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Princess Diana’s bodyguard Lee Sansum claims she would still be alive if he had been on duty

He is the bodyguard who Princess Diana nicknamed “Rambo” and with whom she had several heart-to-hearts revealing her biggest fears and future plans.

And 25 years on from her death, Lee Sansum says he is adamant she would be alive today if he had been with her on the night she died alongside Dodi Fayed in a Paris car crash on August 31, 1997.

In an exclusive interview with The SunSansum has told how security guards drew straws to accompany bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones in the car, and he lost.

He also reveals the fun bets he had with a young Prince and how he treasures a letter from Diana thanking him for making her final sunshine holiday in St Tropez “magical” — and her fears she may be assassinated.

“It could have been me in that car,” said Sansum, now 60.

“We drew straws to see who would be accompanying Trevor that weekend. I pulled a match and it was a long one.

“When I learned they were not wearing seatbelts in the crash I understood why they didn’t survive. That shouldn’t have happened.

“It was standard practice for the family to wear seatbelts. It was an order sent down from the boss, Dodi’s dad Mohamed Fayed. Dodi, in particular, hated wearing seatbelts and I always insisted on it.”

Through his work with Mohamed Al-Fayed — the owner of Hôtel Ritz Paris and formerly Harrods department store and Fulham FC — Sansum also protected Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Sylvester Stallone and footballer Pele.

Burnley-born Sansum, who has covered his incredible career in personal protection in a new book, The Bodyguard: Real Stories of Close Protection from Tom Cruise to Princess Dianawas assigned to look after Dodi and Diana, then 36, when they stayed at his boss’s 30-bedroom villa in St Tropez, in the South of France, during July 1997.

Every day Diana would wake up at 7am and chat to the bodyguard.

“She had been happy on that holiday,” he said.

“But I had seen her in tears too, when she learned of the murder of her friend, the fashion designer Gianni Versace. She confided in me her own fears that she might one day be assassinated.

“She asked if I thought his murder outside his home was a professional killing.

“I thought it was. Then she said something that always stayed with me — ‘Do you think they’ll do that to me?’ She was shaking and it was clear from her tone that she really thought that they might, whoever ‘they’ might be.

“I spent some time reassuring her that no one was going to try to kill her and she was safe with us, but she definitely thought there was a risk that one day she might be assassinated.”

Diana also told Sansum she wanted to live with Dodi in the States.

“I actually signed up to join Diana and Dodi in America,” he added.

“She was definitely going, and that was that. She told me she was going there.

“She didn’t want to, but that was the only place she felt people weren’t having a go at her. It was probably her way of keeping sane, to get some respite.”

Sansum took an instant shine to young princes William and Harry, who he says were down to earth and friendly, like their mother. William was 15 when Diana died and Harry 12.

Sansum believes Diana’s plan to move to the US influenced Harry’s move there with Meghan.

“This trauma happened when the building blocks for life were being formulated,” he said.

“His mother saw America as a place of sanctuary. He will be drawing on his experiences of her from then. ”

Sansum, a martial arts expert, tried to teach William and Harry how to kickbox, but they were too apprehensive.

“I rigged up a punch bag in the garage,” he said.

“One day I told the princes, ‘Come on, I’ll teach you a bit of kickboxing.’

“When I showed William and Harry how to do it though, they seemed a little bit in awe from watching me kick that bag so hard and weren’t too keen to try it themselves in front of me.”

But Harry did challenge him to jump off the top deck of Al-Fayed’s yacht for money.

When Sansum said he would do it for £200, Diana joined in the encouragement and told Sansum they had his money.

“It was a bloody big yacht and a fair drop from its highest point into the water,” he said.

“A bet’s a bet, after all, and this one was by royal command, from an actual princess.

“So I jumped off the boat, hit the water with a big splash and they were all delighted, especially Harry.”

Sansum — who has also served in the Military Police, worked undercover for the Forces in Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles and in Somalia and Libya — does not believe Diana was murdered.

But he reveals the presence of intelligence services following her just weeks before the crash might have been a factor.

On a counter-surveillance drive near the Al-Fayed home in Surrey just before they all went to St Tropez, one of Sansum’s colleagues saw someone from the Special Reconnaissance Unit, working on a building site. He knew him as they had both been in the SAS.

“We were generally followed by MI5 but this was the first time we had seen a Special Forces guy,” he said.

“We thought, ‘They’ve upped their game.’

“A witness driving a car traveling in front of the Mercedes in Paris on the night of the crash told the inquest that he saw a high-powered motorbike overtake the car just seconds before the crash.

“Another witness traveling in the opposite direction saw a second motorbike swerve to avoid smoke and wreckage then carry on out of the tunnel without stopping. The riders of those bikes were never found — and that is no coincidence.

“I believe that security officers following Diana, possibly British or a combined British – French team, may have either inadvertently caused the crash or were in proximity to the car when it happened.

“If it was known that MI6 operatives were right by the Mercedes at the critical moment, a lot of people would have blamed them for it, and that would have been a huge scandal.”

Sansum will never know the truth. But he will always treasure the letter he received from the princess 25 years ago.

“I received a lovely letter from Diana that was signed by her and both of the young princes,” he said.

“She told me she wanted to thank me for taking such good care of them all in St Tropez. I was blown away by that. She assured me that she and her boys de ella had a ‘magical’ time there and that this would not have been possible without my help.

“I couldn’t believe that a woman as famous and in-demand as Diana had taken the time to write to me in that way.

“It showed the empathy she was rightly famous for.

“Diana was almost always able to put herself in someone else’s shoes, it is one of the reasons why she was so highly regarded.

“She signed off with her warmest possible thanks. I still have that letter and will always treasure it.”

This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission

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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.

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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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Categories
Entertainment

Julie Bishop: Former foreign minister stuns in Balmain revenge dress

Former foreign minister turned mining Adviser and fashion icon Julie Bishop has made another bold statement in her life post-politics.

Ms Bishop joined Australian department store David Jones for their first runway show in four years to premiere the latest Spring/ Summer 22 collection.

She turned heads on Wednesday night’s red carpet in a $3750 metallic jacquard long sleeve mini dress designed by French luxury fashion house Balmain.

The former politician slipped on a pair of black stockings, simple black pumps and completed the head-to-toe black look with a clutch adorned with silver chain detail.

Ms Bishop received a string of adoring comments when she posted photos of her look to her Instagram account.

Pip Edwards of Aussie activewear brand PE Nation wrote, “You stunner.”

“Va va va Voom!!,” Sunrise entertainment reporter Nelson Aspen commented.

One spot-on Instagram user compared Ms Bishop’s look to that of the late Princess Diana’s infamous ‘revenge’ dress which she wore at her first public event following her headline-making split from Prince Charles.

“Is that like Diana’s revenge dress?,” they said.

The skin tight mini black number certainly looked similar to the Christina Stambolian cocktail dress worn by the British princess.

It’s even more fitting given Ms Bishops very public split from long-time boyfriend David Panton who reportedly dumped her over dinner in July ending their eight-year relationship.

“I’m very busy,” Bishop told Confidential of her newly single life.

“I spend a lot of time at the ANU as chancellor, I’m doing a lot of speaking engagements and attending fabulous events like the David Jones launch”.

Just this month, Bishop hosted a Q&A with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attended by university students from across Australia.

Ms Bishop also showed off a return to her iconic close-cropped blonde look after many months of growing out her hair post-politics.

“Ooo has she gone short hair again! I love her with short hair,” One fan, @amysuart commented below the photo.

“Looking gorgeous, what an inspiration, love the new do,” a friend said.

Bishop told Confidential she rushed to the salon just hours before the event.

“It’s a post-Covid recovery haircut,” Bishop said.

“After we went into lockdown I let my hair grow and then it became so easy but I managed to get an appointment with Scott Sloan, whom I have a great deal of respect for, and he cut my hair so I’m feeling great. ”

Ms Bishop was joined on the guest list by indie artist Vera Blue, model Natalie Roser, TV-host Erin Holland, activewear entrepreneur Pip Edwards, and fashion designer Bianca Spender at the flagship store.

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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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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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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.

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Prince Harry’s charity, African Parks hits major milestone on Meghan Markle’s birthday

Prince Harry received an amazing piece of news on his wife, Meghan’s birthday, after being snubbed by her Majesty the Queen.

As Meghan Markle celebrated her 41st birthday yesterday, Prince Harry received some great news, The Sun reports.

The Duke of Sussex is the president of charitable organization African Parks, which announced on Meghan’s birthday it had completed a huge conservation project just days earlier.

Prince Harry’s patronage along with DNPW Malawi and IFAW Global translocated 263 elephants and 431 other creatures to safety to Kasungu National Park in Malawi.

This is an incredible achievement, as the Duke has been working closely with the charity since 2016.

It comes after the Duke’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, recently snubbed Harry in a speech she gave at Lambeth Palace.

However, the Queen did not wish Meghan a public happy birthday.

Her Majesty praised Prince Charles and William for continuing Prince Philip’s work for the environment.

During her speech to the 15th Lambeth Conference, the Queen said: “I was interested to learn that the focus of your program at Lambeth Palace today is a reflection and dialogue on the theme of the environment.

“A cause close to the heart of my late husband, and carried on by The Prince of Wales [Charles] and The Duke of Cambridge [William].”

Her Majesty made no mention of Prince Harry, and also did not publicly wish the Duchess a happy birthday.

Expert: Her Majesty’s Meghan snub is ‘remarkable’

Royals from across the Firm took to social media to wish Meghan Markle a happy birthday yesterday, but one key member was absent.

Her Majesty the Queen chose not to wish Markle a happy birthday, a decision which Royals expert Richard Palmer calls “remarkable.”

However, the expert explained why this decision may have been made.

Writing for the Daily Express, he said: “The Queen’s website neglected to mention the big day after deciding it will only mark the birthdays of non-working members of the family when they end in a zero.”

This post originally appeared on The Sun and has been republished with permission

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Meghan Markle 41st birthday: Kate Middleton and Prince William send wishes

Kate Middleton and Prince William put their royal rift aside today as they wished Meghan Markle a happy birthday.
The Duchess of Sussex turned 41 today, with the Royal Family taking to social media to wish her a special day, The Sun reported.

Sharing a photo of Meghan on their social media channels, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge wrote: “Wishing a happy birthday to The Duchess of Sussex!”

Minutes later, Prince Charles and Camilla posted: “Happy birthday to The Duchess of Sussex!”

Both posts featured pictures of the duchess beaming in white as she marked the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee at St Paul’s Cathedral this year.

The day saw her and Prince Harry sat at the other side of the aisle from Kate and Wills, with the seating order determined by working royal status.

It marked the first time the couple were seen with The Firm since the frosty Commonwealth Service at Westminster Abbey in March 2020, shortly before they officially quit royal life.

They have since made a number of bombshell claims about the royals, with fears more could come in Harry’s upcoming tell-all book.

The couple made their latest UK trip with their children Archie, three, and Lilibet, one, from California – where it’s likely they’ll stay for Meghan’s birthday.

However it is not yet known how the family will celebrate, a year on from Meghan’s 40 X 40 campaign which she set up to mark her 40th.

The duchess asked A-listers including Adele and Stella McCartney, as well as members of the public, to donate 40 minutes of their time to “help women re-entering the workforce” for the project.

She promoted the initiative in a glitzy comedy video recorded at her home in exclusive Montecito.

A year on, there has still been no follow-up on the campaign, which also featured comedy star Melissa McCarthy.

This story was originally published by The Sun and has been reproduced with permission.

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Prince Harry reportedly snubbed by Prince Charles over refusing to share details of upcoming memoir

Prince Harry was reportedly ‘snubbed’ by his father Prince Charles after he refused to discuss details of his upcoming memoir.

The memoir ie yet to be released but it is already causing tensions among senior members of the Royal Family.

The icy father-and-son moment occurred after the Duke of Sussex and his wife, Meghan Markle, stopped by to visit Windsor Castle on the way to the Invictus Games in Holland earlier this year.

According to royal expert Neil Sean, a source told him that “Harry refused to talk about what he put down in his book” during their brief meeting.

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It reportedly resulted in Prince Charles brutally “icing” his son and stopping the meeting after just 10 minutes.

“We know Prince Charles spent very little time with his son Prince Harry,” Mr Sean said, according to The Daily Express.

“Charles wanted to have a one-to-one chat, but that ended up being a very brief meeting.

“According to a very good source, allegedly, Prince Harry refused to detail anything about his forthcoming memoir to Prince Charles.”

“The big sticking point this year, being the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee and the 75th year of Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, Charles doesn’t want any negativity.

“According to that good source, Harry refused to talk about what he put down in his book and how this will pan out.

“It has been pushed back, and Charles will have to wait and see like the rest of us.”

Last year, Harry announced that he’s writing a tell-all book about his life.

In a statement, the prince said he was excited to share an account of his life that’s “accurate and wholly truthful”.

“I’m writing this not as the Prince I was born but as the man I have become,” he said.

“I’ve worn many hats over the years, both literally and figuratively, and my hope is that in telling my story – the highs and lows, the mistakes, the lessons learned – I can help show that no matter where we come from, we have more in common than we think.

“I’m deeply grateful for the opportunity to share what I’ve learned over the course of my life so far and excited for people to read a firsthand account of my life that’s accurate and wholly truthful.”

– with The Sun

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