Ok, let’s have another conversation about the royal workload. Honestly, it’s been a minute. This was a hot topic pre-Sussexit, and though I’ve acknowledged here and there the impact of the Sussexes and The Duke of York stepping down (or being forced down, in the latter’s case), we haven’t dug in a long while and certainly not since King Charles’s accession.
Continue reading “The Royal Workload Part I”Let’s Not Weaponize the Waleses
I’ve had on my docket for a while a blog post focused on Catherine as Princess of Wales. I’d like to do one that’s focused on the issue of the royal workload and a brief look back on the Princess’s Early Years campaign update from a few months back; however, in the meantime, Hilary Rose for The Times wrote a feature on Catherine that I think is worth covering, particularly in light of some of the issues we’ve started discussing in the last couple blog posts.
Continue reading “Let’s Not Weaponize the Waleses”So, King Charles & Meghan Were Writing Letters
Today, we’re going to catch up on an article that ran in The Telegraph last month. I covered this on Instagram, but never found the time for a post, so let’s do it now, shall we?
The long and short of it is that Victoria Ward reported that The Duchess of Sussex wrote a letter to her father-in-law, King Charles, in 2021 after her and The Duke’s interview with Oprah Winfrey aired. The substance of the letter was focused on “unconscious bias” within the Royal Family – aka the incident described in which a member of the family speculated as to the color of Prince Archie’s skin prior to his birth and was subsequently nicknamed by the press the “royal racist.”
Continue reading “So, King Charles & Meghan Were Writing Letters”The Coronation of King Charles III & Queen Camilla Part II
Ok, let’s pick back up for Part II of our coronation coverage…which are essentially the topics I wanted to dive into, but also deserved a slightly fresher brain than I was offering on Sunday evening.
Continue reading “The Coronation of King Charles III & Queen Camilla Part II”The Coronation of King Charles III & Queen Camilla Part I
Happy Coronation Weekend, friends. We are now two-thirds of the way through the festivities, but the major moments are behind us, so this seems like an appropriate time to wrap up the events from the last 36 or so hours.
Continue reading “The Coronation of King Charles III & Queen Camilla Part I”Harry Will Attend the Coronation, Meghan to Stay Home
After months of “will they/won’t they” speculation, it was confirmed yesterday that The Duke of Sussex will in fact attend his father’s coronation on Saturday, May 6. The Duchess of Sussex, on the other hand, will remain behind in California with the couple’s two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.
Continue reading “Harry Will Attend the Coronation, Meghan to Stay Home”Royal Roundup: Titles, Houses, & the Coronation
Real Estate
Let’s start by picking up where we left off – the game of royal residence monopoly. Two weeks ago, the big news was that The Duke and Duchess of Sussex confirmed that they had been asked to vacate Frogmore Cottage, their UK base on the Windsor grounds. Rumors were then rife that the home would be taken over by Harry’s uncle, The Duke of York, while his current residence of Royal Lodge, also on Windsor grounds, would be filled by The Prince and Princess of Wales.
Continue reading “Royal Roundup: Titles, Houses, & the Coronation”Royally Evicted
After nearly a day of speculation courtesy of a news article from The Sun, it’s been confirmed that The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been asked to “vacate” Frogmore Cottage, a house on the grounds of the Windsor estate that was gifted to them by Queen Elizabeth and has been used as their UK base since they stepped down as working royals.
To draw a firm line, that’s all of the detail that’s been confirmed. But here’s what else is out there: 1) the couple were asked to give up their UK house shortly after the publication of Harry’s memoir, Spare, and 2) part of the move is because King Charles is hoping to jettison his brother, The Duke of York, from the much larger Windsor estate, Royal Lodge, and thinks Frogmore Cottage is a better fit.
Continue reading “Royally Evicted”I Can’t Believe I’m Writing About This Again
Ok, bridesmaids dresses for children. Let’s get into it. On May 14, 2018, TMZ reported that Thomas Markle, father of The Duchess of Sussex, suffered a heart attack six days prior (so, May 8). This came on the heels of the publication of embarrassing tabloid photos and, as we later learned, an anguished back and forth between the Sussexes and Markle.
The same day the news was reported, according to Spare, the now-Princess of Wales texted Meghan to say that Princess Charlotte’s bridesmaid dress needed altering. The dresses had been created by Givenchy based on measurements of each little girl, not in-person fittings. Upon trying them on, the dress didn’t fit. Meghan doesn’t respond. According to The Duke of Sussex, she was mostly wrapped up in dealing with her father.
On May 15, Meghan finally responds to Catherine that a tailor is on standby at Kensington Palace – where the then-Cambridges lived – to make any necessary alterations to Charlotte’s dress.
Continue reading “I Can’t Believe I’m Writing About This Again”Royal Households “Briefing Against” One Another
I’ve danced around writing this post for ages now because it always feels like a massive undertaking and frankly it’s a narrative that we’re still seeing play out with the recent Netflix documentary and Sussex memoir. But now feels like a good a time as any to at least try and get this ball rolling, so here we go.
First and foremost, I think it’s important to unravel the various threads of what comprises the Sussexes’ grievances. In my mind, there are three:
- The British tabloids are unregulated, dishonest, and perpetuate sexism and racism.
- Palace staff, at the direction of members of the Royal Family, not only failed to protect The Duke and Duchess of Sussex during their respective tenures as working royals from negative press, but actively worked against them.
- Harry feels betrayed by King Charles III and The Prince of Wales after a lifetime of feeling let down or held back by them.