s the matter with Meghan, why is she always flaunting her pregnancy? It was so blatantly discriminatory… I do think that they should have been more aggressive in their defense of Meghan, and they should’ve done it faster. You can’t tell the press to be positive, but you can give a thundering rebuke. A statement from the queen, Buckingham Palace, would’ve helped, but it didn’t come.

[From The Cut]

“He’s about to write a book of his own memoirs which clearly will invade the privacy of other members of his family…” Literally no one knows what’s in his book. They’ve all just assumed that he’s written a burn book and their guilty consciences have made them all tell on themselves. “Charles, apparently, is particularly baffled as to how it got so bad so fast.” Charles knows exactly how and why it got so bad. Charles was part of the smear campaign too, although to a lesser degree compared to William and Kate. And yes, I actually appreciate the fact that even a racist Karen like Tina Brown has consistently pointed out that Kate and William were simply mad and jealous because Harry and Meghan were so glamorous and popular from the word go. Buckingham Palace and Clarence House absolutely should have stood up for Meghan. They never did.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instar, Backgrid.

Something I think about from time to time is how the British royal commentators always have a litany of grievances against the Duke and Duchess of Sussex at the ready, but very few of those grievances are about Harry’s massively successful and moving AppleTV+ series The Me You Can’t See. Harry surprised me in that series with intimate he was about his anxiety, his emotional triggers, and his genuine fear that “they” would kill his wife just like “they” killed his mother. There was so much in that series which shocked me, like the connections Harry made to Diana being in romantic relationships with Arab and South Asian men, and his own journey to understand how that affected him in his marriage to Meghan. I tend to believe that royal commentators leave out The Me You Can’t See from their grievance list because A) it was so successful and B) even they might accidentally admit that Harry made some points.

I bring this up because all we hear these days is how everyone in Salt Island is dreadfully afraid that Harry is going to use his trip to the UK for the Jubbly to, like, give more interviews to Oprah, or to sell “his story” to Netflix. At this point, I feel like the royals are actually begging Harry to bring Netflix cameras over to film them. But of course they won’t admit that.

The Queen has a ‘ring of steel’ around her to protect the monarch from appearing in Harry and Meghan’s Netflix documentary, a royal expert has claimed. Royal commentator Russell Myers mades the comments during an interview with Australian news programme Today, while discussing whether any footage from the upcoming Platinum Jubilee celebrations could end up in the Sussex’s film.

As the couple, alongside their two children Archie, 3, and Lilibet, 11 months, will be attending the Platinum Jubilee celebrations in London next month, this has sparked discussions around whether any of the festivities will be filmed by the crew. But Russell said that the Queen’s aides will have briefed the couple to ‘not even think about it for a second’.

Russell Myers believes it is likely that Buckingham Palace aides will be protective over the Queen, and will have warned the Sussexes against trying to film the Firm.

He said: ‘There is an absolutely a ring of steel around the Queen in terms of her advisors. I mean, they certainly would be advising Harry and Megan to not even think about it for a second, but who knows what they will do?’

Russell said the couple would ‘definitely have been advised not to speak to Oprah Winfrey and not to speak to Gayle King’ but that they ‘still keep on doing it’. He added: ‘I mean, it makes you wonder how much the family can take anymore and I’m sure Prince William has got his head in his hands as Prince Charles as every time they pop up on the television.’

[From The Daily Mail]

LOL, I hope Harry invites Oprah to Frogmore Cottage for a very special Netflix live-stream special. Of course he won’t do that. Of course these people are just desperate sh-t-stirrers who don’t know what they’re talking about. The people making up the so-called “ring of steel” around the Queen were left with their pants down when they got hoodwinked by a little old lady and her granddaughter quietly making arrangements for the Sussexes to visit. Makes me wonder if all of this breast-beating about rings of steel and extra staffing to protect the Queen from Netflix cameras is all just… something else entirely.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Instar.

The Daily Beast’s Royalist (Tom Sykes) has an interesting new piece about Prince Charles and Prince William’s “uneasy alliance” these days. William went to his first State Opening of Parliament this week, where he walked behind Rose Hanbury’s husband and generally looked bored and boring. To hear Sykes tell it, William performed his duty perfectly though, because William didn’t overshadow Charles on his big day, standing in for the Queen and performing her speech. This is the jumping-off point to analyze how Charles and William’s relationship has changed so much in recent years, something we’ve heard a lot. Basically, as soon as William succeeded in exiling his brother, William and Charles have been “closer” because Harry is not around. Some highlights from the Daily Beast:

No one paid attention to William in Parliament: There was precious little attention paid to the other royal in attendance, Prince William, who was very deliberately dressed down to the point of invisibility. Seated on a lowly chair compared to his father’s magisterial throne, his dark suit enabled William to effectively disappear into the background for his father’s day in the sun. Charles couldn’t have wished his son to be more helpful and supportive.

Charles was always closer to Harry: Charles’ relationship with Harry was actually understood by most friends of the family to be warmer than his relationship with William when the boys were teenagers and young men (which is part of what has made Harry’s attacks of the past two years particularly horrible for Charles). Some have speculated this is because William saw more and understood more of the breakdown of his parents’ relationship.

Charles wasn’t a fan of William’s emotions: If William had his reservations about his father, the feeling was mutual; Charles, a source tells The Daily Beast, was regularly dismayed by William’s emotive style, and what he felt was an overdoing of the common touch after he married Kate Middleton. “Charles hated William’s ‘I’m in touch with my feelings’ schtick,’” a friend of the family tells The Daily Beast. “He felt it wasn’t regal. It annoyed him with both sons, but particularly William because he didn’t feel the future king had to be touchy-feely, and it irritated him that William didn’t seem willing to take that on board. Charles’ style is very different; buttoned up, reserved and he hated the emoting, the interviews about his mental health and his feelings.”

Fights about work: But William, girded up by Kate, has absolutely refused to be pushed around. As Andersen says: “William is incredibly headstrong, and has had many rows with his father over the years about what royal duties he was or wasn’t willing to perform.”

William isn’t playing Game of Thrones: The truth is that had William wanted for one moment to be the next king (as his mother hoped), to weaponize the toxic past of his father would have been the work of an instant. But William has no such Game of Thrones-like urges. He and Kate are quite happy being the warm-up guys for the next few decades. William will always have a significant hold over his father, though, and the relationship between Charles and William, while not one of equals, will be significantly more even handed than that between the queen and Charles. Elizabeth has been queen since Charles was four years old, and for all of her reign, bar perhaps the last decade, he has been very much the lowly cadet. William is more likely to get something closer to partner status, largely because Charles needs him on side.

The Oprah interview: Things between William and Charles might have ticked along in this rather lukewarm fashion had it not been for the Harry and Meghan bombshell that struck the family in 2020. It changed everything, forcing father and son to finally fully commit to working together. There seems no reason to disbelieve reports that William was instrumental in the defenestration of Prince Andrew from royal life, another moment of unity. But ultimately, it was Harry who pushed William into Charles’ arms with his inflammatory comments to Oprah, including the jibe that he pitied his brother and father because they were “trapped” in their royal lives. “Harry forced William to jump, and when the moment came there was no doubt for William which way to go,” says the friend. “William picked the monarchy, and that has meant working closely with Charles. The relationship is as good as it’s ever been in his adult life.”

[From The Daily Beast]

Yeah, none of this reads as a genuine warmth between a father and his oldest son. It reads more like an uneasy alliance between two men who could do a lot of damage to one another. Of course William could really go after Charles and try to usurp him. So why doesn’t William do that? Because of mutually-assured destruction – Charles has a lot of dirt on William, and he could easily put William in his place with a few phone calls. They have just enough on each other to keep the other “in line.” Which, again, is not really a healthy father-son relationship.

As for Harry and the Oprah interview and all of that… Harry and Charles were genuinely close for many years. I absolutely believe that some of Harry’s deepest hurt – which came out in the Oprah interview – was that Charles didn’t have his back, that Charles behaved as if Harry was dispensable, that Charles “chose” the heir and not the spare.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instar.

Kourtney Kardashian reveals she accidentally broke her $1 million engagement ring from Travis Barker. She stepped on it. [JustJared]
James Hong, 93, finally received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. [Pajiba]
Eiza Gonzalez is featured in V Magazine. [Egotastic]
Sarah Silverman shares a tooth brush with her boyfriend. She also thinks Louis CK had every right to be a degenerate, so there you go. [Dlisted]
Louisiana Republican says his 40-year-old daughters still get in his lap when they’re sad. He said this unprompted. [Jezebel]
Julianne Hough looked great in vintage Saint Laurent. [GFY]
Don’t visit Plymouth Rock, Hollywood or Cairo. [Buzzfeed]
Whenever Tom Brady retires again, he’s got a job lined up as a sports broadcaster. Imagine paying Brady $370 million to talk about football. [LaineyGossip]
Oscar Isaac’s giving Grey Wolf Realness. [Tom & Lorenzo]
The Dodgers will wear “pride caps” for Pride Month. [Towleroad]

The Duchess of Cambridge – or rather, the Countess of Strathearn – has been broody for a fourth baby for several years. Basically, ever since Louis turned one, she’s been desperate to have another baby in the house. Prince William is apparently over it, over the whole thing, and especially over impregnating his wife. In recent months, Kate has announced her broodiness for babies in Denmark, and during a joint event with William in January, she once again wanted to cuddle the babies and William told her not to get any ideas. I suppose they both think that this seems like enjoyable and relatable peasant-banter. But there’s always a weird edge to it, right? The edge of “wow, William kind of hates his wife” and “wow, Kate is loca for babies.” Well, guess what came up again in Scotland this week.

Kate Middleton and Prince William’s first stop in Scotland may have stirred up some maternal instincts! The couple kicked off their visit to Scotland on Wednesday by visiting St. John’s Primary School, where young students are learning about empathy by observing an infant — A.K.A. their “tiny teacher,” Saul!

“Can you get my wife out of here before she gets broody?” Prince William, 39, joked about Kate, 40. It seems William was right to worry — before the end of their visit, Kate was holding 10-month-old Saul in her lap as they looked through a book.

On the first day of her solo royal tour in Denmark in February, Kate met with parents and their babies during a visit to the University of Copenhagen.

“It makes me very broody,” Kate shared. “William always worries about me meeting under one-year-olds. I come home saying, ‘Let’s have another one.’ “

[From People]

Yeah, I mean on Kate’s side alone, I don’t hate the fact that she loves babies. It’s nice. A lot of people love babies and can’t wait to hold whichever baby is around. I think what bugs me is that this seems to be Kate’s go-to comment and it’s basically the only thing she says publicly now. If she was also making speeches about childhood development and exhibiting her groundbreaking work from the Keenwell Buttons Institute on Early Years, I think we would let her have her broodiness. But it feels like she just does these random photo-ops with babies and her only message is: I want another baby!

Also, the Glasgow baby did not want any part of Kate, her wiglet or her crazy facial expressions.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Instar.

During their trip to Scotland, the Earl and Countess of Strathearn did a walkabout on the campus of the University of Glasgow. I’m not going to lie, they got a bigger crowd than I would have expected. Lots of university students wanted to see them and William and Kate talked to a lot of people and posed for selfies and such. One student had a little gimmick for getting Kate’s attention: he asked her for help with a crossword. Was this a set-up? Yes. It was.

The Duchess of Cambridge showed off her puzzling skills yesterday, when she helped a student crack a crossword clue – and was reportedly ‘thrilled’ to get it right. Kate Middleton, 40, and her husband Prince William, 39, visited Glasgow during the first day of their two-day Platinum Jubilee tour of Scotland.

According to the Times, second year statistics undergraduate Jack Baird, 21, caught the royal’s attention when he waved a copy of the old puzzle in the air, and asked for her help with the one clue he hadn’t managed to answer. The crossword fan, who has been known to take the puzzles to nightclubs, was unable to answer a question about the Royal Family, so Kate offered to help him and grabbed the puzzle before being snapped studying it keenly.

The clue Jack was stuck on, seven down, was about the ‘sovereign’s annual allowance’, and contained two words of four and five letters. Jack said that Kate was able to succesfully provide the correct answer, which was Civil List.

‘She was very excited. It didn’t look like she was going to get it for a moment. I’m really chuffed. I’m going to frame it. She looked thrilled. I think she thought, “I wouldn’t live this down if I get this wrong”.’

[From The Daily Mail]

Imagine being a crossword puzzle fanatic and you don’t know “civil list”? Imagine using that as a gimmick to talk to Kate. I mean, it’s cheeseball, but he got his attention and so did Kate. I wonder how thoroughly coordinated this was. “Buttons, there’s a young man who will wave a piece of paper and you have to stop and talk to him so that we’ll get a ‘humanizing’ story in the papers.” Does anyone else think it was slightly shady that the answer was “civil list” too? Why not “eight letters, another word for sponger or leech.”

Embed from Getty Images

Photos courtesy of Instar, Getty and Avalon Red.