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Harry and Meghan decry vaccine misinfo on Spotify
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have “expressed concern” over Spotify's hosting of COVID misinformation on its platform.
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However, they have so far stopped short of following musicians like Joni Mitchell and Neil Young who say they will cut ties with the streaming giant over its hosting of the The Joe Rogan Experience. Harry and Meghan do not specifically name Rogan in their statement.
In a statement released Sunday, Harry and Meghan said, “Since the inception of Archewell, we have worked to address the real-time global misinformation crisis. Hundreds of millions of people are affected by the serious harms of mis- and disinformation every day. Last April, our co-founders began expressing concerns to our partners at Spotify about the all too real consequences of Covid misinformation on its platform.’
“We have continued to express our concerns to Spotify to ensure changes to its platform are made to help address this public health crisis. We look to Spotify to meet this moment and are committed to continuing our work together as it does.”
As The Daily Beast previously reported, in declaring their intentions to cut ties with Spotify, both Young and Mitchell cited an open letter from over 200 doctors decrying disinformation and vaccine hesitancy featured on The Joe Rogan Experience, which is the most popular podcast in the world.
Harry and Meghan’s own relationship with Spotify is in the headlines; the couple have so far produced only 35 minutes of content for the streamer, with Spotify this week indicating it was looking for fresh staff to help produce it.
In an interview last year with Dax Shepard, when the subject of Joe Rogan came up, Harry said: “The issue is in today’s world with misinformation endemic, you’ve got to be careful about what comes out of your mouth.” Shepard said that while Rogan’s comments on the vaccine were “ridiculous” and “stupid,” he was entitled to voice his opinion but Harry argued Rogan should “stay out of it” saying that “with a platform comes responsibility.”
Online mis- and disinformation is a topic Harry and Meghan consistently return to. Last year, Harry told a discussion panel entitled “The Internet Lie Machine” that “literally everyone around the world” is being affected by internet disinformation, adding that there were “super-spreaders” of misinformation, with “a small group of accounts” creating “chaos” online.
Andrew wants to call Kevin Spacey as witness
Ghislaine Maxwell was once photographed with Kevin Spacey messing about in the Buckingham Palace throne room, and now Prince Andrew wants Spacey to come forward to say this was down to Maxwell, not him, according to the Sun. While Andrew claims Maxwell was not a close friend of his in legal documents, a Palace cop said that Maxwell would “breeze in like one of the Royal Family.”
A source said: “Andrew had invited Spacey for the tour of the Palace. She came with him—not as a guest of Andrew’s.” Spacey is “high on a list of names” Andrew’s team wants to speak to—despite the tanked career and reputation of the actor following multiple accusations of sexual misconduct made against him.
An insider told the Sun: “The snaps go right to the centre of the claims against Andrew, and an image of Ghislaine Maxwell in the most private space within Buckingham Palace looks very damning. But if Kevin can convince a jury he was the crucial link with Ghislaine, rather than Andrew, it distances the Prince from her somewhat—and that’s crucial. Andrew also believes such a gifted actor and public speaker could be a very compelling asset in front of a jury.”
Given Spacey’s own credibility and reputation, this may seem like excessive optimism on Andrew’s part.
Giuffre’s dad: Prince Andrew is a “coward”
Virginia Giuffre Roberts’ father, Sky Roberts, has called Prince Andrew a “coward,” and said the photograph showing him with his arm around his daughter as the most damning piece of evidence against him.
While both Roberts and Andrew have officially signed on to the case becoming a jury trial, there is still speculation Andrew may settle with Giuffre. She claims he sexually assaulted her on three occasions when she was 17, while being trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein. He emphatically denies all the allegations.
Roberts told the Sunday Mirror: “If my daughter asks me to stand up in court, I will do it and tell them the truth. She wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t right. I believe in her. It’s the coward’s way out to try to blame the victim. He is playing a game and he is bluffing. He doesn’t have a strong hand. Do you think my daughter wants to go through this stuff? She has kids. Do you think she wants to go back there after all that happened? No. She is doing it because it’s right. It’s ridiculous for him to say that Virginia’s hands are unclean or she has skeletons in her closet, or whatever.”
Roberts said that “financially” was the only way Virginia could “hurt” Andrew.
“She was a 17-year-old girl and Epstein had bargained her out to Andrew and told her, ‘You do this, or else. You have to go with him and sleep with him and do whatever he needs, or else. We can hurt you or your family.’ I think they put that over her head all the time. He [Andrew] is also trying to say he doesn’t even know who Virginia is. Yet there’s the picture with her, him and Ghislaine Maxwell, together. I believe a jury won’t believe him. That’s why Virginia wants a jury trial. Financially is the only way she can hurt him. Virginia has tried everything so, monetarily, that’s the only way to go.”
Roberts said Andrew would not be jailed. “He will be protected, he will never see a jail. If he would have just apologized, she wouldn’t have been doing this. Because then he would have admitted it. When it actually comes down to it, he might settle out of court just to stop all this stuff coming out. But either way, it’s going to hurt him.”
Guilty by disassociation
A friend of Prince Andrews has expressed to the Telegraph a pervasive fear among his set—that expelling Andrew from the royal family could be used to help his accuser Virginia Giuffre paint a negative picture of him in court. One friend told the Telegraph, “We fear that cutting him off looks like the royal family have pre-judged him and that this could somehow be used against him in court. Stripping him of his duties before legal proceedings have barely got on the way is hardly a vote of confidence.”
The source added that the way in which Andrew is no longer being recognized as part of the official royal family will be interpreted as the royals, “pulling up the drawbridge,“ adding, “If they’re not prepared to back him then who on earth will?”
The piece also quotes sources saying that the royals want the case to, “go away,” and says that an out of court settlement, “remains the favorite strategy.”
Settling up
The drumbeat for settlement in the Giuffre case is growing louder on both sides. This week a source in Andrew’s camp told The Daily Beast they did not wish to “foreclose on the possibility” of settling and now Giuffre’s lawyer David Boies has told the Telegraph: “I think that we would be unlikely to settle in a situation in which somebody just handed over a cheque. So if Prince Andrew maintains ‘I’ve never heard of this person’, ‘I don't know who she is’, ‘The photographs are fake,’ then I don’t think that we would want to settle on that basis…[but] if you had a settlement that was large enough to be, in effect, a vindication, then it’s something we would obviously look at.”
US civil lawyer Spencer Kuvin told The Sun: “Damages against Andrew could range in excess of £14 million. To punish someone worth a fortune you have got to hit them in their pockets and punish them accordingly.”
Tough questions
If the case continues, Andrew can expect to be grilled for as much as two days by master inquisitor David Boies himself. The lawyer tells the Telegraph: “It has been agreed that we will go to London to depose him,” and adds it could last “a day, or probably two.”
Boies says: “I’m going to try to get him to understand that this is not going to be combative. Obviously, I’m going to ask him a lot of questions. And although some of the questions may be uncomfortable, I’m not going to be aggressive or in any way offensive to him. I’m going to be very respectful.”
Royal relocation
It has been rumored for some time that William and Kate are planning to move to Windsor. The question of which royal pile of bricks they will relocate to in particular has been given a new piquancy by Prince Andrew’s dramatic fall from grace and expulsion from the royal family, leading to speculation that they could move into his house, Royal Lodge.
Doubters of this scenario may prefer the hypothesis contained in an extensive piece of society gossip reportage in the Telegraph which suggests that the Cambridges could in fact move to Fort Belvedere, a fairytale castle on 135 acres, adjoining Windsor Great Park, and built in 1721 for the younger son of King George the 2nd.
The Telegraph reports of the venue’s royal provenance that, “Queen Victoria used it as a teahouse and it later became the love nest where Prince Edward and Wallis Simpson spent some of their happiest days, spending vast sums on decadent Sybil Colefax interiors.” The property has been rented for several decades to the retail billionaire Galen Weston, but the royals have a knack of getting these properties back if they want them.
The piece also speculates on future schools for the Cambridge children, saying that Lambrook, described as, “a nurturing co-education prep school near Ascot,” is the current favorite and that when it comes to secondary schools Kate wants her children to go to Marlborough College where she went to school, rather than Eton where William and Harry went.
Ready for her close up
Camilla Parker Bowles is to become patron of the National Theatre, after Meghan Markle was striped of the role as part of her departure from royal life. The Sunday Times reports Camilla was “pretty miffed” at missing out on the gig in 2019, saying: “She really wanted it. She was pretty miffed when it went to Meghan, and will be all the more delighted to take it on now, after being disappointed not to get it first time round.”
This week in royal history
If things seem dramatic for the royals in the present day, do consider that on February 1, 1587, Elizabeth I signed Mary, Queen of Scots’ death warrant.
Unanswered questions
How far will Andrew go in his court case and testimony? If he is going to settle, then wouldn’t it make more sense to do so sooner rather than later?
