Welcome to The Royalist—all the latest royal news and gossip with Tom Sykes and Tim Teeman. For Beast Inside members only.
Harry and William to Split All Operations, Easing Feud (They Hope)
Last year they announced they were moving to Windsor, instead of taking up residence in a lavish apartment in Kensington Palace that was being refurbished for them. Now, it has emerged, Harry and Meghan are to formally split away their courts, offices and staff from William and Kate, which, courtiers tell The Sunday Times, may help ease “tensions between the brothers and their wives.” We’ll see.
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A source tells The Sunday Times: “There is a gulf in the style and approach to the type of work that William and Kate will increasingly do as future head of state and consort, and Harry and Meghan, who have more of a blank canvas with their roles.”
Attentive readers will recall that The Royalist was given the brush off by the Palace when we suggested that the two households might soon divide a key part of their media relations strategy and develop separate social media accounts, with the Palace saying there were ‘no plans’ to do so.
Again, we’ll see.
Prince Harry Was Comped $30,000 Bill For Naked Vegas Weekend
Remember when Prince Harry got naked with a bunch of Vegas party girls? His hotel bill was $36,000, but The Mirror reports that according to Vanity Fair columnist Katie Nicholl, speaking in a Channel 5 documentary, Spending Secrets of the Royals, “Steve Wynn, the owner of the hotel Harry was staying in, just wiped the slate clean.”
Wynn should have been repaid a thousand times by the city, given that Harry’s antics re-established the credentials of the global capital of bad taste as the go-to party destination for a new generation.
After Car Crash, Prince Philip Can Still Drive His Horses
It was officially announced this week, as the Royalist reported last week, that Prince Philip will not be prosecuted over the accident he was involved in, but the price he has had to pay is to give up driving. A new report in the Telegraph suggests he significantly downplayed the accident to staff, wandering into the office of the Queen’s private secretary, Edward Young, shortly after the incident and asking, “Have you got a plaster? I’ve cut my hand.”
Being able to drive was a totem of independence for Philip, and The Royalist understands that Philip always refused to have GPS tracking fitted to his cars, which explains why it was a member of the public who pulled him from his overturned car. After close on a century of action-packed living, Philip was struggling to adapt to life as a retiree anyway, so the removal of his independent mobility is expected to hit him particularly hard.
Fortunately, he doesn’t need a license to continue his beloved sport of carriage racing. He goes out at least once a week in the grounds of Sandringham, where he now lives full time at a former farmhouse, in a trap pulled by four horses.
Meghan Takes on ‘Male, Pale and Stale’ Universities
Meghan Markle is backing a campaign to “decolonize” British university curriculums after reacting with a shocked, “Oh My God” to a document that showed just 2 percent of British academics are black. The Sunday Times reports that Meghan was visiting City University in London when she was shown the ‘male pale and stale’ spreadsheet, and commented that the ‘conversation’ needed to be opened up, “so we are talking about it as opposed to continuing with that daily rote . . . sometimes that approach can be really antiquated and needs an update.”
Camilla: Mother’s Osteoporosis ‘Devastated Me and My Family’
Camilla Parker Bowles channeled William and Harry this week as she gave an emotional speech about her mother’s death for the Royal Osteoporosis Society. Camilla’s mother Rosalind died from the bone disease in 1994, and Camilla said: “It was 25 years ago that my mother died as a result of osteoporosis. In fact, she was exactly the same age as I am now. Then, it was never discussed, rarely diagnosed, and always attributed to old age. My family and I were completely devastated, but also, we didn't understand how somebody could be in so much pain, and we were unable, and the doctors seemed unable, to do anything about it.”
Camilla saluted the progress made in fighting the disease, saying: “It’s just incredible what’s happening and I just wish my mother was here today to see what could have been done.”
Watch a video of Camilla speaking here.
Royal Fashion Watch
Sure, Kate looked beautiful at the Baftas in McQueen, and later at the V&A in blush pink Gucci for a charity gala, and Meghan wore cream Calvin Klein (turtleneck dress) and Amanda Wakeley (coat) at London’s Natural History Museum, but the winner of royal look of the week is the Queen, who returned after her seasonal holiday to Sandringham to London in a fabulous, very trendy patterned gray coat.
This Week in Royal History
Prince Andrew, the queen’s third child and second son, was born on February 19, 1960. He is most remembered for his marriage to (and continued good post-divorce relationship with) Sarah Ferguson. His globe-trotting role as a British trade ambassador earned him the nickname Air Miles Andy.
He has also been criticized for a number of controversial personal associations, as when he sold his house in Windsor to a Kazakh oligarch for £3 million ($3.85m) over the asking price. In December, as The Daily Beast reported, he suggested his “Pitch At The Palace” event to expand into Saudi Arabia, as outrage swirled over the murder of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Andrew was also linked to billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, and eventually resigned as trade ambassador in 2011.
Andrew is, at present, seventh in line to the throne—but will be bumped down to eighth after the birth of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s first child.
Coming Next
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, who is seven months pregnant, will be heading to Morocco later this week. The three day visit, scheduled to run February 23 to 25, “Will build on the close relationship between the U.K. and Morocco,” a spokesperson at their office at Kensington Palace told People of the trip. “The Duke and Duchess are looking forward to the visit which will highlight the vital roles that girls’ education and youth empowerment are playing in, and shaping, modern Morocco.”
A royal aide told the Telegraph: “The Duchess feels well and able to fly. Most airlines permit women to fly up until approximately the last month of their pregnancy. We announced the baby is due in the spring and this visit is in February.”
