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bitchy | Royalist: ‘Angry’ Prince William felt like his family ‘sabotaged’ his Brazilian trip
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bitchy | Royalist: ‘Angry’ Prince William felt like his family ‘sabotaged’ his Brazilian trip

by jummy84
written by jummy84

Prince William spent about five full days in Brazil and it was a fiasco from start to finish. That’s what no one can admit – for all of the whining and crying about thunder-stealing, Billy’s Big Brazilian Flop Tour was full of awkward, undignified photo-ops, an utter lack of charisma, and a big, keen speech which was so hypocritical and out of touch, longtime royalists are newly contemptuous of William and the monarchy. The man posed on a private plane, en route to an environmental conference, in an attempt to prove that he can read!! Like, that alone should tell you everything you need to know. But, according to Tom Sykes’ sources, William is full of fury, rage and bile over seemingly everyone in his family successfully upstaging him, especially his father! LMAO.

The Royalist has learned that Prince William “was left hurt and angry” after his father — of all people — stole the spotlight from him last week, staging a headline-grabbing investiture for David Beckham as William’s Earthshot Awards were kicking off in Brazil. For William, who has spent five years turning the prize into his signature platform, the timing, even though the investiture was long scheduled, was more than a clash of diaries; it was seen, according to friends, as a deliberate snub. The decision by King Charles to knight Beckham on Tuesday— fourteen years after his name was first floated for the honor — was greeted by William’s friends with disbelief.

“Of all weeks,” one friend of William’s told The Royalist, “this was the one week he needed the family to be pulling for him. Instead, it felt like they were pulling against him. He was left hurt and angry.”

Instead of the seamless royal choreography William envisioned [for his week in Brazil], his trip unraveled into a succession of distractions. “The family sabotaged it from beginning to end,” the William friend said. “It was pathetic, like the worst of the bad old days.”

On the day his plane landed, Prince Harry’s team announced a parallel, quasi–royal tour of Canada, scheduled—miraculously—to overlap with William’s itinerary. Meghan Markle’s PR team then leaked news of her “return to acting” to The Sun midweek, instantly derailing British coverage of the Earthshot Prize.

“In any normal world,” said one newspaper executive, “William would have been the royal story of the week. But Beckham and Meghan’s comeback swallowed the headlines. The entire British Royal press corps was in Brazil, and somehow none of it mattered.”

The irritant of the Sussexes is old and familiar; what stung William much more, I am told, was the betrayal from inside the tent.

“David Beckham had waited fifteen years,” said a former courtier. “And they had to do it this week? When you think of how gracious William had been, paying tribute to his father’s work in his speech, it’s a slap in the face. I’m afraid Charles still can’t bear not to be the center of attention. If he couldn’t be at COP30 himself, then nobody else was allowed to have the moment.”

The King’s allies insist it was a coincidence without malice. “His Majesty is immensely proud of his son’s work,” a friend of Charles’s told the Daily Beast. “Investitures are scheduled months in advance.”

One friend of the King’s, however, did concede that there is an “increasingly delicate” father-son dynamic, dramatically worsened by William’s open contempt for the shambolic way his father handled the ex-Prince Andrew crisis and continues to handle the Harry issue.

Charles, however, has no intention of fading into the background. He insists on maintaining a full public schedule, sometimes to the alarm of Camilla and his doctors, and he guards the symbols of kingship—audiences, investitures, the odd glittering photo call—as fiercely as ever. Friends say that having waited his whole life for this role, he’s not about to start taking instruction from anyone, even his son.

[From The Royalist Substack]

I often say Charles got the heir he deserves, but it’s also true that William got the father he deserves too. My god. I also thought it was funny that Charles did David Beckham’s investiture during William’s Brazilian Flop Tour, but I figured the same thing – that it was something which had been on the schedule for a while, and it’s just the way things lined up. This makes it two different “things” of which William was in the dark: Buckingham Palace knew about Beckham’s investiture AND they were informed of Harry’s trip to Canada. From the sound of it, BP did not inform William or Kensington Palace at all. Or maybe they did send a memo and Illiterate Bill just missed it. As for William thrashing around “hurt and angry” at family betrayals… the worse option is that Harry, Meghan and Charles were all helping William by distracting the press from writing about the Brazilian fiasco.

This is just a mere glimpse of how people reacted when they actually paid attention to Billy’s Brazilian Flop Tour.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

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bitchy | Royalist: “King in all but name’ Prince William ‘masterminded Andrew’s disgrace’
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bitchy | Royalist: “King in all but name’ Prince William ‘masterminded Andrew’s disgrace’

by jummy84
written by jummy84

Who is responsible for the “Andrew Mountbatten Windsor” situation? By that I mean, who negotiated the deal, who said enough is enough, who finally acted, weeks and months late, to banish Andrew? The terseness of the message from King Charles yesterday suggested, to me, that Charles had actually been locked in negotiation alongside various courtiers. The timing also suggests that Charles was ultimately the one making decisions – the past month of dithering, half-measures and ostriching was classic Charles. The palace line is that Charles made the decision in consultation with his family, and he sought their support on the move as well:

So what was the final nail in the coffin for King Charles? PEOPLE understands that the King reached his decision with the support of members of the royal family, including Prince William. While Andrew continues to deny the accusations against him, it is clear that there have been serious lapses of judgment from the King’s perspective.

As for why the King didn’t act sooner, PEOPLE understands that Charles acted swiftly following recent developments that made it possible for his brother to relinquish his titles and honors in the most immediate and efficient way possible. While a longer-term resolution to the complex legal and constitutional issues surrounding Andrew’s status took time to finalize, sources say the necessity of further action was never in doubt. The King’s decision follows behind-the-scenes discussions, legal consultation and support from the wider royal family to bring about a resolution without imposing on Parliamentary time.

[From People]

Yeah… this is not it. “We knew the whole time that we would need to punish Andrew even further!!” No you didn’t. Charles thought taking away the York titles would be it, and he seemed surprised that the public demanded even more. He misread the public mood for weeks, and he’s still misreading it now. But still, I feel just a little bit sorry for Charles at the moment. His unhinged heir is rushing to claim credit for Charles’s wheeling and dealing on Andrew. Keep in mind, William has been in the wind, on vacation somewhere for the past two weeks. But sure, this was ALL William. From Tom Sykes’s Royalist Substack, “William is King in All But Name After Masterminding Andrew’s Disgrace.”

Friends of Prince William have told The Royalist that the heir to the throne masterminded the operation to evict Andrew Mountbatten Windsor from Royal Lodge in the teeth of what he saw as his father’s weakness and vacillation on the matter. The palace statement and a supporting briefing document issued to the media yesterday sought to position Charles as the author of the decision to strip Andrew of all his titles and remove him from the palatial property. However, sources who know William scoffed at the suggestion.

One said, “Charles has been trying and failing to get Andrew out of Royal Lodge for the past three years. William did it in two weeks. William is King in all but name now.”

A friend of the Prince of Wales said that William stepped in after being left “dismayed” by the deal announced two weeks ago, which saw Andrew lose the use of his Duke of York title, but, crucially, keep Royal Lodge and continue as a Prince. The King’s team has now attempted to retroactively present that as an interim step, with yesterday’s briefing document stating that “the necessity of further action was never in doubt.”

However, it is quite clear that the King hoped at the time that the measures announced on October 17 would be enough. Briefing documents issued then made it crystal clear that Andrew’s tenancy agreement with the Crown Estate was “unaffected” and that he would stay a Prince, not very subtly seeming to blame Queen Elizabeth for this latter reality, saying his princely title was his by virtue of Letters Patent issued in 1917 by George V which were “updated” by Queen Elizabeth II in 2012. This apportioning of blame was later made explicit in a disgraceful smear in the Sunday Times. This followed extensive briefing to the media by the King’s team that there was no way to remove Andrew’s titles.

The friend of William’s told The Royalist: “This is Andrew, so the solution was always going to be a pay-off. This is his father’s mess, and William wanted it cleaned up on his father’s watch.”

The notion that it is his “father’s mess” refers to deep unhappiness within William’s circle about the way Charles tried not only to rehabilitate Andrew, but to co-opt William and Kate into the effort by forcing them to drive Andrew to church in Balmoral in the summer of 2023, having invited Andrew to join the family’s Christmas Day photocall at Sandringham in 2022.

[From The Royalist Substack]

Multiple things can be true at once: one, William was right that the only solution was money; two, William is right that the York title removal was always a half-assed punishment with no meaning… and yet William still rushed to take credit for that as well! Which makes me think that this is less about William “being king in all but name” right now and more about him screaming and throwing hissy fits behind the scenes, and that’s his version of “doing it in two weeks.” William has always believed that he can just make pronouncements and things will be done – “I’m bored with racism,” etc – so William is claiming ownership of this situation simply because he rage-shrieked (from his vacation) to his father: “Andrew must go, strip all of his titles!”

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

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bitchy | Royalist: King Charles’s health is in significant decline & they’re covering it up
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bitchy | Royalist: King Charles’s health is in significant decline & they’re covering it up

by jummy84
written by jummy84

Last night in London, King Charles and Prince William stepped out for a rare joint appearance at a pre-COP30 event at the Natural History Museum. I covered it separately, analyzing the messaging being sent and talking about William’s plans to travel to Brazil next month. I mentioned that Charles looked like hell at the event. He seemed perky enough at Windsor Castle last month, when he hosted the Trumps for their state visit. But Charles had a very busy summer overall, and you can tell just by looking at him that he’s not well-rested or in the best of health. Well, in his Royalist Substack, Tom Sykes wrote about Charles’s appearance, weight loss and the palace “coverup” over the king’s health. Some highlights:

Sykes’ horror at Charles’s appearance: I was horrified by photographs that have emerged in the last few hours of the King at a joint engagement with his son, the Prince of Wales, in London for the COP30 climate summit….It’s impossible to look at these images without seeing how much King Charles’s health has declined. The man’s suit is falling off him. The Palace line tonight is that he would have gone to Brazil “if his schedule allowed.” But the truth, as these astonishing new images attest, is that his illness is taking a heavier toll than the institution will admit.

The Orwellian propaganda over the king’s health: Charles has shown extraordinary courage. He has been an example to millions living with cancer, proving that one can keep working, engaging, and enjoying life. In many ways, nothing has animated him more than doing his job of being King. But the attempt to play down the severity of his condition is becoming totally unsustainable. As I have noted before, the BBC and the mainstream British media have been compliant to the Palace’s Orwellian Ministry of Truth-style counter-factual agenda. It’s not just cowardice; they are bound by privacy laws that emerged from the Leveson Inquiry. Under those rules, the media cannot publish details of someone’s health without consent. A senior editor once explained to me that even if they knew the King had bladder cancer—he does not—they could not report it.

Charles tires easily: The intelligence I am getting from sources close to the King is that he remains intellectually sharp and full of enthusiasm, but tires quickly. He is said to sleep far more than he used to. Friends describe him as still “brilliant,” but “exhausted.” The family, especially Camilla, is deeply worried. She herself, I’m told, has had health problems that have made this year especially difficult.

They pump him full of steroids: Still, there has been no question of giving up. The foreign tours to Samoa and Australia went ahead; the grueling domestic day trips, the state dinners, the late-night outings to the ballet and theater appearances, the investitures—he’s done them all. It has been extraordinary (although some have told me that steroids have played a part). But the new images puncture the illusion of inexhaustibility.

Demise-planning: The Palace, meanwhile, is quietly engaged in what it calls “demise planning.” The funeral arrangements have been, as one would expect, refreshed. Those of us whose reading extends beyond the work of the royal rota know, for example, that Harry and Meghan will not be excluded; in fact, they will be invited to play a “prominent” role when the day comes.

Why it’s important to talk about Charles’s health: This all underscores a point I’ve made before: Discussing the death of a king is a legitimate matter of public interest. The hereditary principle demands it; and now that Charles has told us he has cancer, and his aides have admitted it is incurable, it is frankly an insult to intelligence to try and suppress reporting of it. Charles himself—his condition, his mortality—is the key to understanding everything that is happening in the royal family right now: Harry’s urgency to reconcile, William’s resistance to that reconciliation, the tension between the brothers over how their father’s legacy will be managed.

The other royals are thinking about Scooter King’s reign as well: Camilla—tolerated by William for stability, but never loved—faces the classic dowager questions: what house, what purse, what power? That, in turn, helps explain the pressure on Prince Andrew to vacate Royal Lodge. I’m told Andrew aims to “run out the clock,” calculating that evicting a stubborn prince from a crumbling palace will drop down William’s list of priorities when the reign changes.

[From The Royalist Substack]

I actually appreciate that Sykes slipped in those two nuggets of gossip about Camilla. Camilla has been especially quiet for months, and whenever we see her, she also looks like she’s in terrible health. Camilla is likely dealing with her own health issues, but she expects to survive her husband and so she’s also preparing for the Mad Scooter King’s reign and how he’ll deal with her. I imagine Charles has also made some financial preparations for Camilla too, don’t you think? The Dowager Queen Consort is going to shuffle off to Ray Mill and that will be that. I also agree with Sykes that everything being done by Harry, William, Camilla, and the rest of the family should be seen through the prism of Charles’s worsening condition.

Sykes also went off on the same old tangent about Harry wanting to make a “deal” with Charles before it’s too late (I didn’t include it in these excerpts because it’s stupid). It never occurs to these royalists that Harry simply wants to reconcile with his father because despite everything, Harry just loves his dad and wants to spend time with Charles before the end. Harry is the only one putting a time frame on it too – he seemed to indicate to the Guardian that he believes Charles really only has a year left.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Avalon Red.

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bitchy | Royalist: Princess Anne ‘delivered an epic snub to Harry’ by visiting Ukraine
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bitchy | Royalist: Princess Anne ‘delivered an epic snub to Harry’ by visiting Ukraine

by jummy84
written by jummy84

Do you remember King Charles’s coronation in 2023? Do you remember how it was scheduled on Prince Archie’s fourth birthday? Do you remember how much of the energy before, during and after the coronation was devoted to Prince Harry and Meghan Sussex? For months, the coronation storyline was “will the Sussexes be invited” and “will they come?” When Meghan skipped it, they were enraged and they wouldn’t shut up about why she didn’t come back to allow them to scream at her and abuse her. Even the coronation itself felt like it was all about Harry, what he was wearing, who he spoke to, how long he stayed (he left England immediately following the Chubbly), and most importantly, how Harry was “snubbed.” That was a major storyline: sure, the king’s son came to the coronation, but we’re still going to punish him for his crimes of living in California! One of those snubs was… Princess Anne wearing a plumed hat, with a feather blocking some of Harry’s view. Seriously. I bring all of this up because Tom Sykes claimed that “Princess Anne Delivers Epic Snub to Harry in Ukraine.” You see, Harry visited Ukraine last month, and Anne visited the country this week. Here’s Sykes’ take.

Remember the coronation feather? That giant plume on Princess Anne’s hat, which just happened to block Prince Harry’s face from the cameras as he sat in Westminster Abbey for his father’s big day? At the time, there was chatter that Anne herself had wondered whether she should remove it, but she didn’t, and the message, intentional or not, was unmistakable: the showrunners of this soap opera know how to deploy their bit part actors with ruthless efficiency.

Well, they’ve done it again. For, today, it emerged that Anne was parachuted into Harry’s patch — Ukraine — and not just Ukraine, but the very territory you’d think was reserved for Harry alone: the rehab centers, the veteran recovery programs, the Invictus turf.

Other than the, uh, entire itinerary, the contrast couldn’t be sharper. When Harry went to Kyiv last month, his trip was shrouded in secrecy. His meetings weren’t photographed. A rumored encounter with Zelensky has never been confirmed. Harry brought along a friendly Guardian journalist and photographer, and fell, inevitably, into the trap of talking about himself. The predictable result was that the memoir, his father, and his grievances made headlines, rather than what the trip was supposed to highlight: the recovery of wounded veterans in Ukraine. Noble work, yes, but muddied in execution.

Anne? No fuss, no Guardian interview, no Netflix crew, no need to explain or complain. Just the pictures: shaking hands with Zelensky, sitting with amputees in physiotherapy, watching disabled veterans in the gym, poking her nose into the “salt rooms” used for mental and spiritual rehabilitation (yeah, we can do touchy-feely too, pal). Straightforward duty, photographed, packaged, and broadcast by both the palace and the Ukrainians.

Crucially, Anne was there officially, at the request of the British government. Harry had “permission” to go, sure, but Whitehall was visibly uneasy about him freelancing on geopolitics. They couldn’t stop him, but they could make sure he was upstaged. Enter Anne: the hardest-working royal, the archetype of service without ego, beaming out images that Zelensky and Harry weren’t ever going to be allowed to deliver.

Harry’s camp said that Anne’s trip was “great” and that “anything that shines a light on Ukraine is to be welcomed.” Harry is passionate about the cause; he has shown that. But I still can’t help wondering whether, for Meghan and Harry, seeing his aunt beam out the very images he was denied, it all felt very like the coronation feather all over again.

[From The Royalist Substack]

It IS the coronation feather all over again, but not in the way Sykes means. It’s another version of the feather because the Windsors are obsessed with Harry, and they have constantly shown that 90% of what they do and the decisions they make are all for an audience of one: Harry. Anne’s trip didn’t overshadow Harry’s trip last month – Anne’s trip exposed (yet again) that the Windsors are desperate to ride Harry’s coattails and colonize his life and achievements. It’s actually not a flex to admit that the whole-ass British government threw a tantrum and begged President Zelenskyy not to publish his photo with Harry. It’s an admission of how far the British monarchy and government will go to thwart, harm and marginalize Harry through official channels. Also: Harry’s trip was photographed. He was photographed meeting with veterans, he was photographed receiving personal gifts, he was photographed visiting the Alley of Heroes. Ukrainians spoke openly about how they feel like Harry has a Ukrainian spirit, a Ukrainian soul. They admire him and they want to see more of him. Harry’s trip got much more global attention than Anne’s. I would be willing to bet that Harry’s trip got more attention within Ukraine as well.

Screenshot courtesy of the Times.

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bitchy | Royalist: The Windsors ‘debased’ themselves for Donald Trump’s state visit
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bitchy | Royalist: The Windsors ‘debased’ themselves for Donald Trump’s state visit

by jummy84
written by jummy84

Bad news? I think they’ve pumped so many drugs into Donald Trump, he now looks somewhat healthier than King Charles. I would feel bad about saying that, except I remember Charles’s courtiers running around, briefing the press about Joe Biden’s age several years ago. Charles was pissed that President Biden didn’t go to the coronation, remember that? So Charles made it all about Biden’s age and health. Now Charles has been receiving cancer treatments for nineteen months and his mealy pallor makes Trump look hale and hearty.

Of course, there are plenty of other parts to this state visit which are pretty disgusting. Trump is being feted and celebrated like a conquering king. He’s a pathetic authoritarian hellbent on destroying NATO, the European Union and all postwar societal, cultural and economic advancements. I don’t exactly blame Charles and the royals for this – this was decided by Downing Street and Keir Starmer’s government, to roll out the red carpet this way for Trump. But that didn’t stop Tom Sykes from going OFF on his Royalist Substack, in a piece called “Britain Grovels Before Trump, Shamefully Enabling This Sick, Destructive Man.” An excerpt:

The United Kingdom shamelessly prostrated itself at the feet of Donald Trump on Wednesday morning, throwing a welcoming party for his state visit at Windsor so lavish it looked less like diplomacy than ritual self-humiliation. No foreign leader has ever been greeted with this degree of ceremonial excess. The choreography was on the scale of Elizabeth II’s funeral, yet this was not grief but a spectacle, a genuflection staged for a man many Britons see as a wrecking ball aimed at the very post-war settlement the country once helped design.

To those watching with clear eyes, it was nauseating. There was at least a grim honesty in the absurdity. Trump demands spectacle, and Britain, desperate to please, delivers. He wants to be king; Britain obliges.

But in obliging, the U.K. reveals something darker about itself: that to keep America close, it will debase itself utterly, strip its traditions for parts, and hire out its monarch like a sex worker to soothe the vanity of a man who insists on being treated as sovereign.

Royal ceremony is theatre, but this was a theatre that revealed far more than a sovereign nation should about its craven need to please a foreign leader who has done nothing to help Britain and plenty to harm it.

[From The Royalist Substack]

Yeah, I agree with all of that. It’s pathetic on both sides – Trump is a global embarrassment, and America will likely never recover from any of this. But I don’t hold it against the UK for doing what they can to stay on Trump’s good side. In fact, I think Starmer and many other European leaders have figured out their own ways to manipulate Trump and/or work around him. This is part of how they do that – they play to his vanity, they treat him like the most delicate and superficial strongman ever, because that’s exactly what he is.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

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bitchy | Royalist: Prince William has always seen his competition with Harry as ‘zero-sum’
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bitchy | Royalist: Prince William has always seen his competition with Harry as ‘zero-sum’

by jummy84
written by jummy84

Yesterday, on Twitter, I made this remark: “Having read most of the post-Harry-visit coverage in the British press, it really sounds like they’re all collectively talking around the idea that Peg is in the middle of a nervous breakdown.” We knew that Prince William would be raging and thrashing around about his brother’s four-day visit to the UK, but what I didn’t expect was seeing William called out on his behavior to this extent. People are openly talking about his fragile mental state, people are openly talking about his pitiful attempts to upstage Prince Harry last week, and people are openly talking about William’s laziness and how King Charles is deeply unhappy with his heir. It’s clear that William has been rage-briefing, but instead of just acting as stenographers to the future king, royal reporters and commentators are actually saying: wow, this guy has real issues. Speaking of, Tom Sykes’ Royalist column is a doozy: “Prince Harry’s Tour Worked. This Is William’s Worst Nightmare.” Some highlights:

What William is really mad about: It’s now apparent that William’s attempts to freeze Harry out were never just about punishing his brother for his tell-all book Spare, as useful as that cover story may have been. They were about ensuring Harry could not use the fairy dust of royalty to work his way back into the band of working royals and steal attention from him. After this past week, William’s fears look absolutely justified.

Harry’s charisma: What was striking about Harry’s trip was how easy he made it look. He zipped around the country, laughing and joking with schoolchildren, sword-fighting with balloons, high-fiving young people, flashing glimpses of the “old Harry” Britain once adored. He was upbeat, funny, relaxed—and the U.K. lapped it up. Against William and Kate’s buttoned-up image, Harry’s exuberance was a reminder of how dull the heir and his wife can seem. Their rushed diary-fillers—heritage sites and textile factories—only made Harry shine brighter.

King Charles was the one who leaked the meeting with Harry: But, make no mistake, it was Harry’s meeting with the king that really mattered. Both sides tried to dampen expectations in advance, but the choreography on the day was unmistakable. Photographers, tipped off by the palace, were waiting outside Clarence House. Insiders confirm no corners were cut: sandwiches, biscuits, and Harry’s beloved chocolate biscuit cake were all laid out. As one source told me: “It was a proper tea—everything was there.” A private reunion, yes, but also very deliberate theatre. Charles signalled to the world that Harry was back under his roof. Not a balcony return, yet, but the first step toward rehabilitation, and a direct rebuke to William.

The British press turned on a dime: Harry’s decision to stop complaining about how unfair and brutal his life is is part of the reason, but a bigger factor, I think, is the king’s endorsement. In a monarchy, nothing matters more. Where Charles leads, the public follows (see: Camilla Parker Bowles). By welcoming Harry back, Charles shifted the dial overnight. The consequences are seismic. For Charles, reconciliation makes sense against the backdrop of his illness. Frail and tired, he cannot want to face the end of his reign unreconciled with his son, or estranged from his grandchildren.

Work-shy Willy, out in the cold: For William, the shift is catastrophic. He has always seen Harry’s return as a zero-sum game: Harry’s gain is his loss. Now he has been proved right. By re-embracing Harry, Charles has left his heir dangerously exposed. William and Kate are publicly split from the king and forced to confront an agonising choice. Do they swallow their pride, reconcile with Harry, and risk the humiliation of letting him back on the balcony, half in and half out as he always wanted? Or do they hold the line, knowing they will have to sustain 50 years of cold war once William takes the throne? Either path is fraught. What is unprecedented is that Britain’s son and heir now finds himself openly at odds with the king—and the knives are out for him as never before.

[From The Royalist Substack]

This is so interesting to me: “He has always seen Harry’s return as a zero-sum game: Harry’s gain is his loss.” I’ve spoken about this for years, the short-sighted jealousy within the Windsor clan, and how they see EVERYTHING as zero-sum. That’s a huge reason why the entire Firm worked to push out Harry and Meghan, because they believed that “attention” is finite and a fixed amount, and the Sussexes were getting too much attention, leaving not enough attention for QEII, Charles, William and Kate. None of the left-behinds ever understood that Harry and Meghan would have brought more positive attention overall to the institution, and no courtier ever suggested “maybe we shouldn’t let royal jealousy dictate how we conduct the business of state.” Anyway, as I said, they’re really laying into William. It’s amazing and well-deserved.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

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bitchy | Royalist: Princess Kate’s ‘out of proportion extensions’ made her look like an influencer
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bitchy | Royalist: Princess Kate’s ‘out of proportion extensions’ made her look like an influencer

by jummy84
written by jummy84

There’s been so much clownery with the commentary around the Princess of Wales’ blonde wiglet of doom. There are literal hair colorists and hair-styling professionals swearing up and down that Kate’s blonde wig was brilliant, and that Kate’s hair was still some kind of blonde shade in her two subsequent appearances post-Blonde Wig. The Daily Mail had a full exclusive about how Kate was absolutely still blonde over the weekend, when she went to a rugby game, as hair stylists swore that it was all a matter of lighting. Then Kate made an appearance on Monday sans blonde wiglet, and… almost nothing. Well, at least the Royalist Substack is calling her out, I guess? Tom Sykes’ headline: “Kate’s Hair Needs to Decide If It Belongs to an Influencer or a Royal.”

My own opinion was that Kate’s blonde hair didn’t look great, but I couldn’t really put my finger on why, until a stylist and make-up artist friend, speaking anonymously as they have regularly worked for various royals, told me, “On Kate, it just looks a bit tacky. I hate to say it, but she looks more like an influencer than a royal.”

I checked back in with them on Saturday evening after the new pictures were published, and asked for their updated opinion: “Tying the hair back was a smart move because it has reined in the more overt caramel tones,” they said. “It’s also squashed the speculation she was wearing a wig. She is not wearing a wig, that’s very clear, but it definitely looks like she is wearing extremely expensive hair extensions.”

I asked my friend how much they thought the absence of Natasha Archer might have been responsible for the debacle earlier this week. They said: “Archer put everything together for Kate. She was there on every trip, she was there when she had to face the cameras after the birth of her kids for god’s sake. She was her rock, so it’s a huge loss. I’m told she was someone who knew how to say, ‘maybe not’ to Kate which is so important. Personally I think Kate was mad to let her go and she was mad to leave. Kate should get her back. The gossip is that Archer was frustrated by Kate not doing many events, but, you know, that is going to change one of these days.”

Another source in the fashion world told The Royalist: “Her hair looks better tied back because it’s very elegant to have your hair half up and half down. Because the hair extensions are so voluminous she looked odd with all of it down. No one’s hair looks like that at her age. She looked like a mermaid. Now she has tied it back, she has lovely thick hair, but it’s not overwhelming her head.”

The source added: “I have heard that she has actually had hair extensions for a long time, so I think what happened is she just went a bit far. That happens. I think the hair extensions she has now are out of proportion. Had she not gone quite as far with them, no one would have suspected. But it looks amazing pulled back because she is a beautiful girl so I think everyone is going to be very, very happy now.”

Saturday’s look was certainly much more elegant than Thursday’s, when Kate looked like a mouse peeking out of a haystack.

[From The Royalist Substack]

As someone who has written about Kate’s hairpieces for years, it’s wild to see any kind of mainstream discourse on this subject, just as it’s hilarious for people to finally acknowledge that Kate has been wearing extensions, hairpieces, falls and wigs for many, many years. Again, I’m not saying this is the most concerning issue of our time or anything, but the conversation perfectly encapsulates how Kate is infantilized by the British press and how Kate is protected and coddled by the royal institution – they lie so blatantly about her hairpieces, don’t you wonder if they’re lying about other things too? Kate’s blonde wig was apparently the bridge too far – suddenly, you’ve got royalists questioning Kate’s tacky aesthetic and suggesting that she wants to look like an influencer? You’ve got people openly talking about Kate’s history of hairpieces? I guarantee that Kate plopped that blonde wig on her head last week because she was trying to get attention and change the story from “work-shy royals demanded a fifth forever home.”

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images. Side-by-sides made by CB

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bitchy | Royalist: King Charles ‘doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about the whole Harry thing’
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bitchy | Royalist: King Charles ‘doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about the whole Harry thing’

by jummy84
written by jummy84

My guess is that Prince Harry will fly into the UK at some point this weekend. We don’t know any details about his schedule other than the WellChild Awards are scheduled for Monday. I have no doubt that Harry has shared some or all of his schedule with Buckingham Palace, just as I’m sure that any information given by Harry probably travels through four layers of palace bureaucracy before it gets to King Charles. All of which to say, if Charles and Harry do have any kind of meeting, there are probably a dozen palace busybodies involved with coordinating it, all of those busybodies have direct lines to most of the royal rota. Speaking of, Tom Sykes at the Daily Beast/Royalist Substack has a new exclusive about the Meeting Which Will Probably Not Happen. As it happens, it feels like Sykes’ sources are less “backstabbing courtiers to the king” and more “Prince William’s vile associates” and “Camilla’s handymen.”

Prince Harry has not spoken to his father, brother or stepmother since he gave a BBC interview four months ago, accusing palace insiders of wanting him dead and his father of not caring about his security, The Daily Beast can exclusively reveal. Harry and Charles’s office both did not comment to The Royalist, but three separate friends of the King, the Queen, and a friend William who used to also be close to Harry, told The Royalist there has been zero contact between Harry and the royals since Harry’s blistering BBC interview of 2 May this year in which Harry said of his father, “He won’t speak to me.”

While news of the ongoing froideur does not definitively rule out the prospect that there could be a quiet rapprochement between father and son when Harry is in the U.K. on Monday for the WellChild Awards, it does not bode well.

A friend of the King bluntly told The Royalist: “Charles doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about the whole Harry thing. He is focused on the job, his duty and his wife. Just yesterday, he was at a cancer hospital, talking to patients, so I think that gives a good sense of his priorities. The King’s position is clear. He was hugely saddened and hurt by what Harry said, as any father would be, but he loves both his sons. The situation is simply that nothing has changed.”

Asked if the King being willing to restore relations with Harry was contingent on Harry apologizing, the source snapped: “Any suggestion that an apology is being demanded is completely false.”

A friend of Queen Camilla conceded, however, that an apology from Harry would help, saying: “Camilla would like nothing more than for it to be happy families, but the fault is not with her husband. The King has wished Harry and Meghan well, publicly and privately. But he has been put in an invidious position by Harry saying, on television interviews and in books, that Camilla was prepared to leave ‘bodies in the street’ to become Queen. It is completely untrue, as Camilla never, ever wanted to be Queen, it was Charles who wanted it so badly. Charles just can’t sit down for a cup of tea with someone who has said something that disgusting about his wife. If Harry would really like to see his father, he has to say the hardest word. It may stick in his throat but he has to say it. Harry talks a lot about accountability. How about some accountability on Harry’s part for the damage he’s caused?”

The friend added that Harry was naïve if he had expected his relationship with his father to survive his attacks on Camilla, saying, “Charles has made it very clear Camilla is the most important thing in his life.”

This sense that Camilla is “the most important thing in Charles’s life” is one you often hear from their friends.

[From The Royalist]

To think, I actually had high hopes that both sides were turning the page after Tobyn Andreae met with the Sussexes’ reps in London. I was like… well, it’s happening slowly, but eventually something will come of it. If this is the way it really is over there, I hope Harry is well aware and prepared for the waves of bullsh-t coming his way. It would be funny as hell if Harry ended up issuing yet another statement about how his dogsh-t father refuses to see him. Like… I get that seemingly everything these people do is for an audience of one (Harry) but they continue to look batsh-t insane to everyone else. Proudly stating that “Charles doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about the whole Harry thing.” That quote should go in the Dogsh-t Father Hall of Fame. And all of the stuff about “Harry needs to apologize for what he said about Camilla” – LMAO. That old rottweiler is still FURIOUS that the redheaded stepchild called her out so thoroughly.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

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bitchy | Duchess Meghan’s pantyhose comment is causing a lot of royalist tantrums
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bitchy | Duchess Meghan’s pantyhose comment is causing a lot of royalist tantrums

by jummy84
written by jummy84

The Duchess of Sussex gave people a lot to consume this week. The new season of With Love, Meghan came out on Tuesday, as did a new As Ever product drop. A new interview with Meghan also came out on Tuesday: a great piece with Bloomberg’s The Circuit with Emily Chang. Meghan came across really well (imo) and she seemed pretty loose as she chatted and joked around. At one point, Chang asked Meghan about relatability, and Meghan’s answer has caused a lot of fury in the British press. I can’t help it, I’m laughing my ass off at everyone over there freaking out because Meghan basically rolled her eyes at royal pantyhose protocols! From The Sun:

Meghan Markle has made yet another dig at the Royal Family as she claimed she “couldn’t be as vocal” when in the UK. The Duchess of Sussex, 44, opened up about how her life felt “inauthentic…several years ago” in an interview with Bloomberg Originals.

The mum-of-two, who lives in a £12million Montecito mansion and spends her evenings learning French on Duo Lingo, was asked if it’s hard to appear “relatable”.

She replied: “No, I’m just being myself. I think it was probably different several years ago where I couldn’t be as vocal and I had to wear nude pantyhose all the time. Let’s be honest, that’s not very myself, I hadn’t seen pantyhose since movies in the eighties when they came in that little egg. That felt a little bit inauthentic, but that’s a silly example, but it is an example of when you’re able to dress the way you wanna dress and you’re able to say the things that are true and you’re able to show up in the space really organically that’s being comfortable in your own skin.”

[From The Sun]

The Sun’s Matt Wilkinson referred to this as a “veiled dig.” It’s the pantyhose story which brought down the British empire! Meghan’s pantyhose is a slap in the face to the dead queen! Queen Elizabeth told all of her friends how furious she was about Meghan’s pantyhose!! Would you like to see someone else freak out about the pantyhose story? Behold, Tom Sykes’ Royalist Substack, where he threw a full-on tantrum about Meghan DARING to mention the royal pantyhose protocol!

Meghan Markle promoted the second season of her Netflix lifestyle series today by accusing the British royal family of making her wear “nude pantyhose” in yet another retread of her signature theme of portraying palace life as an unbearable system of micro-aggression and control.

Instead of taking a prime sofa on Today or GMA, which she could book with a text message, she chose Bloomberg Originals’ The Circuit. The interview dropped this morning on Bloomberg’s YouTube lineup and, at last check, had drawn 14,000 views—a respectable tally for a business-news franchise but hardly the roar of mainstream morning television. The Circuit, to be fair, is no minnow. Emmy-nominated, running across Bloomberg’s many platforms, and with the company touting 62 million monthly video viewers in 2024, it carries weight in financial circles. But it is still not network TV. That feels deliberate. Meghan long ago stopped doing the obvious media rounds, preferring niche settings where the conversation can be guided gently around anything inconvenient.

So here she was with Emily Chang, whose opening order of an oatmeal chai latte set the tone for what followed: a string of friendly prompts that allowed Meghan to sketch, once again, her favored self-portrait—conscious founder, authentic businesswoman, victim of stifling royal dress codes. Chang’s best question—whether there’s a tension between being relatable and being a duchess—produced the line that has gone viral: “No, I don’t find— I’m just being myself. So I think, probably, it was different several years ago where I couldn’t be as vocal… I had to wear nude pantyhose all the time… That felt a little bit inauthentic.”

I can’t be alone in finding Meghan’s habit of painting the British royal family as an oppressive straitjacket deeply hypocritical, when every ounce of her fame, wealth, and celebrity springs from her membership of it. Without “Duchess of Sussex” stitched into her bio, there would be no Netflix deal, no glossy rosé launch, and certainly no Bloomberg chair. The very institution she dismisses as repressive is the foundation of her brand!

This hosiery detail is a retread of her biggest selling product to date: grievance.

It would be incredibly refreshing if, just once, Meghan could simply acknowledge the obvious. She was not well known before she married Prince Harry, and that marriage made her world-famous. She could also do herself a favor and clarify afresh that Queen Elizabeth, whatever Meghan’s personal disagreements with the institution she ran, embodied duty and service in a way that commanded global respect.

Meghan does not have to endorse everything the monarchy did to concede that the late Queen was an extraordinary example of showing up in the world and doing good work. Instead, she continues to present herself as if the family spent all its energy controlling her passport, her wardrobe, and now her underwear. The claims feel unconvincing and aimed at reheating the grievance cycle that keeps her in the headlines.

[From The Royalist]

It would be incredibly refreshing if, just once, these royalists would acknowledge that they’re going to throw screeching tantrums about every single little thing Meghan says, does, sells, wears and cooks. She was, at the time, a Californian in her 30s who was not used to wearing pantyhose, but she did it because there was a whole-ass royal pantyhose protocol about it. Now, years later, she can use the pantyhose protocol as an example of how asinine and controlling those people are. “Instead, she continues to present herself as if the family spent all its energy controlling her passport, her wardrobe, and now her underwear.” The family actually DID spend a lot of energy controlling her, smearing her, defaming her, and abusing her. Don’t just shrug off the fact that those f–kers TOOK HER PASSPORT. Don’t shrug off the fact that they refused to allow her to access mental health counseling. Don’t shrug off the fact that to this very day, Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace still brief royal reporters on the Sussexes’ activities, even when those activities have nothing to do with the left-behinds.

Also: all of the bitching about Meghan not going on network TV is bizarre? She was literally on the Drew Barrymore Show this spring. If Meghan went on the Today Show, Sykes (and all of the royal reporters) would have thrown hissy fits about that too.

Screengrabs courtesy of Bloomberg’s The Circuit.

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bitchy | Royalist: The Waleses’ move to an emotional-support mansion is ‘tone-deaf’
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bitchy | Royalist: The Waleses’ move to an emotional-support mansion is ‘tone-deaf’

by jummy84
written by jummy84

Tom Sykes was and still is The Daily Beast’s Royalist columnist and European editor, but he’s branched out with a Royalist Substack, where he’s started to move beyond the palace’s talking points and his briefings from Prince William’s most incandescent “friends.” Well, Sykes covered the Prince and Princess of Wales’s planned move to Forest Lodge, and he actually pinpointed why the palace briefing about the move is so infuriating.

At a time when millions across Britain are struggling to pay rent, heat their homes, or secure a doctor’s appointment, the Prince and Princess of Wales have announced they are moving into a newly renovated £16 million ($20.3 million) mansion in Windsor Great Park, with sources saying they are doing so to safeguard their emotional wellbeing.

The property in question, Forest Lodge, is a secluded eight-bedroom Grade II-listed estate with sweeping views across Berkshire and London. Renovations are already underway, funded privately by the couple through William’s Duchy of Cornwall income, a £1 billion ($1.27 billion) portfolio of land and assets that has been enriching royal heirs for centuries.

The move was briefed by Kensington Palace as a “fresh start” for the family to heal from a difficult few years; the loss of Queen Elizabeth II, King Charles’ cancer diagnosis, and Princess Catherine’s own health worries. Outside the royal bubble, many were left speechless by the gall of it all. Millions of Britons are also emerging from a “brutal” few years. Most of them don’t respond to adversity by moving into a multimillion-pound mansion with period features and expansive private grounds. That the Waleses would position this luxury upgrade as a form of restorative therapy speaks volumes, not just about how far removed they are from the public mood, but how tone-deaf the Palace has become in framing these decisions.

It’s not the move that is rankling, it’s the absurdity of presenting a 328-year-old eight-bedroom lodge as a necessary crutch for emotional survival.

The family first moved to Windsor in 2022, settling into Adelaide Cottage to be closer to the late queen and to allow the children, George, Charlotte and Louis, to enjoy a more private, countryside upbringing. The current home has no live-in staff. Nor, apparently, will the much larger Forest Lodge. Which rather begs the question: if you didn’t need staff and you have four bedrooms, why do you now need eight? For a couple who seem keen on staying relatable, the spinning of this house move lands somewhere between baffling and plain stupid.

William has spent the past year casting himself as a reformer who wants to make the monarchy “fit for purpose.” But it’s hard to imagine anything less modern or relatable than announcing, during the worst cost-of-living crisis in decades, that you’re moving house to emotionally reset and your new house happens to be a manor on Crown land worth north of £16 million.

The late queen might well have approved the move itself—kings and queens do live in palaces, not cottages, after all—but would never have had the gall to pitch such a move as a therapeutic necessity. Her reign, for all its stiff upper lip flaws, was defined by discipline and duty. William’s emerging version of kingship appears far more personal, driven by private need and family comfort, and to hell with the PR optics.

No one denies the last 18 months have been hard for the Waleses. But the idea that the solution to coping with grief, illness and transition is a £16 million “forever home” with woodland views is grotesquely out of touch. You guys want a bigger house! Just own it.

[From The Royalist Substack]

LMAO, let’s see if “friends close to Prince William” arrange a briefing now. “Presenting a 328-year-old eight-bedroom lodge as a necessary crutch for emotional survival” and “That the Waleses would position this luxury upgrade as a form of restorative therapy speaks volumes, not just about how far removed they are from the public mood, but how tone-deaf the Palace has become in framing these decisions.” Well done. While I agree that the framing is asinine and hilariously out-of-touch, that isn’t the only problem with this move. It’s beyond clear that William is using this move to proclaim that he’ll 100% live in Forest Lodge forever… so that by the time he becomes king, people are going to be BEGGING him to live in a palace or castle. There’s a hint of a longer-term strategy at play here, and I doubt that William came up with it. But yes, it’s amazingly privileged to argue that you and your wife need an emotional-support mansion (to compete with your brother’s Montecito mansion, sob).

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

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