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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s embarrassing Netflix deadline looms

When the current history of Hollywood gets written, April 19, 2022 will go down as the day that everything changed.

It should have been a routine earnings call during which Netflix co-CEO Reed Hastings took tech and business reporters through the company’s latest figures. Instead, Hastings revealed that the company had lost hundreds of thousands of subscribers for the first drop in numbers in 10 years.

The revelations immediately set off something of an earthquake from Wall Street to Los Angeles, with $75 billion in value being wiped off the company’s value in 24 hours.

Why this matters are the consequences this precipitous, stunning reversal in fortune could have for two people about 450km south of Netflix’s headquarters, in the wealthy enclave of Montecito.

In the course of that one earnings one call, not only did the streaming giant’s once-unassailable hold on the entertainment industry come unstuck, but so too did the supposedly cashed-up future of Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex, start to look much less certain.

Monday marks 712 days since the world learned on September 2 2020 that the newly self-emancipated Sussexes had signed a reported $US140 million ($A197 million) deal with Netflix via no lesser news outlet than the New York Times with the story trumpeting the duo’s “new Hollywood careers”.

But today, those “new Hollywood careers” have yet to actually take off while once mighty Netflix has lost more than $US200 billion ($A280 billion) in value (yes, billion with a ‘b’) this year.

Nearly two years on from all the self-contributory ballyhoo of September 2, 2020, the landscape for both the titled duo and the streamer has significantly shifted beneath them all.

Will – or even can – the Sussex/Netflix marriage survive?

Not only have the fortunes of Netflix lurched wildly since 2020 but so have Harry and Meghan’s.

At the time the deal was announced, it seemed like the most obvious and logical pairing: Two of the most famous people in the world would worthily churn out documentaries or some such; inreturn; Netflix got to tout the fact that they had a real life Duke and Duchess on their books. Harry and Meghan would get squillions; the company would reap the rewards of the PR coup of the decade.

However, the royal duo are not exactly the sizzlingly-hot property they were back then now are they?

More than 30 months have passed since Harry and Meghan absconded from a life of stifling royal duty for the greener pastures of California and that lucrative embrace of corporate America.

In that time they have managed to ink a series of headline-making deals, including also with Spotify, the coaching company BetterUp and with Ethic, a fintech asset manager, along with launching their charitable foundation and undertaking a seemingly never ending parade of photo opportunities. .

On paper it sounds like it’s been a whirligig of achievement and just the sort of industrious self-starting that America was founded on. Except … what have they actually achieved?

Yes, they have made a series of donations to causes ranging from the World Food Kitchen to helping fix a women’s shelter’s roof after a storm which reflects their generosity and hunger to help others. Kudos. But writing a check here and there is hardly the sort of work that will ever see them make the long list for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Sadly, for two people who seem to truly care, there is not one issue, not one cause they have really moved the needle on since they embarked on this new life of theirs.

More importantly for their Netflix and Spotify paymasters, they have failed to genuinely set themselves up as leading voices of the day. They might do their darnedest to sell themselves as inspiring leaders but the proof is in the flaccid pudding that was the lackluster turnout to Harry’s recent UN speech from him.

The international community was hardly turning up in droves to hear him speak while Washington has largely ignored them.

Meghan’s cold-calling of senators about paid parental leave last year went down about as well as a gluten and dairy-free scone at a Buckingham Palace garden party and the Duchess has yet to emerge as any sort of powerplayer ahead of the midterm elections later this year.

In late June, the former actress took part in a conversation with feminist pioneer Gloria Steinem for fashion after the horrendous quashing of abortion protection, saying: “Well, Gloria, maybe it seems as though you and I will be taking a trip to DC together soon.”

Nearly two months on, the Duchess has yet to turn up inside the Beltway.

The bottom line is this: Harry and Meghan have proven totally unsuccessful at making themselves matter in the corridors of power in Washington, New York, Silicon Valley or Los Angeles.

The magic dust of their royalty has largely dulled in the last two years and the novelty factor has worn off. So too has their deal-making momentum seemed to have waned with them not having announced any other venture since July 2021 last year when it was revealed Harry was busy working on a memoir.

Things might look different today if in the last 712 days the Sussexes had been churning out series after doco after one-off specials for Netflix, but as we all know, that is not the case. The company has only ever publicly announced two Sussex projects: Harry’s documentary about the sporting event for wounded armed services personnel Heart of Invictus (an amazing initiative he started years ago as a working member of the royal family) and an animated children’s series from Meghan called Pearl.

In early May it was announced that Netflix was axing the Duchess’ show as part of a much bigger cost-cutting move, with numerous high-profile projects canned as the streamer dramatically tighten their belts.

Then later the same month came news that the company was about to get, as Page Six put it, their “pound of flesh” from the duo with the revelation that Harry and Meghan were already filming something called an “at home” docu series which has a hint of the ignominious about it. (More recent reporting has suggested that Netflix wants it to air before the year is out.)

Potentially hundreds of millions of dollars are riding on this docu series for the self-supporting, private jet-flying, polo-loving Sussexes.

If it turns out that the Duke and Duchess are TV gold, if they are about to demonstrate that they are binge-worthy stars who can pull in streaming viewers globally, then their US careers are set. Get another polo pony! Hell, buy seven.

But, if they fail to live up to the hype and the rhetoric? The huge sums being touted and all those lovely millions supposedly coming their way could dry up faster than a Californian lake.

(And it’s not as if their docuseries is likely to feature much royal access given that Harry and Meghan were embarrassingly sidelined by The Firm when they were in London for the Platinum Jubilee.)

Netflix is ​​clearly a very patient company when it comes to their superstar recruits. Take Barack and Michelle Obama who signed to Netflix and Spotify after they left the White House.

However, this week, Harry and Meghan will break the Obamas’ track record of the 716 days which elapsed between their Netflix deal being announced and their first marquee project starring one of them, coming, being released. (And in the interim they had released two children’s shows and produced two documentaries, one of which won an Oscar.)

Harry and Meghan might have titles and the Buckingham Palace Wi-Fi password but that is not enough of a distinction for big companies to merrily tip millions into their bank accounts for the chance to work with them. They have to actually do something to provide themselves.

They can’t just hope they can coast along on the whiff of a mothballed HRH here forever more.

Since that earnings call in April, Netflix has laid off hundreds of staff and made the drastic decision to finally introduce advertising to the platform. Can the company still afford to carry big name stars who don’t deliver on their books?

Just how much patience and faith will this newly humbled Netflix have for their yet-to-perform big-name hires?

To some degree, the same goes for Spotify too here.

In April, Meghan’s first outing for the audio giant called Archetypes was announced, promising a “groundbreaking” series would launch during the northern summer. With only weeks to go before autumn begins, again, the clock is ticking.

Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

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Kate Middleton has worn $83,000 worth of clothes in 100 days

There are always defining moments in every Queen’s career, say when Elizabeth I stood before her troops at Tilbury in 1588 and gave one of British history’s most famously rousing speeches or in 1947 when the future Elizabeth II delivered her famous radio address from South Africa promising to dedicate her life to her job.

But for Kate, currently the Duchess of Cambridge and the future Queen Catherine, one of the most defining moments came on April 30 2011, the day after her wedding to Prince William, and her first full days as a bona fide member of the royal family.

Crossing the lawn at Buckingham Palace as the newlyweds made their way to a helicopter to whisk them off to start married, just what did Kate choose to wear? An $85 Zara dress.

The symbolism was clear: Kate might have snagged the prince, gotten herself a title and was now calling a palace home but she was the same woman as she had been 48 hours earlier. With one outfit she was making it clear to the world that she would do things her way of her and that despite her elevation to royal ranks, she remained firmly tethered to normal life.

It was a powerful and very canny move and a style strategy we have seen her wheel out again and again in the year since then.

So, what in the name of her extensive collection of tepid coat dresses has been going on of late?

According to my calculations, in the last 100 days Kate has worn more than $83,851 worth of readily identifiable clothes, shoes and jewellery, not including the number of bespoke designer pieces she has showcased, items that I could not find prices for or the value of. the royal jewelery she has worn. (If we added that all in we would easily be well into the six-figures, I reckon. Keep in mind too that members of the royal family cannot accept freebies either.)

What is clear if you pore over photos and details of the last three and a bit months is that over the course of the last 100 days there has been a very discernible shift in her wardrobe towards the much more costly.

Gone, by and large, are her high-street favourites, affordable pieces from mainstream British chains and in their place is an ever-growing roster of four-figure frocks and diamond earrings.

No look came with a higher price tag in this time period than her very chic, pared back ensemble for the Top Gun premiere with Kate opting for a $5,115 Roland Mouret dress, Prada heels, a $4,418 Alexander McQueen clutch and new $18,133 diamond earrings from Robinson Pelham.

While Kate did re-wear a number of pieces, most notably the white Alexander McQueen suit she first debuted during her and husband Prince William, Duke of Cambridge’s disastrous Caribbean tour and a striking Catherine Walker coat she first donned last year, these are all pieces that cost into the thousands. (There are no prices listed on the Catherine Walker website and you know what they say about having to ask how much something is…)

This is a sartorial tendency that extends to her in her off-duty hours too. Back in 2019 Kate was last photographed at the polo wearing a $740 LK Bennett dress. In July, the 40-year-old was back at watching her husband de ella working up a sweat playing a few chukkas but this time she chose a ladylike Emilia Wickstead number from the designer’s 2019 collection. Currently, a white sleeveless dress that is similar is selling for just under $2000.

Since early May, Kate has worn Alessandra Rich on multiple occasions (whose dresses start at about $2,511 and go up to more than $4,000), plenty of Emilia Wickstead, again costing in the thousands, and a variety of pairs of Emmy heels ($690 to pop) or Gianvitto Rossi pumps which come in at $1022 a pair.

The genius of Kate’s style for so long was her ability to seamlessly pair bargain items, such as the $3.95 earrings she chose for her first official event this year, with high end pieces, a perfect blend of the accessible and the aspirational.

What was so delightful about this was not just the demonstration of her fashion nous but the implication it carried; just because ella she could afford all the designer loot she could cart home from Bond Street did not mean ella she wanted to.

It all felt refreshing and just real and over the years the duchess’ regular choice of budget looks interspersed with the luxe carried with it the message that royal life had not fundamentally changed her as a person.

Which is why this emergence of this recent Kate who seems increasingly wedded to top tier labels only is a bit disquieting. To some degree I feel a certain sense of disappointment that one of the most meaningful ways she has, for more than a decade, set herself apart from the royal status quo seems to have disappeared.

(The only notable exception to this trend came on June 3 during a St Paul’s service during the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations when she accessorized her bespoke Emilia Wickstead yellow stunner, which would have set Kate back thousands, and her $2000-plus Philip Treacey hat with … at $34 clutch from homegrown Australian brand Forever New.)

Maybe what I really liked about the Zara-era Kate was that every time she got out of her official car for an engagement clad in a $27 dress it carried with it a certain wonderful sense of defiance and refusal to suddenly change who she was. The takeaway: she She might have a title but she was still Kate.

One way to explain the change in her wardrobe direction might be that it reflects the repositioning we have seen of William and Kate’s image in the last year, from plucky young ‘uns to future king and queen. The runway from where they are now, as working foot soldiers of the royal family, to their coronation inside Westminster Abbey is being very clearly laid out by the Palace, driving home a message of monarchical continuity as the Queen looks shakier and shakier.

Perhaps the argument has been made that it’s fine for a workday duchess to slip into a few pounds worth of polyester but not for a queen-in-waiting. Or perhaps Kate has just grown up a bit and like women the world over is now focusing more on better quality pieces she can wear more often.

But to some degree the ‘why’ does not matter here; what does is what flow-on effect this shift might have.

On a purely functional level, Kate’s deployment of modest clothes over the years went a very long way to making her seem uniquely relatable in a way no royal WAG has before. Now, the more she chooses out-for-reach for everyone but the super-rich labels, the more she risks eroding those gains and making herself into more of a remote figure.

For William and Kate to truly ensure that the royal family remains a thriving concern, they need to seem approachable.

The danger there is obvious – central to the brand the Cambridges’ have assiduously been trying to build is that they are the congenial, normal royals, the hardworking duo happily transforming The Firm from fusty, frosty and all-too grand into a powerhouse of do -goodery.

At a time when the UK is in the grip of a cost-of-living crisis, seeing the woman who has been sold as the refreshingly normal duchess-next-door gadding about the better part of a $100,000 worth of designer duds is a potentially dangerous and certainly ill-conceived move.

Closes might maketh the man but Zara could help maketh a queen.

Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

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The Queen: Summer Balmoral trip cut short, sparking fresh concern for the monarch’s health

Somewhere in Aberdeenshire there is a sad Shetland pony. Named Lance Corporal Cruachan IV, the diminutive equine usually gets one moment in the spotlight a year, an all-too-brief chance to bask in the glow of global media interest during which he occasionally tries to nip the Queen or eat her bouquet.

As the mascot of the Royal Regiment of Scotland, Cruachan IV usually, at this time of year, enjoys his starring role in the Regiment’s ceremonial welcome of Her Majesty to her Balmoral estate, a traditional outing involving bagpipes and lots of big smiles and which marks the official start of the sovereign’s summer holiday.

But this year both Cruachan IV and the Queen have been kept confined to barracks, so to speak.

This week it was reported that for “reasons of comfort” the ceremonial welcome happened in private but this is just the latest sign that the sovereign’s advancing years and ongoing health woes are posing an increasingly blatant impediment on usual schedule.

News that Her Majesty would not be enjoying her yearly face-to-face with Cruachan IV just tops off what has been a bit of a rotten start to her holiday; a holiday that is already shaping up to be something of a dud thanks to the machinations of Downing Street and her wayward family.

It was only at the tail end of the Queen’s summer holidays last year, a scant 12 months ago or thereabouts, that Buckingham Palace was busy touting what a packed autumn schedule of dozens and dozens of events were planned. The message was clear: The Queen is fighting fit and ready to Queen with some seriously impressive vigor and vim! Trips to Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland were planned as things geared up towards her big Jubilee year from her!

That ambitious plan then collided with the reality of a woman fast approaching her centenary and since October 2021 we have had one cancellation after another with the diminutive monarchy increasingly retreating from public view.

We did not see her in Scotland for Cop26, at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Day, on Commonwealth Day, Easter, at the State Opening of parliament or at the service of thanksgiving for her reign during her own Platinum Jubilee.

News that Her Majesty would not be facing down the bouquet-chomping Cruachan IV has only confirmed that things are changing, and fast, for the eleven irrepressible monarch.

However, this is the Queen we are talking about, a woman whose family has, in only the last few years, faced accusations of sexual abuse, racism, accepting millions of dollars from a controversial Middle Eastern politician and the brothers of Osama bin Laden and of “total neglect”.

The dark cloud over her vacation is that, in the months to come, Buckingham Palace faces all of these particular fires roaring back to full on blaze status.

It’s hard to think of a worse headline for any brand or business than one that ties them to the family of Bin Laden, but here we are thanks to Prince Charles and his seeming willingness to accept vast amounts of money for his Prince’s Trust charity from any stray billionaire.

In July it was reported that the Prince had accepted $1.7 million from the two of Bin Laden’s siblings, a shocking revelation that came only weeks after it was also reported by the Times he had accepted $1.7 million in cash stuffed in plastic shopping bags from a controversial Qatari politician.

Meanwhile, his former valet turned charity chief Michael Fawcett is still waiting to be questioned by Scotland Yard’s Special Inquiry Team after allegations of a cash-for-honours scheme embroiled Charles’ Clarence House last year.

Interestingly, the Prince of Wales has largely weathered these damaging reports and come out only slightly reputationally dinged, with the shocking claims have not really sparked any sort of public outcry.

The same likely won’t be able to be said when Prince Harry, the neophyte TV and podcast creator who is yet to actually, err, create anything, releases his memoir later this year.

If even a small percentage of the speculation about what he might reveal and what dirt he might dish is correct, this book is shaping up to be the most devastating royal release in 30 years and since Diana, Princess of Wales started whispering in the ear of Andrew Morton.

Given we are talking about Harry – a man who went on global TV screens alongside his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex to accuse The Firm of racism and neglectful treatment at a time when thousands were dying-a-day of Covid and while his 99- year-old grandfather was in hospital – does anyone really think all we are going to get is a feel-good read? Several hundred pages of self-important bleating and the occasional smoothie recipe thrown in?

In Tom Bower’s recently released Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War Between the Windsors he casts a particularly grim view.

He writes: “Most Britons could not understand Harry’s hostility towards his country and family. His disloyalty from him to his grandmother was particularly mystifying.

“No one realized how his hostility had grown during his conversations with John Moehringer, the ghostwriter of his memoirs. To secure vast sales and recoup the huge advance, the publishers had encouraged Harry to criticize his family of him in the most extreme terms possible. Easily persuaded, Harry edged towards betraying his father to him, Camilla, the Cambridges and even the Queen. And then, the deed was done. To earn out the publisher’s advance, nothing and no one had been sacrosanct.”

Or to paraphrase Macbeth, another disgruntled figure from royal circles, something very dangerous this way comes…

At this stage, all indications would point to Harry’s book potentially being the most painful chapter yet in the long and sorry tale of Megxit.

Then, there is another book, or at least the possibility of a book, that should be a very serious cause for concern for Her Majesty. Six months ago her son de ella Prince Andrew settled the civil sex abuse case brought against him by Virginia Giuffre with a payment that at the time was reported to be around $21 million. (The royal has always vehemently denied Ms Giuffre’s claims that he sexually assaulted her on three occasions when she was a teenager.)

this week The Sun reported that figure was allegedly much lower – somewhere between $5.1 and $8.6 million – and that “that was as much money the disgraced Duke could scrape together quickly to halt her civil lawsuit”.

The “cut-price deal”, according to the report, might explain why the mother-of-three Giuffre did not sign a nondisclosure agreement, meaning she is free to write a tell-all of her very own, any time she wants.

That there is even a skerrick of chance that this chapter, the most sordid and horrifying in modern royal history by far, could at any moment explode back into the headlines must be a cause for very serious concern.

All Andrew has ever done to try and manage this situation is given an appalling TV interview, showing an appealing deficiency of compassion or empathy for anyone but himself, put out a couple of statements and write a seven-figure check. If anyone thinks that this is in any case an adequate response and has drawn a definitive line under his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender, or that the public is ready to move on then they are deluding themselves.

The 62-year-old is still, and will likely always be, despised by much of the world and the appetite for seeing him embarrassed or raked over the coals is unlikely to diminish anytime soon. Cue 101 book publishers with dollar-signs in their eyes.

So too has Ms Giuffre shown a steely backbone and unwavering commitment to speaking about the horrors she experienced during her time with Epstein. There is no reason to believe that she will suddenly back down or go quiet now which leaves us with the very real possibility that she might release a book of her own from her at some point.

Even if all of these swirling worries weren’t enough to blight the Queen’s holiday, then there is the fact that she will have to cut her break short thanks to the fact that the UK will get a new Prime Minister next month. On September 6, Boris Johnson will formally resign and the Daily Mail has revealed that Her Majesty will “interrupt” her holiday to pop back to London where she will “invite”, in the quaint nomenclature of royalty, the winner of the Conservative party vote to form a government.

A source told the Email: “Her Majesty does not expect the new prime minister to travel to Scotland, so the plan is that the Queen will travel down to see them.”

So much for a regal break huh?

Balmoral is agreed to be Her Majesty’s favorite home where she used to enjoy long walks and getting out into nature but in recent years her time there has been blighted by a rolling series of crises. In 2019, August saw Harry and Meghan skip the family getaway to flit about Europe in private jets and then the suicide of Epstein. Come 2020, the pandemic was in full swing and she and Philip were cosseted inside HMS Bubble and last year the monarch faced her first summer de ella without her husband of 73-years.

The poor woman must be so tired. Not only is she still working, more than three decades after most people retire, but her family de ella is a source of never ending scandal and strain with things only looking like they are going to ramp up more.

If you ask me, and no one is, what Her Majesty needs right now is not another wet week wobbling over the moors and ruminating on how it all went wrong but needs to rally her lady-in-waiting of more than 60 years Lady Susan Hussey and abscond for a 72-hour all-inclusive gals weekend to Malaga.

Sun, sand, sangria and not having to think about all the brewing Windsor scandals? Now that’s a real holiday.

Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

.

Categories
Entertainment

The Queen: Summer Balmoral trip cut short, sparking fresh concern for the monarch’s health

Somewhere in Aberdeenshire there is a sad Shetland pony. Named Lance Corporal Cruachan IV, the diminutive equine usually gets one moment in the spotlight a year, an all-too-brief chance to bask in the glow of global media interest during which he occasionally tries to nip the Queen or eat her bouquet.

As the mascot of the Royal Regiment of Scotland, Cruachan IV usually, at this time of year, enjoys his starring role in the Regiment’s ceremonial welcome of Her Majesty to her Balmoral estate, a traditional outing involving bagpipes and lots of big smiles and which marks the official start of the sovereign’s summer holiday.

But this year both Cruachan IV and the Queen have been kept confined to barracks, so to speak.

This week it was reported that for “reasons of comfort” the ceremonial welcome happened in private but this is just the latest sign that the sovereign’s advancing years and ongoing health woes are posing an increasingly blatant impediment on usual schedule.

News that Her Majesty would not be enjoying her yearly face-to-face with Cruachan IV just tops off what has been a bit of a rotten start to her holiday; a holiday that is already shaping up to be something of a dud thanks to the machinations of Downing Street and her wayward family.

It was only at the tail end of the Queen’s summer holidays last year, a scant 12 months ago or thereabouts, that Buckingham Palace was busy touting what a packed autumn schedule of dozens and dozens of events were planned. The message was clear: The Queen is fighting fit and ready to Queen with some seriously impressive vigor and vim! Trips to Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland were planned as things geared up towards her big Jubilee year from her!

That ambitious plan then collided with the reality of a woman fast approaching her centenary and since October 2021 we have had one cancellation after another with the diminutive monarchy increasingly retreating from public view.

We did not see her in Scotland for Cop26, at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Day, on Commonwealth Day, Easter, at the State Opening of parliament or at the service of thanksgiving for her reign during her own Platinum Jubilee.

News that Her Majesty would not be facing down the bouquet-chomping Cruachan IV has only confirmed that things are changing, and fast, for the eleven irrepressible monarch.

However, this is the Queen we are talking about, a woman whose family has, in only the last few years, faced accusations of sexual abuse, racism, accepting millions of dollars from a controversial Middle Eastern politician and the brothers of Osama bin Laden and of “total neglect”.

The dark cloud over her vacation is that, in the months to come, Buckingham Palace faces all of these particular fires roaring back to full on blaze status.

It’s hard to think of a worse headline for any brand or business than one that ties them to the family of Bin Laden, but here we are thanks to Prince Charles and his seeming willingness to accept vast amounts of money for his Prince’s Trust charity from any stray billionaire.

In July it was reported that the Prince had accepted $1.7 million from the two of Bin Laden’s siblings, a shocking revelation that came only weeks after it was also reported by the Times he had accepted $1.7 million in cash stuffed in plastic shopping bags from a controversial Qatari politician.

Meanwhile, his former valet turned charity chief Michael Fawcett is still waiting to be questioned by Scotland Yard’s Special Inquiry Team after allegations of a cash-for-honours scheme embroiled Charles’ Clarence House last year.

Interestingly, the Prince of Wales has largely weathered these damaging reports and come out only slightly reputationally dinged, with the shocking claims have not really sparked any sort of public outcry.

The same likely won’t be able to be said when Prince Harry, the neophyte TV and podcast creator who is yet to actually, err, create anything, releases his memoir later this year.

If even a small percentage of the speculation about what he might reveal and what dirt he might dish is correct, this book is shaping up to be the most devastating royal release in 30 years and since Diana, Princess of Wales started whispering in the ear of Andrew Morton.

Given we are talking about Harry – a man who went on global TV screens alongside his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex to accuse The Firm of racism and neglectful treatment at a time when thousands were dying-a-day of Covid and while his 99- year-old grandfather was in hospital – does anyone really think all we are going to get is a feel-good read? Several hundred pages of self-important bleating and the occasional smoothie recipe thrown in?

In Tom Bower’s recently released Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War Between the Windsors he casts a particularly grim view.

He writes: “Most Britons could not understand Harry’s hostility towards his country and family. His disloyalty from him to his grandmother was particularly mystifying.

“No one realized how his hostility had grown during his conversations with John Moehringer, the ghostwriter of his memoirs. To secure vast sales and recoup the huge advance, the publishers had encouraged Harry to criticize his family of him in the most extreme terms possible. Easily persuaded, Harry edged towards betraying his father to him, Camilla, the Cambridges and even the Queen. And then, the deed was done. To earn out the publisher’s advance, nothing and no one had been sacrosanct.”

Or to paraphrase Macbeth, another disgruntled figure from royal circles, something very dangerous this way comes…

At this stage, all indications would point to Harry’s book potentially being the most painful chapter yet in the long and sorry tale of Megxit.

Then, there is another book, or at least the possibility of a book, that should be a very serious cause for concern for Her Majesty. Six months ago her son de ella Prince Andrew settled the civil sex abuse case brought against him by Virginia Giuffre with a payment that at the time was reported to be around $21 million. (The royal has always vehemently denied Ms Giuffre’s claims that he sexually assaulted her on three occasions when she was a teenager.)

this week The Sun reported that figure was allegedly much lower – somewhere between $5.1 and $8.6 million – and that “that was as much money the disgraced Duke could scrape together quickly to halt her civil lawsuit”.

The “cut-price deal”, according to the report, might explain why the mother-of-three Giuffre did not sign a nondisclosure agreement, meaning she is free to write a tell-all of her very own, any time she wants.

That there is even a skerrick of chance that this chapter, the most sordid and horrifying in modern royal history by far, could at any moment explode back into the headlines must be a cause for very serious concern.

All Andrew has ever done to try and manage this situation is given an appalling TV interview, showing an appealing deficiency of compassion or empathy for anyone but himself, put out a couple of statements and write a seven-figure check. If anyone thinks that this is in any case an adequate response and has drawn a definitive line under his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender, or that the public is ready to move on then they are deluding themselves.

The 62-year-old is still, and will likely always be, despised by much of the world and the appetite for seeing him embarrassed or raked over the coals is unlikely to diminish anytime soon. Cue 101 book publishers with dollar-signs in their eyes.

So too has Ms Giuffre shown a steely backbone and unwavering commitment to speaking about the horrors she experienced during her time with Epstein. There is no reason to believe that she will suddenly back down or go quiet now which leaves us with the very real possibility that she might release a book of her own from her at some point.

Even if all of these swirling worries weren’t enough to blight the Queen’s holiday, then there is the fact that she will have to cut her break short thanks to the fact that the UK will get a new Prime Minister next month. On September 6, Boris Johnson will formally resign and the Daily Mail has revealed that Her Majesty will “interrupt” her holiday to pop back to London where she will “invite”, in the quaint nomenclature of royalty, the winner of the Conservative party vote to form a government.

A source told the Email: “Her Majesty does not expect the new prime minister to travel to Scotland, so the plan is that the Queen will travel down to see them.”

So much for a regal break huh?

Balmoral is agreed to be Her Majesty’s favorite home where she used to enjoy long walks and getting out into nature but in recent years her time there has been blighted by a rolling series of crises. In 2019, August saw Harry and Meghan skip the family getaway to flit about Europe in private jets and then the suicide of Epstein. Come 2020, the pandemic was in full swing and she and Philip were cosseted inside HMS Bubble and last year the monarch faced her first summer de ella without her husband of 73-years.

The poor woman must be so tired. Not only is she still working, more than three decades after most people retire, but her family de ella is a source of never ending scandal and strain with things only looking like they are going to ramp up more.

If you ask me, and no one is, what Her Majesty needs right now is not another wet week wobbling over the moors and ruminating on how it all went wrong but needs to rally her lady-in-waiting of more than 60 years Lady Susan Hussey and abscond for a 72-hour all-inclusive gals weekend to Malaga.

Sun, sand, sangria and not having to think about all the brewing Windsor scandals? Now that’s a real holiday.

Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

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Entertainment

Queen snubs Meghan Markle and doesn’t publicly wish her a happy birthday

Normally, the royal family is thoroughly predictable. They do the same things, eat the same things, and turn up at the same places like Swiss-made precision clockwork.

Summers are for long weeks in Scotland, the Queen habitually sets up shop at her Sandringham estate from December until February 6, (the Christmas decorations stay up until then too) and she is reportedly woken up at the same time, 365 days a year. (At 7.30am by her maid bearing Earl Gray tea.) Queens don’t ever get sleep-ins it would seem.

Likewise, royal birthdays. If it’s a big one and involves one of her children de ella, there might be an Admiralty or an extra earldom on offer; in every other instance it’s a peppy social media post involving an emoji (which always looks a tad incongruous) and a £10 WH Smith voucher. (OK, the last one I’m just guessing.)

However last week, with no fanfare and little press coverage, the 96-year-old Queen broke with longstanding tradition for the 41st birthday of her granddaughter-in-law Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.

Her Majesty did…nothing.

Even in the treacherous years post Megxit, in 2020 and 2021, we have seen the @royalfamily account share posts marking the birthdays of Meghan, the couple’s son Archie and their daughter Lilibet.

Up until now, the most notable thing you could say about this seemingly set-in-stone practice was that the poor Buckingham Palace communications staffer tasked with the job has only ever had one photo of baby Archie and the Queen to work with to deploy every year.

But, whoa Nellie. Something has clearly changed because here we have the Queen essentially blanking Meghan on her birthday. (Or in the immortal words of Mariah Carey, “I don’t know her.”)

Since Meghan joined the official royal ranks in 2018, this is the first time that the palace has ignored the former Suits star on birthday, a marked departure from previous polite celebratory offerings.

What makes this situation such a puzzler is that up recently, the Queen’s strategy when it came to her bothersome grandson and his wife has been appeasement, with certain signs that Her Majesty was going out of her way to minimize tensions.

When Prince Harry, Meghan, Archie and Lili jetted into the UK for the Jubilee, according to the Sunthe nonagenarian arranged for three of her protection officers to collect the family and for a bulletproof car to take them to their UK home, Frogmore Cottage.

Later in June, it was revealed that the details of the inquiry, conducted by an outside law firm, into allegations that Meghan had bullied royal staffers was going to be “buried”. (The Duchess has always vehemently denied the claims of bullying.)

The reason, in part, for the surprise decision, was “to limit tensions between the Sussexes and the palace,” the Times reported.

Then in July, the Sun reported that Her Majesty has extended an invitation to the family to join her for a spell during her annual holiday. (Though the chances of them taking her up on it would surely have to be up there with Princess Michael of Kent getting on to OnlyFans.)

Leading up until Meghan’s birthday last week, there was no indication that this year’s big day would be different to every other, given that even last year, after the Sussexes’ dynamite Oprah Winfrey interview, she received warm social media wishes.

If popping up on global TV screens to lob accusations of racism, cruelty and of the palace life being abjectly miserable was not enough to mitigate Meghan getting a birthday post last year, what has changed? What gives?

The answer may or may not have something to do with Harry’s memoir, rumored to be hitting shelves in October.

In late July, the Sun reported that the manuscript was complete and publisher Penguin Random House’s lawyers had finished dotting the ‘i’s’ and crossing out the most libelous claims about the corgis (just kidding).

the Telegraph followed that up by reporting that while “the royal family or its lawyers have yet had sight of the completed manuscript” they might soon learn about some of what the 37-year-old has written because, “by convention, those potentially defamed in writing – including the royal family – are usually given a right to reply to accusations ahead of publication”.

While the sovereign herself is unlikely to come in for anything but paragraph after paragraph of obsequious praise, her son Prince Charles, daughter-in-law and next queen Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall and grandson Prince William might not be so lucky.

Since the beginning of the year, there has been nearly continuous reporting claiming that Harry may well target his stepmother.

The heir to the throne, it would seem, is already getting his starched and ironed knickers in a twist.

“Prince Charles’ operatives have been scrambling for months to find out what other bombshells await, but to no avail,” royal author Christopher Andersen told TheDailyBeast. “No one expected Harry’s book to be a Valentine to his relatives. But you get the sense in the wake of the Jubilee that now the gloves are truly off.”

The prospect remains that while the Sussexes’ Oprah blitzkrieg was hugely damaging for Buckingham Palace, they still managed to largely withstand the strike. Hundreds of pages of revelations and detailed, lengthy disclosures about royal family life and palace operation could be another kettle of fish entirely.

After all, this is the very first sensational tell-all written by someone who was born into the royal family since fellow exile the Duke of Windsor (Edward VIII) published his tell-all A Royal Life, albeit 15 years after his abdication. (Yes, I know the Duke of Kent published a memoir earlier this year called, err, A Royal Lifebut I’m not sure if anyone aside from the Duchess of Kent has actually read it.)

As Duncan Larcombe, The Sun’s former royal editor, put it when speaking to TheDailyBeast: “The reality is that if, as a senior member of the royal family, you have written a tell-all book, you have broken rule number one of the royal family.”

Richard Palmer, royal correspondent for the Express, has offered up another theory, reporting that the absence of any sort of warm wishes for Meghan was down to a change in palace policy and that the royal family “will only mark the birthdays of non-working members of the family when they end in a zero.” The test of this will come on Monday, UK time, when Princess Beatrice turns 34.

Even if this new birthday arrangement is the case, the fact that Buckingham Palace chose Meghan’s birthday as the time to put the new strategy into effect is seriously eyebrow-raising.

The bottom line is that no matter why @royalfamily decided to give Meghan the brush-off, being the first non-working member of the House of Windsor to come in for a regal blanking on their birthday, has some serious sting in the tail.

After all, if Her Majesty had been concerned that cold-shouldering the LA native might inflame tensions, or wanted to keep the peace with the fractious Sussexes, surely the palace would have waited to roll this new social media approach until after the Duchess’ birthday . No one is going to get up in arms or write news stories if Beatrice’s special day goes unmarked now, are they?

While the Queen is currently at Balmoral, settling into the big house after spending two weeks in Craigowan Cottage elsewhere on the estate, there are some choppy seas ahead for the royal family. Between September and Christmas, there will be the release of Harry’s book, the debut Sussexes’ “at home” docuseries for Netflix, the new season of The Crown focusing on the Diana years in the ’90s, the publication of books by two highly credible royal reporting veterans (Valentine Low, who broke the Meghan bullying story, and Angela Levin), the possibility that Prince Andrew’s accuser Virginia Giuffre could write her own tell -all and the ongoing fallout from Charles’ various questionable financial dealings in regards to his charity, including accepting a $1.7 million donation from a brother of Osama bin Laden.

It’s a list that seems to perpetually grow ever longer and ever more brow-furrowing for the royal house.

In 2016, Princess Eugenie told a documentary of the Queen’s Scottish estate: “I think Granny is the most happy there… You just have room to breathe and run.”

For Her Majesty, some long, deep breaths sound like a tip-top idea right now.

Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

Read related topics:Meghan Markle Queen Elizabeth II

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Categories
Entertainment

Queen snubs Meghan Markle and doesn’t publicly wish her a happy birthday

Normally, the royal family is thoroughly predictable. They do the same things, eat the same things, and turn up at the same places like Swiss-made precision clockwork.

Summers are for long weeks in Scotland, the Queen habitually sets up shop at her Sandringham estate from December until February 6, (the Christmas decorations stay up until then too) and she is reportedly woken up at the same time, 365 days a year. (At 7.30am by her maid bearing Earl Gray tea.) Queens don’t ever get sleep-ins it would seem.

Likewise, royal birthdays. If it’s a big one and involves one of her children de ella, there might be an Admiralty or an extra earldom on offer; in every other instance it’s a peppy social media post involving an emoji (which always looks a tad incongruous) and a £10 WH Smith voucher. (OK, the last one I’m just guessing.)

However last week, with no fanfare and little press coverage, the 96-year-old Queen broke with longstanding tradition for the 41st birthday of her granddaughter-in-law Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.

Her Majesty did…nothing.

Even in the treacherous years post Megxit, in 2020 and 2021, we have seen the @royalfamily account share posts marking the birthdays of Meghan, the couple’s son Archie and their daughter Lilibet.

Up until now, the most notable thing you could say about this seemingly set-in-stone practice was that the poor Buckingham Palace communications staffer tasked with the job has only ever had one photo of baby Archie and the Queen to work with to deploy every year.

But, whoa Nellie. Something has clearly changed because here we have the Queen essentially blanking Meghan on her birthday. (Or in the immortal words of Mariah Carey, “I don’t know her.”)

Since Meghan joined the official royal ranks in 2018, this is the first time that the palace has ignored the former Suits star on birthday, a marked departure from previous polite celebratory offerings.

What makes this situation such a puzzler is that up recently, the Queen’s strategy when it came to her bothersome grandson and his wife has been appeasement, with certain signs that Her Majesty was going out of her way to minimize tensions.

When Prince Harry, Meghan, Archie and Lili jetted into the UK for the Jubilee, according to the Sunthe nonagenarian arranged for three of her protection officers to collect the family and for a bulletproof car to take them to their UK home, Frogmore Cottage.

Later in June, it was revealed that the details of the inquiry, conducted by an outside law firm, into allegations that Meghan had bullied royal staffers was going to be “buried”. (The Duchess has always vehemently denied the claims of bullying.)

The reason, in part, for the surprise decision, was “to limit tensions between the Sussexes and the palace,” the Times reported.

Then in July, the Sun reported that Her Majesty has extended an invitation to the family to join her for a spell during her annual holiday. (Though the chances of them taking her up on it would surely have to be up there with Princess Michael of Kent getting on to OnlyFans.)

Leading up until Meghan’s birthday last week, there was no indication that this year’s big day would be different to every other, given that even last year, after the Sussexes’ dynamite Oprah Winfrey interview, she received warm social media wishes.

If popping up on global TV screens to lob accusations of racism, cruelty and of the palace life being abjectly miserable was not enough to mitigate Meghan getting a birthday post last year, what has changed? What gives?

The answer may or may not have something to do with Harry’s memoir, rumored to be hitting shelves in October.

In late July, the Sun reported that the manuscript was complete and publisher Penguin Random House’s lawyers had finished dotting the ‘i’s’ and crossing out the most libelous claims about the corgis (just kidding).

the Telegraph followed that up by reporting that while “the royal family or its lawyers have yet had sight of the completed manuscript” they might soon learn about some of what the 37-year-old has written because, “by convention, those potentially defamed in writing – including the royal family – are usually given a right to reply to accusations ahead of publication”.

While the sovereign herself is unlikely to come in for anything but paragraph after paragraph of obsequious praise, her son Prince Charles, daughter-in-law and next queen Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall and grandson Prince William might not be so lucky.

Since the beginning of the year, there has been nearly continuous reporting claiming that Harry may well target his stepmother.

The heir to the throne, it would seem, is already getting his starched and ironed knickers in a twist.

“Prince Charles’ operatives have been scrambling for months to find out what other bombshells await, but to no avail,” royal author Christopher Andersen told TheDailyBeast. “No one expected Harry’s book to be a Valentine to his relatives. But you get the sense in the wake of the Jubilee that now the gloves are truly off.”

The prospect remains that while the Sussexes’ Oprah blitzkrieg was hugely damaging for Buckingham Palace, they still managed to largely withstand the strike. Hundreds of pages of revelations and detailed, lengthy disclosures about royal family life and palace operation could be another kettle of fish entirely.

After all, this is the very first sensational tell-all written by someone who was born into the royal family since fellow exile the Duke of Windsor (Edward VIII) published his tell-all A Royal Life, albeit 15 years after his abdication. (Yes, I know the Duke of Kent published a memoir earlier this year called, err, A Royal Lifebut I’m not sure if anyone aside from the Duchess of Kent has actually read it.)

As Duncan Larcombe, The Sun’s former royal editor, put it when speaking to TheDailyBeast: “The reality is that if, as a senior member of the royal family, you have written a tell-all book, you have broken rule number one of the royal family.”

Richard Palmer, royal correspondent for the Express, has offered up another theory, reporting that the absence of any sort of warm wishes for Meghan was down to a change in palace policy and that the royal family “will only mark the birthdays of non-working members of the family when they end in a zero.” The test of this will come on Monday, UK time, when Princess Beatrice turns 34.

Even if this new birthday arrangement is the case, the fact that Buckingham Palace chose Meghan’s birthday as the time to put the new strategy into effect is seriously eyebrow-raising.

The bottom line is that no matter why @royalfamily decided to give Meghan the brush-off, being the first non-working member of the House of Windsor to come in for a regal blanking on their birthday, has some serious sting in the tail.

After all, if Her Majesty had been concerned that cold-shouldering the LA native might inflame tensions, or wanted to keep the peace with the fractious Sussexes, surely the palace would have waited to roll this new social media approach until after the Duchess’ birthday . No one is going to get up in arms or write news stories if Beatrice’s special day goes unmarked now, are they?

While the Queen is currently at Balmoral, settling into the big house after spending two weeks in Craigowan Cottage elsewhere on the estate, there are some choppy seas ahead for the royal family. Between September and Christmas, there will be the release of Harry’s book, the debut Sussexes’ “at home” docuseries for Netflix, the new season of The Crown focusing on the Diana years in the ’90s, the publication of books by two highly credible royal reporting veterans (Valentine Low, who broke the Meghan bullying story, and Angela Levin), the possibility that Prince Andrew’s accuser Virginia Giuffre could write her own tell -all and the ongoing fallout from Charles’ various questionable financial dealings in regards to his charity, including accepting a $1.7 million donation from a brother of Osama bin Laden.

It’s a list that seems to perpetually grow ever longer and ever more brow-furrowing for the royal house.

In 2016, Princess Eugenie told a documentary of the Queen’s Scottish estate: “I think Granny is the most happy there… You just have room to breathe and run.”

For Her Majesty, some long, deep breaths sound like a tip-top idea right now.

Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

Read related topics:Meghan Markle Queen Elizabeth II

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Categories
Entertainment

Sad sign Prince Harry’s new book is going to target the Queen

The pen, at least according to playwright Edward Bulwer-Lytton, is mightier than the sword but then I suppose eight-figure book deals didn’t exist in 1839 when he was busy jotting down that famous line.

Because he thinks, whether a badly chewed Bic or a Mont Blanc, might be powerful – but a humungous deal with the world’s largest publisher is even mightier still.

Currently, in some secretive computer drive protected by a password only marginally stronger than that protecting the nuclear codes, is the manuscript of Prince Harry’s memoir. Reportedly set to be released before the end of the year, the author himself has promised that he would be writing “not as the Prince I was born but as the man I have become”.

And that man have you become? Well, that man looks like he has quite the ax to grind, with new clues suggesting his book of him could be even more of a Buckingham Palace-rattling doozy than he previously thought.

The question that has started to take shape is this: Is Harry about to ‘betray’ the Queen once and for all?

Since bailing on palace life to swan around California in hulking four-wheel drives and to pay energetic lip service to the notion of service, Harry and his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex have obviously done their darnedest to become the loudest and most vociferous critics of the royal family since the English Civil War.

But still, even in the face of all that, some ties with the monarchy mothership, and especially with Her Majesty, have held. After all, the Sussexes were there, albeit in the literal and figurative second row, back in June for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee and they paid the 96-year-old a quickie visit back in April when they were on their way to the Netherlands.

But that was then and this is now.

As the clock ticks down to the launch of Harry’s book, will – or even can – this fragile tie hold once his autobiography lands with a thud?

‘Nothing is sacrosanct’ in Harry’s memoir

For months now there have been reports speculating about what revelations and criticisms the Duke might have been busy scribbling in his ‘My First Tell-All’ notebook.

Tom Bower, in his newly released Revenge: Meghan, Harry And The War Between The Windsorsmakes the case that “nothing and no one” have been held “sacrosanct” by Harry in writing his book.

Uh oh… let’s hope the corgis and dorgis haven’t learned to read.

Rewind to February 6 this year, Her Majesty’s Accession Day, when the Queen made the unexpected announcement that it was her “sincere wish” that her daughter-in-law Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall would be crowned alongside her son Prince Charles.

Bower writes that in the wake of the Camilla news, “any doubts about Harry’s antagonism towards his country and family were dismissed by his stony silence” on the matter and that his “refusal to acknowledge the Queen’s decision foreshadowed the problems to come”.

According to Bower: “Occasionally, [Harry] seemed willing to betray every value he formerly held dear. No one realized how his hostility to him had grown during his conversations with John Moehringer, the ghostwriter of his memoirs of him.

“To earn the estimated advance of about $US20 million ($A28.8 million), Harry would be expected to give Moehringer emotional confessions and secret details. These would settle his scores with his family and friends with him. ”

“Among the targets besides William, Kate and Charles would be Camilla. Meghan had identified her as racist.”

In revengeBower writes that the Duke of Sussex was “[edging] towards betraying” some of the people he had been closest to.

“To secure vast sales and recoup the huge advance, the publishers had encouraged Harry to criticize his family in the most extreme terms possible,” Bower said. “Easily persuaded, Harry edged towards betraying his father, Camilla, the Cambridges and even the Queen. And then, the deed was done. To earn out the publisher’s advance, nothing and no one had been sacrosanct.”

It is that last sentence that is the most ominous.

If what Bower reports is correct, then it sounds like the Duke of Sussex’s book could go even further than the denunciations of the monarchy and his family that he and Meghan have wheeled out thus far. (You know, the sensational charges of palace racism, “total neglect” and a callous disregard for the wellbeing of The Firm’s most vulnerable members.)

Who is in Harry’s firing line?

Meanwhile, elsewhere, the Daily Mail‘s very well connected Richard Kay has reported that “there is considerable anxiety in Buckingham Palace circles that Harry, 37, will use the memoir to settle perceived scores with family members and senior courtiers.”

“It is the disintegration of the bond between him and William over the past three years which has so alarmed courtiers.”

One person who has routinely been named as a possible target of Harry’s literary ire is Camilla.

According to Kay, “Five years ago, long before he had thought about writing a book, Harry invited friends of his mother to share memories and private photographs of her.

“One at least had a lengthy discussion with him about Camilla.”

“It was pretty clear that he did not have a high opinion of her,” Diana’s friend later told Kay. “He wasn’t very complimentary about her and I very much doubt he forgot what we talked about that day.”

Blow to the heart of the monarchy

If you take Bower and Kay’s claims together, then it is looking increasingly like the seemingly perma-disgruntled Prince will be pulling no punches on the page when it comes to his family and the monarchy.

And what that means is that, even if he only writes in the most glowing and affectionate terms about his grandmother herself, his memoir could be an abject betrayal of Her Majesty.

Should Harry spend a chunk of his book taking aim at particular family members and various pinstriped staffers who run the royal dog-and-pony show, that would still constitute a strike against the woman who is the head of both the House of Windsor and the institution of the monarchy.

Anything that humiliates or undermines the monarchy indirectly humiliates or undermines the Top Lady (as Diana called her mother-in-law).

Or to quote Louis XIV, “l’etat, c’est Moi,” which translates to “the state is me”.

If Harry does go down this route, then it would be a watershed moment, the sort of line to which there is a very clear ‘before’ and a dramatically different ‘after’.

In this scenario, it is hard to see how he could ever go back in any sense.

In early 2021, Harry appeared on James Corden’s Late Late Show in a dignity-defying appearance (who could ever forget him asking a complete stranger if he could use their loo?) and revealed that the Queen had given the Sussex family a waffle maker for Christmas. This year, will any household appliances be winging their way from Windsor to California?

So, so much is on the line with this book and it might turn out that in 2022, a huge check might end up being the mightiest force of them all.

Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

Read related topics:Prince HarryQueen Elizabeth II

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Kate and William at Commonwealth Games shows where Meghan went wrong

Of all the gin joints, chintzy drawing rooms, Chelsea pub back rooms, Norfolk kitchens, and private members’ clubs in the UK; of all possible backdrops for a couple of deeply illuminating royal moments, whoever would have thought the 22nd Commonwealth Games in Birmingham would be it?

The first one took place outside a train toilet. really.

Matthew Syed is a journalist and Commonwealth Games gold medal winner – for table tennis, no less. This week, he and his son Ted were traveling to the Games to catch the action and he took to the pages of the Times to recount a truly extraordinary tale about the trip.

“Five minutes before pulling into [the Birmingham station], I use the bathroom (we are traveling first class) as Ted waits outside. As I am doing my thing, I hear him talking to a woman in the vestibule.

“They continue chatting as I use the soap, then tap, then dryer. Judging by the laughter, they are having a whale of a time… By the time I am finished, we are only a couple of minutes from the station.

“’Come on Ted,’ I say, ‘we have to get off!’

“’Oh, and thanks for keeping him company,’ I say, turning to the woman waiting [for] her turn when I am stopped in my tracks. My brow furrows, my face works. ‘Kate?’ I blurt out. There are no security guards in the vestibule; not armed guards. But here is the Duchess of Cambridge, chatting merrily with my son.”

Then we get to our second moment, starring Kate’s husband, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge in a chlorine-soaked aquatic center.

On Tuesday, the Duke, the Duchess and their daughter Princess Charlotte attended the swimming. While sitting in the middle of the crowd, he happily posed for a selfie with a group of Games volunteers who were seated in front of him.

Now, both of these instances could be filed under ‘Aw, aren’t they lovely?’ examples of two people who might be destined for coronations and crowns but who have not let their elevated status turn their heads.

But, this all comes after the publication of Tom Bower’s Revenge: Meghan, Harry And The War Between The Windsorsa 464-page full-frontal take-down of Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

And this week’s William and Kate stories? Those two, simple, brief interactions with the public? Well, they go a way to underscoring one of his key arguments about him, which is that Meghan’s expectations of royal life were a world away from the often unglamorous reality. Think, more making polite chitchat outside a public loo than private jets and Pol Roger.

At the heart of Bower’s book is the contention that when Meghan, clad in several hundred thousand dollars worth of couture Givenchy, made her way up the aisle of the 15th century St George’s Chapel at Windsor, she had little understanding of, or interest in learning about, the fabled institution she was joining.

Having, for so many long years, failed to claw her way out of the B-list, here she was, finally, about to become one of the most famous women in the world. The case that Bower makes is that the California native’s assumptions about what would follow were markedly different from what was, in actual fact, about to come next.

In Bower’s telling, even before the opening strains of Handel’s Eternal Source Of Light Divinewhich played as she made her way towards the altar, things were going off the rails.

Pre-engagement, when the couple was dating, Bower says that after “Harry’s demand for a dedicated female bodyguard for Meghan had been approved” that on one occasion, he met the Duke “on the tarmac at Heathrow with a police escort”.

“Meghan sped out of the airport towards Kensington. This was indeed the super-celebrity lifestyle for which she had always yearned.”

Then in the run-up to the big day, Meghan already “was confusing being famous with being a royal,” he writes. However, “the royal world is expected to be one of altruism, history, tradition and low-key patronage for no personal gain.”

Meghan’s misconception, in Bower’s reading of the situation, is that she fundamentally mistook the global fame of the royal family with Hollywood stardom, not grasping that, despite having become a Duchess and been catapulted to the highest stratosphere of stardom, she was not therefore automatically entitled to Beyonce-worthy treatment.

Take the issue of luxury gifts. Bower writes: “Palace gossip related that the publicity departments of some famous designer labels – Chanel, Dior, Armani, Givenchy and others – had been surprised by calls from a member of Meghan’s staff with a request: Meghan would be delighted if the House were to bequeath a handbag, shoes or an accessory to Kensington Palace in the near future. These items would be treated as goodwill gifts, the publicists were told. The women were puzzled by what they called ‘the Duchess’s discount’.

“In the past, their offers of gifts to Kate had been rejected on principle that the royal family did not accept freebies. Meghan’s staff, it appeared, were not worried about that rule.”

The veteran biographer writes that it would only be in 2019 that the Duchess “began to understand that the British monarchy, costing the public just £85 million ($A148 million) a year, was neither flush with money nor an invincible luxury Rolls-Royce machine. The power and influence which she assumed to have acquired from her marriage to Harry was an illusion.”

In the summer of that same year, one particular Meghan incident made international headlines. Attending Wimbledon with a couple of friends, their party de ella sat in the middle of a sea of ​​empty seats for a match, unlike when Kate regularly attended and took her place de ella in the stands, sitting in the midst of other tennis fans.

At one stage during the match, when a man sitting in the section in front of Meghan’s, got up to take a selfie of himself with the players, one of the Duchess’ protection officers “warned him about taking pictures in her vicinity,” according to the Daily Mail.

Former BBC sports commentator Sally Jones was also courtside.

“I felt this tap on my shoulder and was asked not to take pictures of the Duchess – but I had no idea she was there until then. I was absolutely gobsmacked,” Jones told the Email.

That Meghan took umbrage (or someone on her team took umbrage) at anyone trying to take her picture, despite that she had chosen to sit in a public place, where there were live TV cameras, looked all too much like suspiciously diva-ish behaviour. .

Contrast that scene with the events this week in Birmingham: In each instance, we have members of the royal family, at sporting events yet demonstrating two starkly different approaches to royalty.

At the end of the day, what William and Kate seem to fundamentally understand is that royalty is not the same thing as celebrity; it is not about special treatment, favorable seats or four-figure accessories finding their way into your wardrobe, free. It is about tedious devotion to duty no matter how repetitive or dull it might often be. (How many times do you think the Queen has asked, “And what do you do?” In her life de ella? I think we could confidently say the figure would have to be in the hundreds of thousands.)

The meat and potatoes of royal life is not swanning off to New York for an A-list baby shower held in a $100,000-a-night hotel suite but sitting through hospital wing openings and charming pensioners.

Really, HRHs are part public servants, albeit ones who don’t have to contend with home brand tea bags in the office kitchen, and part politicians stuck on lifelong hustings, forever trying to win the public over one handshake and smile at a time.

None of this is any sort of secret; none of this is insider knowledge. So why wasn’t Meghan better prepared?

One of the points that the Duchess of Sussex made during the Sussexes’ infamous Oprah Winfrey interview last year was that she “didn’t do any research about what that would mean” to marry into the royal family.

“I didn’t feel any need to, because everything I needed to know, he was sharing with me. Everything we thought I needed to know, he was telling me,” Meghan said.

That turned out to be a bit of a mistake now kids, didn’t it?

That an intelligent, educated woman would give up her career, adopted homeland, one of her dogs, and all of her friends to move across the world to dedicate her life to an ancient institution she knew nothing about defies all logic.

If she had done even a cursory Google search, she might have come across an excellent piece that Patrick Jephson, Diana, Princess of Wales’ long-time private secretary, had written way back in 2006 called “What Kate Should Know” in which he imagined what advice his old boss might give the younger woman.

Jepshon argues that the Princess would have urged Kate, that “modesty must be your watchword” and to “go easy on the conspicuous consumption”.

He writes: “Remember that living in a very big house surrounded by servants and riding in a gold carriage are all the excess that your future subjects will readily tolerate in their royal family. Don’t overlook the priceless symbolic value of Tupperware boxes, and try to develop a famous enthusiasm for turning off unnecessary electric lights.”

The piece (you can read it here) is basically a very sensible warning: Don’t let the gilded trappings of royalty go to your head. Understand the job for what it really is and get on with it.

If only Meghan had read Jephson’s piece; if only she had gone into royal life with a much clearer sense of what she was signing up for. That’s not to say ella she should have swallowed it holus bolus once she got there or not have tried to inject at least something fresh into the creaky monarchy – but forewarned is forearmed.

If Meghan had done a spot of Googling, she might also have come across the famous essay written by the journalist and satirist Malcolm Muggeridge in 1955 at the height of Princess Margaret’s fling with Group Captain Peter Townsend. In the piece, Muggeridge argued that “the application of film star techniques” to the royal family would ultimately have “disastrous consequences”.

He also said that the monarchy was “an institution that is accorded the respect and accoutrements of power without the reality”.

And, if the former Suits star had read a bit more still, she would have learned that the reaction to Muggeridge’s essay was so swift and furious it forced him out of the Garrick Club. (What a horrendous!)

Taking on the monarchy is not for the faint-hearted but joining it? That’s for people happy to take trains, make small talk with the public and to pretend to like watching competitive bowls.

Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

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Sports

Sad milestone in Princess Charlotte video

I’m going to make an argument that might make you scoff: To be born a prince or princess in

the British royal family would be a rotten fate.

Oh yes, I know about the castles, the family’s $645 million wealth and the just under $3 billion trusts which only some members hav access to, not to mention the indescribably vast collection of jewels including questionable Romanov pieces, rubies the size of quail’s eggs and that their Gan Gan owns the world’s largest private collection.

To live life, from your first squalling breath, as an HRH means nearly unthinkable privilege, far too much venison and always getting to board a RyanAir flight first.

But, it would still be a rubbish life.

Exhibit A) the video released by William and Kate, Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s Instagram and Twitter accounts on Sunday night ahead of England’s Lioness soccer team playing in the Euro 2022 final. There the duke sat in some bucolic garden somewhere in England of the sort that Beatrix Potter would have given her best bonnet to sketch. On his knee he sat Princess Charlotte, age seven-years-old, with what looked like a plastered-on, slightly forced smile.

You can see her eyes dart off to the side, possibly to her mother the duchess who, as we know, is a dab hand with a camera. William wishes the team luck before Charlotte gets to deliver her line from Ella at the end, saying “Good luck, I hope you win, bye,” and offering a cheery wave.

It’s short, sweet and should be nothing more than a source of a few million more likes.

Except that, watching the video, something occurred to me. Here we have the future king delivering his lines with genuine warmth and enthusiasm and a small child staring down the barrel of a totally new sort of royal childhood, one where she and brothers Prince George and Prince Louis won’t just be obliged to occasionally appear. in public but will be required to help churn out the social content needed to keep the monarchy afloat.

Sure, all royal kidlets, including a cherubic Queen in the 1920s, have been rolled out to charm and delight the masses, tiny curiosities, waving gamely, that the press could slap on their front pages with glee abandon.

However, what sets the youngest Cambridges totally apart is that they are now also required to help their parents keep the pipeline of photos and videos for social media purposes coming.

Not only are George, Charlotte and Louis already expected to take part in key ceremonial family moments but on top of that, their childhoods are going to be intruded upon in an unprecedented way in the royal annals all in the name of likes, retweets and views .

You can already, clearly, see this pattern emerging if you contrast William and Charlotte at seven.

The year the prince was that age, he took part in the carriage procession for Trooping the Color and the later Buckingham Palace balcony waving session, appeared at the Beating Retreat military parade, and was photographed attending two weddings (his uncle, now the Earl Spencer , and that of the Duke of Hussey’s daughter) and alongside his brother Prince Harry on the younger boy’s first day at school.

Contrast that with the 12-months to date for Charlotte. In August last year she appeared in a Duke and Duchess of Cambridge Instagram post about a conservation effort called the Big Butterfly Count; there was the family’s Christmas card image, snapped during a private holiday to Jordan, that was shared widely; she attended the memorial service for her de ella Great Grandfather Prince Philip in March and the royal easter service in April, before the usual birthday shots of her were released in May.

Come June, Charlotte and her siblings took part in their first Trooping the Colour, did the balcony waving thing, undertook her first official engagement with her parents and George in Cardiff where she participated in an official walkabout, before taking center stage with her family during the Platinum Jubilee Pageant, along with filming a video baking cakes with Kate, George and Louis.

Also in June, the Cambridge Three appeared in a sweet family shot, taken in Jordan, that was posted to mark UK Father’s Day.

Sure, the young Cambridges may never know the hell of being chased by the paparazzi, but often in the coming months and years we are very likely only going to more regularly see their small faces popping up on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook feeds. (A gambling woman would put money on William and Kate making a foray onto TikTok soon too.)

For the duke and duchess, being on most of the major platforms means they have agreed to a post-industrialist Faustian bargain. They can plug their brand of royalty – an accessible, warm and relatable one – directly to Britons via the most powerful marketing platforms ever created. The cost? They have to energetically and regularly generate the sort of personal and intimate photos and videos that are expected in these environments, that is, they are going to have to serve up their children at times.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, about 160 years ago, had the canny idea of ​​remaking the monarchy’s image by marketing their own family unit (and all nine children). This they did by releasing photos of what had hitherto been entirely personal moments such as christenings and the family on holiday. (In the 1860s, tens of thousands of copies of souvenir photos called carte-de-visites of the family were sold in the UK.)

This is a very similar strategy to the one that William and Kate are pursuing now, with their Happy Normal Family routine one of the building blocks of Cambridge Inc.

Cast your mind back to April last year when the duo released a totally unexpected departure of a video of the family gambolling on a beach, playing in a pristine garden and roasting marshmallows, to mark the duke and duchess’ tenth wedding anniversary.

The whole thing looked and felt like a commercial for a luxury station wagon, complete with atmospheric guitar music.

That was not an accident because fundamentally, William and Kate’s job comes down to the same thing a German car brand does: selling. In their case, selling the UK on a hereditary monarchy again and again to ensure it survives well into the 21st and 22nd centuries.

And, while every generation of royal parents have made their children accessible to the world via whatever the new technology of the day is, before now there was at least some sort of line between their private and public selves.

What sets George, Charlotte and Louis apart is that that distinction, that line, has quietly blurred in the last couple of years. We have seen content shot during family holidays, while ensconced on their private estates and after school in the Kensington Palace garden, shared on social media by their parents.

Obviously William and Kate are deeply protective of their children but they also have a responsibility to the monarchy too and that means embracing whatever new marketing weapons they can add to their arsenal.

Social media is a beast that must be fed and in recent years William and Kate have seriously upped their game on this front, hiring David Wakins, who formerly ran the Sussex Royal social media accounts, and launching a YouTube channel with a charming sizzle reel of sorts.

We are now served up, via the various Cambridge accounts, made-for-social content to promote their good works or news, such as when Kate was named as the Patron of the Rugby Football League and Rugby Football Union in February, with Kensington Palace putting out a sweet 30 second video starring the duchess amongst others.

These days it is hours, at the very most, after they attend any sort of engagement or event that videos and/or multiple images taken by the Cambridge team are posted, chirpily informing the world of what they have been up to and increasingly offering behind -the-scenes access.

Take their recent, somewhat disastrous tour of the Caribbean where they paid for their own photographer Matt Porteous to record their trip and where the couple’s digital team put out daily videos and photo montages.

A video of them scuba diving, shot by Porteous, to view marine conservation work was an interesting first – an official engagement conducted while the credentialed press pack were nowhere in sight and which was exclusively shared with the world via social media.

Clearly, William and Kate are devoting time, energy and budgetary resources to building up their social media presence as they inch ever closer to the throne but that is a path that involves their kids, whether any of them like it or not. (I’d wager it’s the latter.)

To be seven-years-old and on school holidays, and yet to be expected to take a break from your childhood to record a video in service of an ancient, stultifying institution? I’m not sure there are enough emeralds in the world to make up for that.

Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

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Entertainment

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s unprecedented pressure after 12 hellish days

The very best thing about being Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex, right now, as far as I can tell, is that no one is going to make them go to Birmingham. On Friday, the Commonwealth Games opened in the Midlands city and in the coming days, various members of the royal family will be sent forth to do their flag-waving best.

Never mind that much of Europe is busy slathering on the SPF 50 or that the Queen has begun her usual summer hols or that the beaches of Mustique are calling. To be a working member of the British monarchy this week requires that all available HRHs front up while looking jolly pleased to have to wear a Team GB polo shirt and watch badminton.

Having absconded more than two and a half years ago for sunnier climes and fatter bank accounts, this sort of tedious duty is no longer part of the Sussexes’ lives.

Small mercies, huh?

However, aside from the fact that the couple won’t have to contend with so much polyester and so many hours of archery anytime soon, things are not exactly looking that rosy over Montecito way, with the couple having taken hit after hit over the last 12 days or so.

Rewind to July 18 and Harry and Meghan were jetting into New York where they had an appointment at the UN, with the duke having been asked to give the address to mark Nelson Mandela Day. In the couple strode to the famed building’s foyer, a masterful demonstration of what has become a hallmark of their post-royal careers – purposefully marching into the important buildings for supposedly important meetings and events after which … nothing much would seem to happen.

Anyway, they were back! Back at doing their quasi-royal darnedest! Harry had a speech, Meghan had a Jackie O-esque black dress – what could possibly go wrong?

Well, for one thing, not that many people turned up. As the Duke of Sussex gave his address to him, talking about climate change (conveniently forgetting that the family uses private jets on the reg), disinformation and abortion rights (all the good stars on these fronts) the vast majority of the seats were visibly empty.

For whatever reason, the bulk of the great and good of the international body would seem to have decided to be elsewhere and not watch the sixth in line to the throne have a crack at international statesmanship. (Maybe the UN cafeteria was serving waffles?)

If Harry looked grim when the couple was caught by the paparazzi leaving Italian restaurant Locanda Verde, he had every reason to look sour. That week saw the publication of biographer Tom Bower’s Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War Between the Windsors.

Bower’s book is a largely unrelenting, highly unflattering take on the Sussexes, casting them as fueled by ego and some misguided notion that Meghan was going to be Diana mark two, aside from the fact that, in the biographer’s telling, she seemed to have no interest in the monarchy, no willingness to learn its fusty ropes and little enthusiasm for the boring parts of HRH-dom.

As the week progressed, Bower did the press rounds, offering a series of caustic takes including that he thought “they pose a real threat to the royal family” and labeling the duchess “a very scheming” person.

What is surprising has been the reaction from Montecito, with the Sussexes having so far not commented. While in the past, the duo have filed multiple court cases against various media outlets and sent out legal letters during the storm over their daughter Lilibet’s name, however in this instance they have remained staunchly silent.

Then came the development playing out in a court in Florida when lawyers for the duchess got into the “subjective” nature of truth. Earlier this year, the former actress was sued by her estranged half-sister Samantha Markle for allegedly telling “false and malicious lies” during her bombshell Oprah Winfrey interview last year.

This week, the Duchess of Sussex’s lawyers moved to dismiss the case, with legal papers filed by their side arguing that Meghan’s description of growing up “as an only child” during the interview was “obviously not meant to be a statement of objective fact” and was “a textbook example of a subjective statement about how a person feels about her childhood.”

While it’s an argument that has more than a tinge of Philosophy 101 (what is truth?) this strategy then raises an obvious question: If Meghan’s characterization about her upbringing was “subjective” then were any of the other devastating claims she made during the two -hour tell-all “subjective” too?

One bright spot on the horizon for the duo during all this was Harry’s successful appeal to the High Court for a judicial review over the Home Office’s decision to no longer automatically grant him full-time bodyguards when he is in the UK.

Except, even this was not exactly a slam dunk; just because the review was granted does not mean it will automatically be successful.

Then there is the cost of the whole legal imbroglio. the Sun has reported that the UK government has spent $156,000 on the case from September last year to May 2020. If Harry’s costs are similar then that would mean he has also spent well into the six figures to argue the case over his security arrangements which only pertain to the handful of days per year he has spent, on average, in the UK since quitting.

That bill could only go up if he ultimately loses the case, with the Home Office having previously said it will look to recover costs if they win.

While August is a traditionally quiet month on the Planet Royal, the rest of the year is shaping up to be a barnstormer of a doozy.

Harry is looking down the barrel of some of the most monumental months of his life since the sonic boom of Megxit, with news his memoir will be published before Christmas and with Page Six having reported that Netflix wants the couple’s “at home” docu series (shush you in the back there yelling “reality show”!) to hit screens this year too.

This book and show will very likely prove to be huge commercial successes for the couple, much needed professional wins after having released exactly no content up until this point for the streaming giant, since 2020 – but at what cost?

If either or both of these projects are focused on little more than the Sussexes launching a fresh volley of complaints about their treatment by the royal family, interspersed with some vignettes of them doing some caring, then they could be playing with fire.

If this scenario came to pass, they would run the risk of looking dangerously like little more than perpetual whingers who are clinging to the self-appointed victim status inside their $20 million mansion at a time when war, fire, floods and monkeypox are blighting the world.

Then there is what toll these two releases could take for his tattered relationship with House of Windsor, a bond that is reportedly hanging by a thread.

as the Sun’s former royal editor Duncan Lacrombe recently told the Daily Beast: “Once the book is out, William will have to make a decision about what he is going to do about Harry, but he is not going to do a thing until he knows what is on.” every page of that book. The reality is that if, as a senior member of the royal family, you have written a tell-all book, you have broken rule No. 1 of the royal family.”

If Harry’s book and/or their Netflix series sees them paint big fresh targets on the monarchy’s backs then will Queen & co. sit idly by and suffer through a fresh hellish round of monarchical character assassinations?

Thus far the Sussexes’ repeated media provocations have been met with a certain imperiousness and contrived dismissiveness from London but should the duke and duchess continue to bait the royal family but we might soon discover that The Firm has some very sharp teeth.

For example, the duo do still, of course, use their gifted Sussex titles from the Queen, day in and day out. While only parliament could officially revoke those titles, that is not to say the weight of the Crown and Harry’s father and brother could not be brought to bear pressure on them to no longer use them.

Would Prince Harry and Meghan Mountbatten-Windsor (or Prince Harry and Princess Henry of Wales) as they could only then call themselves be quite so marketable for Hollywood?

There is so much on the line for them in the coming month – their image, reputations, careers and potentially even a large chunk of money. But, there is always a sliver lining: At least no one is going to be making them sit through a table tennis match any time soon.

Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

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