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Harry and Meghan’s reality show plans revealed
Harry and Meghan’s “multi-episode” reality show will screen in December, Netflix sources have told the Daily Telegraph.
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And while the couple are making revisions and fine-tuning the show with their production team, they are not making wide ranging revisions, as has been reported, a source tells the paper.
“There seems to be a big misconception that they need or want to turn the project on its head,” the source said. “There are always edits being made, but that’s how it works—people give notes, sometimes things are changed if there’s time before a deadline.”
An insider also tells the Telegraph: “This is about where they’ve come from, what they’ve been through and where they are…I think it will explain a lot about the decisions they’ve had to make and how they’ve ended up here.”
The Telegraph, citing an industry source, said that despite “back and forth” on release dates, the “multi-episode series” is now scheduled for a December release.
The Telegraph adds: “The Harry memoir will follow, probably next year and likely subject to edits to make it make sense after the queen’s death, even down to the basics of clarifying the tenses.”
The report unequivocally states that there has been no significant improvement in the relationship between the two sides which will lead to a softening of the couple’s attacks, indeed, the Telegraph posits that with the queen gone, the Sussexes will have a free hand to say what they please about their in-laws.
Another source is quoted as saying: “This is Harry being able to —for the first time—talk about his own life. His family are obviously part of his story, but it’s less an exercise in record-setting (than) a means of setting himself free. And then he can move on.”
King Charles plans ‘cut-down Coronation’
It is set to last one hour, not three. Queen Elizabeth had 8,000 guests at her 1953 coronation. That will be chopped down to 2,000 for King Charles’. Fewer arcane rituals. Lounge suits instead of ceremonial robes.
Revealed in today’s Mail on Sunday, the plans for Operation Golden Orb, the codename for King Charles’ coronation next June show Charles’ desire for a slimmed-down, sober-spending monarchy.
That’s all well and good and sensible (it would not be a good look for a lot of extravagance with Britain in a cost of living crisis), but considering the insane pageantry of the queen’s funeral underscored what the royals do so well—crazy stuff in crazy carriages in crazy clothes—the Mail says Charles wants to keep of that too.
Tricky balancing act huh? In the “cut-down coronation,” as the Mail calls it, “Ancient and time-consuming rituals—including presenting the monarch with gold ingots—will be axed to save time.”
Not the gold ingots! We love the ingots!
King Charles is unlikely to do loads of outfit changes like the queen did at her coronation, “and the language will be adapted so as to be understandable to a more modern audience,” the Mail reports.
Another thing being reportedly scrapped is the Court of Claims, which the gentry, before the queen’s coronation, used as a way to bid for roles at the coronation. “Velvet chairs made especially for the 1953 Coronation are likely to be replaced by standard seating,” the Mail says—what a sad sentence.
The Duke of Norfolk is planning the event to reflect modern, diverse Britain. “The King has stripped back a lot of the Coronation in recognition that the world has changed in the past 70 years,” one well-placed source told the Mail on Sunday. Thank goodness that the 1762 Gold State Coach still has a starring role.
Meghan’s million dollar giveaway
A clue emerges to Meghan Markle’s philanthropic future with the launch this week of a $1 million fund to support women in need. The money is going to The Ving Project (“Ving” as in “Giving”) which sees teenagers asked to nominate a person of their choice for a $1,000 grant. Meghan’s cash is reserved for gifts to women.
Meghan said: “Two things that bring me great joy are supporting women and the spirit of giving. By donating one million US dollars in grants to women in need, our hope is not to only provide support where it may be felt deepest but also empower young adults to embrace the gift of giving at an early age.”
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Two decades of planning for the queen’s funeral revealed
The retired soldier who masterminded the plan for the queen’s funeral has said that the last minute decision to abandon plans to bring the queen’s body from Scotland to London via train was triggered by fears the extent of the public disruption would get Charles’ reign off on the wrong foot.
Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Mather, who spent two decades drawing up Operation London Bridge, said that a replica of the grand Westminster Hall was mocked up in an aircraft hangar to rehearse the lying-in-state.
The coffin of Queen Elizabeth II with the Imperial State Crown resting on top, borne on the State Gun Carriage of the Royal Navy followed by members of the royal family proceeds past Buckingham Palace on September 19, 2022 in London, England.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesLt Col Mather also told the Mail on Sunday why the royal train plan was abandoned, saying: “Every lamppost along the route would have had to be opened, checked for bombs and closed again. Also, there would have had to be police on every bridge along the way. And other trains would have been cancelled. It was decided this wouldn’t start Charles off on the right foot with the general public.”
Mather started crafting the master document for Operation London Bridge in 1999. He said: “The first draft I wrote was, I think, 15 pages long. My final copy, from 2017, is about two and a half inches thick. If you have a plan, you have to keep it up to date. Quite a big group met once a year—at the end of January—and we had a conference, the Earl Marshal’s conference, where he took the chair and we explained any updates to the plans.
“In the latter years, we took over the whole of the ballroom at Buckingham Palace. We did it all through a PowerPoint presentation. People were sworn to secrecy—they didn’t discuss it, other than with those people who needed to know. Whenever one saw the queen, it was very formal. Discussion of the funeral was all indirect—it always went through a private secretary. You’d find a private secretary or a lady in waiting in a corridor and have a word. They tested the temperature of the water for me.”
Harry writing queen funeral chapter: report
Lord Archer, the former Tory party chairman and convicted criminal, says that Prince Harry is writing a new chapter in his memoir about the events leading up to Queen Elizabeth’s death and funeral.
“I’m very sad,” Archer told the Mail. “I fear for the book. I know they’re writing the chapter on the funeral, so I suppose that’s what the book will end on.”
Archer also poured scorn on the idea Harry could, as previously rumored, be toning down the contents of the book—saying publisher Penguin Random House would want it to be as spicy as possible. “They paid him a lot of money—something like £20 million. You want to calm it down if you’re paid £20 million?”
Money makes the one young world go round
Cast your mind back to the dim and distant days of early September and you may recall that Meghan Markle was the keynote speaker at charity One Young World’s annual summit. Indeed, portraits of the couple looking stately were published just this week.
One Young World now finds itself in a tight spot, facing an investigation from British regulator the Charity Commission, after, as the Mail on Sunday says, “the mother and daughter at its helm were paid almost £2 million in less than five years.”
The payments include chief executive Kate Robertson getting £440,000 for the 18 months to June 2021, and her daughter Ella McKay, 33, making £194,543 over the same period, when the pandemic was raging and its summits were disrupted.
The Charity Commission has said it has opened a “regulatory compliance case to examine concerns about remuneration at One Young World,” with a spokesman saying: “All charities should be able to look donors and volunteers in the eye and say how their decisions about pay impact on the cause they pursue or the people they help.”
A spokesman for One Young World said, “We are confident that there has been absolutely no wrongdoing.”
This week in royal history
Happy 63rd birthday to Sarah Ferguson, this coming Saturday, October 15—famously devoted supporter of her ex-husband Prince Andrew—and last seen at Queen Elizabeth’s funeral.
Unanswered questions
So, what will Prince Harry and Meghan Markle reveal in their reality show? How workaday will Charles’ coronation be? Will Harry, Elton John and the other high-profile people joining them prevail in their lawsuit—alleging all manner of wrongdoing in the pursuit of getting stories—against Associated Newspapers, publishers of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday?
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