If you love The Daily Beast’s royal coverage, then we hope you’ll enjoy The Royalist, a members-only series for Beast Inside. Become a member to get it in your inbox on Sunday.
Prince Charles in ‘access capitalism’ controversy
Ben Elliot, nephew of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall and the chairman of the Tory party in the U.K., has been accused of running an “access capitalism” service, allegedly trading off his connection to his aunt’s husband, Prince Charles.
ADVERTISEMENT
The U.K. Sunday Times reported that Mohamed Amersi, a telecom millionaire who paid £15,000 a year ($20,000) to be part of the elite sector of Elliot’s posh person’s concierge service Quintessentially, was flown to meet Charles in Scotland. Whether the prince, and would-be king, knew or realized that Elliot was arranging such meetings is unknown, as Charles declined to comment to the Sunday Times.
“Unless you have somebody like him who opens these doors for you, it’s not possible, it’s not so easy,” Amersi told The Sunday Times, adding, “I call it access capitalism. It’s the same point. You get access, you get invitations, you get privileged relationships if you are part of the set-up, and where you are financially making a contribution to be a part of that set up. Absolutely.”
Amersi next became a trustee of one of the prince’s charities and has since donated more than £1.2m ($1.7m) to them, the Sunday Times reported. Leaked emails, the paper said, showed that Elliot had written “Well done” to Amersi after his first donation.
Amersi said the top-tier membership of Quintessentially meant he was “invited to be exposed to the establishment here, whether it is the royal establishment, Clarence House, St James’s Palace, Buckingham Palace, Dumfries House, whether it is the government and No 10 and other influential aspects of government.”
The Times reports: “Documents also suggest Elliot used his royal connections to bolster his political fundraising. In one email sent in 2015—four years before he became Conservative Party chairman—Elliot told Amersi that Charles ‘spoke highly of you,’ before requesting a donation to Zac Goldsmith, the Conservative minister and his close friend.”
The Times also quoted a whistleblower with insider knowledge of Quintessentially, who said Elliot’s royal ties were “explicitly used as both a sales and a retention tool. When trying to bring new clients on board or up-sell existing clients, Quintessentially will say: ‘Well, we can get tickets to Wimbledon, the day to day, bread and butter stuff.’ And then they will say: last year, for example, ‘We took some clients up to Dumfries House to have dinner with His Royal Highness’... so it is certainly used as a business tool.”
A friend of Elliot told The Sunday Times: “Ben Elliot does not ‘sell access’ to HRH the Prince of Wales or the royal family... Ben Elliot’s work as Conservative Party co-chair is entirely separate from his other interests. There is no conflict of interest.”
A spokesman for Elliot told The Sunday Times: “Mr. Elliot assisted Mr Amersi in meeting the Prince of Wales because he wanted to support the prince’s charitable work, and Mr Elliot is proud that led to large donations from Mr. Amersi to good causes. This was entirely about helping to raise money for charity.
“The Quintessentially Foundation is proud to support major charity fundraisers. Some of these charities have patrons from the royal family, like many charities across the country. Quintessentially members are asked if they would like to buy tickets for these events: this has helped raise large sums for these charities and Mr. Elliot is proud to support them. Buying a ticket for a charitable event is entirely separate from Quintessentially membership.
“Mr. Elliot does not raise money from Quintessentially members in his role as Conservative Party chairman. Mr. Elliot has helped raise more than £13 million for charities through the Quintessentially Foundation, which has supported more than 50 charities. He is proud of this work. He has also worked to support many other charities and good causes across the U.K.”
Three women and a royal husband on a boat
Late Saturday, The Sun ran a series of photographs of Jack Brooksbank, Princess Eugenie’s husband, on a boat off Capri with “three glamorous female pals,” none of which appeared to be his wife.
Brooksbank was pictured on the 26-foot boat, off the island of Capri, holding one “pal” wearing an orange swimsuit around the waist. The Sun says Eugenie was thought to have spent the previous week in Ibiza with friends, before heading to Italy with Brooksbank.
The Mail on Sunday said Brooksbank was in Capri to attend the Unicef Summer Gala as a brand ambassador for Casamigos tequila, a sponsor of the event.
Eugenie, the paper said, with their five-month-old son August, was at home at Harry and Meghan’s British residence, Frogmore Cottage in Windsor.
The Mail also identified the three women as Rachel Zalis, former editor of Glamour magazine who is now Casamigos's global director, Maria Buccellati, a model turned fashion ambassador, and Italian model Erica Pelosini, who the Mail said was “periodically” topless in front of Brooksbank and the boat’s skipper.
“A source close to Jack” told The Mail on Sunday that Eugenie hadn't joined him on the business trip to Capri because he was “there to work at the ball,” where Katy Perry, John Legend, and Heidi Klum were expected to be guests.
Fergie: “They say I’m kooky. I’m just myself”
Sarah, Duchess of York, continues to sell her Mills & Boon book, Her Heart for a Compass, with brio. She told the Sun that the novel had been a kind of retrospective therapy.
The 61-year-old said: “I would tell the young Sarah to always be herself, to have belief in herself and to seek help much earlier on when it came to insecurity and issues with mental health and eating disorders. I wish somebody had taken me in hand and helped me with all that.”
She added: “People will spot the parallels between me and my heroine, Lady Margaret. She’s a redhead, she’s strong-willed, she’s led by her heart. I hope people won’t read too much into it.”
The duchess told the Sun: “I think when you are abandoned by your mother, who left when I was 12, you start believing that you are not worthy of love. That then manifests itself as deep insecurity, mental health problems, and issues around eating properly. I went through a form of self-sabotage and it took me a long time to work through all these issues. Writing is my relaxation. It’s my form of escapism.
The single duchess also said, “I love everything to do with a romantic way of looking at life. I would say that I have been the luckiest girl alive to have married a prince (Andrew), and I love my life as it is right now. Who knows what will happen in the future?”
Meanwhile, on Good Morning America, Fergie was asked how the press had treated Meghan Markle. “There should be no judgement on race, creed, color, or any other denomination,” she said. “I wish Harry and Meghan so much happiness. I know (Princess) Diana would be so proud of her sons and their wives.”
Fergie said she would always love Diana, and noted how “extraordinary” it was to realize that both women “were selling papers rather than it being real. In the days of Diana and I, it was tough.”
Fergie was asked about her views of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, in which Prince Andrew remains ensnared.
“Well, for anybody watching, apologize profusely to yourself, to others. I have destroyed myself many times, but the most important thing is to get up and get going.”
Fergie said she had learned to stop being a “people-pleaser.”
“They say I’m kooky. I’m just myself,” Fergie said. “They say I’m eccentric and I am myself. That’s OK. I like to do what I do.”
Good Morning America said Fergie would appear for another interview this coming week.
This week in royal history
Happy birthday to Meghan Markle, who turns 40 on Wednesday, August 4. The Mirror reports that she wants to hire Oprah Winfrey’s party planner Colin Cowie to oversee her celebrations. The bash will be for around 65 guests, and Prince Harry has ordered a cake from local baker Posies & Sugar, the paper says.
Unanswered questions
Princess Eugenie may have a few for husband Jack Brooksbank after his boat trip with those three women, and Prince Charles and Camilla may have a few for Ben Elliot about what exactly Quintessentially’s most elite clients were told about access to him.
