The Sussex Circus

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I said a couple times during the mourning period for Queen Elizabeth that I would circle back on the full scope of the Sussex drama that played out over the last month. So, here we are. I’m going to attempt to take this piece by piece, so this is somewhat digestible.

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Royal Roundup: American Audiences, Donations & Only Children

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On July 20th it was announced that this year’s Earthshot environmental prize will be held in Boston, Massachusetts in early December. The timing of the announcement corresponded with the anniversary of the moon landing on July 20, 1969, while the location is an homage to the Kennedy family since the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation is serving as a host partner alongside Boston Mayor Michelle Wu. As President Kennedy’s daughter, Caroline Kennedy, currently the U.S. Ambassador to Australia said:

“There is no more important Moonshot today than repairing the planet and no better place to harness the Moonshot spirit than the City of Boston. It is a great tribute to President Kennedy that The Earthshot Prize will partner with the JFK Library Foundation to host the 2022 ceremony in Boston and inspire a new generation with the possibility of a sustainable future.”

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Revenge Recap: Chapter 12–14

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Here’s the recaps for Chapters 1-5 and 6-11 if you missed them.

Ok, we are officially in the spring of 2016. I may slow these down a bit as we move through the rest of the book – as of writing this on Thursday, I made it through Chapter 22 last night and there are a few bits that I think I’ll want to zoom in on. So, just a heads up.

According to Bower, here is the gist of what was going on with Meghan as she went into her first meeting with Harry:

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Balmoral, Memoirs & the BBC

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Let’s do a quick round-up of royal news. It’s been reported that The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, as well as their two children, have been invited by the Queen to visit her at Balmoral over the summer. It’s unclear when this would occur, whether the couple accepted, or even whether an invitation was actually offered. If it did and they do, it’s equally as unclear whether their visit would overlap with that of any other members of the Royal Family.

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Tom Bower Alleges That Camilla is the “Royal Racist”

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There are a few more tidbits coming through as Tom Bower’s book on The Duchess of Sussex hits the shelves (so to speak). Of what I’ve seen, I feel comfortable waiting until I’ve had a chance to read myself…with the exception of one. Bower has claimed that The Duchess of Cornwall is the “royal racist” Harry and Meghan alluded to in their March 2021 Oprah interview.

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Meghan, Tom Bower & Vanity Fair

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Ok, well, even before I’ve finished getting up posts on The Palace Papers, a new book is rocking the royal ecosystem. This one is by Tom Bower, a writer and former BBC investigative journalist who is famous for his notably critical biographies of major figures. Earlier in his career he published one on The Prince of Wales that was apparently rather ruthless, though I’ve admittedly never read it.

His latest is – surprise, surprise – on The Duchess of Sussex, was published today. In anticipation, The Times ran five excerpts that are pretty savage. I’m absolutely planning to read the book, but given shipping times, etc. I think getting actual recaps of it up is going to have to be an August project.

In the meantime, I want to dig into the back and forth over one of The Times’s recaps so we can level-set on how to view the conversation.

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Let’s Catch Up With Beatrice & Eugenie

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This is most emphatically not going to delve into the Andrew issue, but I do think it’s long overdue that we take a look at where the York family falls in the current royal landscape and generally catch up. After all, during what was more or less my hiatus from posting on here, Eugenie had a baby, Beatrice got married *and* had a baby, and their father has been formally pushed out of public life.

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Findings from the Palace’s Investigation into Meghan’s “Bullying” to be “Buried”

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Let this be a reminder that I’m an equal opportunist critic. Yesterday, The Times reported that an investigation into claims that the Duchess of Sussex “bullied” her staff during her tenure as a working royal will never be published. The inquiry was led by Buckingham Palace, conducted by an independent law firm, and paid for by the Queen herself. News of this first broke on the eve of Meghan’s interview with Oprah Winfrey in March of last year. The timing was hardly coincidental.

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Let’s Catch Up on H&M’s “Secret Meeting”

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Well, we have a lot to catch up on. I was out of town over Easter weekend and then playing catch up with life, so obviously the Windsors took that opportunity to do the absolute most 😉 Today I want to cover Harry and Meghan’s surprise visit to England, as well as a few other odds and ends that have hit the press over the last two weeks. But, let’s start with the big one: Harry and the Queen.

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The Royal Family & the BBC

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Nearly a year ago now, the British Broadcasting Cooperation (BBC) admitted that the famous 1995 interview that the late Diana, Princess of Wales gave to Panorama correspondent Martin Bashir was the result of falsified documents and lies. A inquiry led by Lord Dyson uncovered – and confirmed – that Bashir fed information to the Spencer family that Diana’s staff was leaking information to the press, her security team was spying on her, her ex-husband was having an affair with their sons’ nanny, and – bizarrely – that The Earl of Wessex was HIV positive.

For those unaware, this interview is famously when Diana openly discussed The Prince of Wales’s infidelity with the now-Duchess of Cornwall, her infidelity, and – most importantly – cast doubt on Charles’s ability or desire to succeed his mother to the throne. Following this interview, the Queen “recommended” that Charles and Diana divorce. In other words, this interview had long-lasting consequences for its players, as well as The Dukes of Cambridge and Sussex.

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