Introduction: Minutes 0 to 4:45 We were off for three weeks due to my health. I watched the docuseries The Billionaire, the Butler and the Boyfriend on Netflix, about L’oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt. She reminds Chandra of the late great Duchess of Alba. Royals: Minutes (4:45) to 19:30 The Earthshot Awards and the Kenyan Tour were flops. King Charles had his 75th birthday on November 14th. Courtiers told Roya Nikkhah at the Times that Charles invited Harry to his 75th birthday party but Harry “snubbed” the invite. This was an obvious move by the palace to deflect from the mediocre Kenyan tour. A day later, the Archewell spokesperson went on the record to say Harry had not been invited and so there was no “snub.” Charles supposedly wanted Harry to call him for his birthday. Both Harry and Meghan called and talked to him along with sending a little happy birthday video with their kids. It definitely sounded like the palace briefed the media but then they did what they always do and claimed Harry and Meghan were the source. Kate gave a speech about early childhood as part of a symposium. They previewed it in The Telegraph and made it sound so groundbreaking. However it was super generic and basic like everything she does. I remember the Shaping Us claymation video they did earlier this year. Omid Scobie’s Endgame: Inside the Royal Family and the Monarchy’s Fight for Survival is out on November 28th. His last book, Finding Freedom, came out in August, 2020 and that was an international bestseller. We’ve been covering the excerpts from the book which were published in People Magazine. Harry’s family snubbed him after the Queen died and worked to exclude Meghan. We heard some of this before but not the extent of it. The press claimed that Charles told Harry about the Queen dying but as Harry explained in Spare, he found out from the press as he was on a plane when it happened. Scobie also wrote that William sees Harry as a defector and that he thinks Harry and Meghan blindsided their family by going public with their issues. William also thinks that Harry is brainwashed by therapists and that he’s California and self-important. Harry still has warmth for Charles though and that came through in Spare. Chandra thinks Camilla would rather they didn't talk.  The Daily Mirror claimed that Scobie timed his book excerpt release to overshadow Kate’s big girl speech. They royals are panicking about the book. The first half of The Crown season six is out now. We wonder how Peter Morgan will show Will and Kate’s love story and if he’ll just go with the official version. Comments of the week: Minutes (19:30) to end Chandra’s comment of the week is from Berkeleyfarm on the post where William calls Harry Californian and self important. My comment of the week is from Jane on the post with Travis Kelce’s old tweets. Thanks for listening bitches!

162: Harry and Meghan called Charles on his birthday, Kate's golden thread speech

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Introduction: Minutes 0 to 6:00 I met our Celebitchy Zoom group in person! I talk about my friend’s tiny dog. Chandra had an encounter with a Great Dane. Royals: Minutes 6:00 to 24:00 Our last episode, #171, was two weeks ago. We had just seen the video of Princess Kate revealing that she had cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy. We were hit with over a hundred comments from new accounts all saying variations of the same thing right after that video was released. Christopher Bouzy has called out the bots on Twitter. The NY Times published an article in early 2020 about the then-Cambridges buying Instagram bot followers. In podcast #170 we talked about the Mother’s Day frankenphoto. Major photo and news agencies issued a kill order for that photo. In light of that, and the very bizarre and obviously not Kate market video released by the Sun and TMZ, some people have questioned the video of Kate announcing her cancer. We wonder what’s happening and Chandra has no theories. The video was filmed by BBC studios and we haven’t heard many details about it. There were thinkpieces in the Washington Post and the NYT about the conspiracies. Getty images put editor’s notes on the photo and video and refused to comment further about it. Last week one of the biggest royal stories was about how the Middletons are so broke they didn’t even pay the insolvency firm that restructured their business, Party Pieces, when they sold it and went into bankruptcy. It’s clear that the press has been given the go-ahead to go after the Middletons. There were multiple stories about this. Uncle Gary’s appearance on Celebrity Big Brother underlined that the Middletons are broke. The British press always invents some new thing the Sussexes have to go to. There’s a ceremony for Invictus’s anniversary in May in London. England also wants to host Invictus in 2027, but hopefully Harry will not fall for that. Charles is also said to have invited the Sussexes to Balmoral this summer. Other major stories are about how the monarchy is now way too slimmed-down and how Beatrice and Eugenie need to be working royals to pick up the slack. We’re also hearing BS about how Meghan supposedly got between Kate and Harry because they were so close before Meghan came around, which sounds like royal fan fiction. Harry wrote in Spare that he barely saw William and Kate. Harry has a wife whom he adores and this storyline is offensive. I like what Chandra wrote about the press in her piece about Peter Philips being unlucky in love. The palace comms departments are quiet and the royal rota has been left to make up storylines. We also heard that William was seen at a pub in Norfolk with Carole Middleton! Comments of the Week: Minutes 24:00 to end Chandra’s COTW is from Brassy Rebel on the post about Beatrice and Eugenie covering Hello. My COTW is from Samuel Whiskers on the post about loofahs harboring bacteria. Thanks for listening bitches!  

172: Princess Kate's cancer announcement video draws skepticism and bot defenders

Introduction: Minutes 0 to 5:15 We will be off for a couple of weeks due to Easter. I watched Dream Scenario on HBO with Nicolas Cage. He’s a great actor but I don’t recommend it. I really liked The Map of Tiny Perfect Things on Amazon. It reminds Chandra of The Summer I Turned Pretty. She’s been watching Tennis but her favorite, Daniil Medvedev, didn’t win Indian Wells. Royals: Minutes 5:15 to 22:45 Over the weekend we got a cover story in the Sun that Kate was seen out shopping with William at a farmer’s market. Then on Monday we saw a super grainy faraway video where the person supposed to be Kate is kind of bouncing around carrying a large bag. The woman in the video didn’t exactly look or walk like Kate. Assuming that was Kate, it reflects poorly on the Waleses because she hasn’t done any events since Christmas. Also, if that was Kate in the photo in the car with her mom, her face has since thinned out. After TMZ published the video of Kate at the farmer’s market, their executive producer said he wasn’t sure it was her. There’s still fallout from the Frankenphoto too. Before we got the whole fake Kate video, Kensington Palace did a sourced story with the Times of London again explaining that Kate edited that photo, that she feels bad about the fallout and that she’s just trying to make her family look good. The quote that really stood out is where they called out the press agencies for noticing how janky that photo was. As Obama’s photographer Pete Souza said on Instagram, there’s a difference between adjusting the lighting or cropping a photo and pasting in different people. The royal rota tried to accuse Harry and Meghan of editing their photos, but the photographers, Misan Harriman and Chris Allerton, said that wasn’t true. Part of the Frankenphoto fallout is that the wire agencies are reviewing all the photos ever submitted to them by Kensington Palace. One photo that’s particularly bad was released after the Queen’s death on what would have been her 97th birthday in 2023. It shows her at Balmoral on a couch with a bunch of her great grandchildren posing around her. That was obviously cobbled together from several photos. Getty added an editor’s note that “the image has been digitally enhanced at source,” and Reuters has announced that it’s “updating its procedures related to vetting images from Kensington Palace.” Another really janky photo featuring the great grandchildren was released after Philip died. As we talked about last week, there’s renewed interest in Prince William’s alleged 2019 affair with Rose Hanbury. Rose’s lawyer went on the record to Business Insider last weekend to say the rumors are false. Other pundits are also defending her. Chandra thinks that the affair has been over a while. As part of the fallout from that, people have noticed stolen Qing Dynasty artifacts in family photos taken of Rose and her husband, David Rocksavage. We talk about the $10 million brooch that Camilla wore for an outing, which seemed meant to troll Kate. Buckingham Palace, Prince Charles and Camilla’s office, seems pleased that Kensington Palace, Kate and William’s office, is screwing this up so badly. They don’t understand that it reflects poorly on them too and that most people don’t get the distinction. Meghan has announced her new lifestyle brand, it’s called American Riviera Orchard. I will definitely buy what she’s selling and so will so many other people. So far she has just shown the logo and they have a one page website with an email signup. We also heard this week that three hospital staffers are under investigation for trying to access Kate’s medical records at the London clinic where she was treated. Kate’s cancer announcement: Minutes 22:45 to 27:30 We recorded this section on Friday after Kate made the announcement that she has cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy. Hopefully she is OK and will make a full recovery. Comments of the Week: Minutes 22:45 to end Chandra’s comment of the week is from ML on the post about Archie’s Christening pics being called out incorrectly for edits. My comment of the week is from Olivia on Rosie’s post about Kevin James losing 60 pounds by not eating for 40 days. Thanks for listening bitches!  

171: Princess Kate announces cancer diagnosis

Introduction: Minutes 0 to 1:00 We were off due to the Oscars! Royals: Minutes 1:00 to 27:30 The royals' mistreatment of Harry and Meghan is finally boomeranging back on them. It’s been obvious to us what’s happening but now the world is finally noticing. Harry and Meghan were explaining their situation to the casual royal watchers with their docuseries and with Spare. It was about 70 days after we last saw Kate before we got the first alleged photo of her. That was the photo supposedly taken of her on Monday March 4th in an Audi with her mom, outside Windsor Castle. TMZ and other US outlets bought that exclusive photo. There were questions about its authenticity. Kensington Palace said it was not an authorized photo. KP also put a lot of pressure on British media to not publish the pic and it was mostly in the US outlets like TMZ. Assuming it was real, it really seems like Carole and the Middletons arranged it. On March 8th, Meghan was in Austin at South by Southwest for a scheduled panel discussion. She made some really measured comments about the hate she got when she was pregnant. A lot of the negative stories about Meghan when she was pregnant were from William trying to deflect from his affair with Rose Hanbury. I think that the frankenphoto release was meant to pull focus from Meghan’s comments at SXSW and Chandra says that it could have always been the plan. We got a new photo supposedly of Kate and the kids from Kensington Palace on March 10th, Mother’s Day in the UK. They claimed that William had taken the photo. The picture looked really janky. The news outlets noticed this and issued a “kill order” for that photo. The palace was asked to provide the original photo and they refused for hours on Sunday. I play a clip of AFP News director Phil Chetwynd talking about this. CNN has also announced that it’s reviewing all the photos issued from Kensington Palace. The Palace then posted a tweet supposedly from Kate claiming that she was the one who edited the photo. This spawned so many memes and AI photos.  Experts told major news outlets that the errors were due to a photo editing app. People showed that her head was cut and pasted into that photo from her 2016 British Vogue cover. Chandra thinks the original photo of Kate and the kids is from last fall. The palace tried to double down and continue to blame Kate. They ran a story in The Times of London Tuesday claiming that Kate just wanted to release a nice picture, she feels bad about it, and she edited it because she just wanted her kids to look good. We got a third photo supposedly of Kate on Monday March 11, in a car with William and looking away. That photo looks fake too! I even saw a video on Twitter where someone thinks they have the exact older image of Kate that was used. The photographer vouches for it though. Assuming the photo is real, we can’t even verify it’s her. Chandra think it’s someone else. As this eas making international news, Colbert did a segment on Tuesday night about William’s affair with Rose Hanbury. Remember that William tried to shut that story down back when it broke in March of 2019. Colbert even made a reference to William getting his mistress pregnant!  We know that the palace is livid about this because the Telegraph ran a story about it and said The Late Show didn’t warn the palace that they were going to run that segment. The British media regularly does this when they cover the royals. The Guardian did a summary of Colbert’s opener and in their initial story they included Rose’s name but then they edited it out! Even the royal-friendly journalists and outlets were calling William and Kensington Palace out about it! Camilla went on vacation last week, supposedly due to being under strain and fighting with William. Charles was seen on Wednesday at a photo op at Buckingham Palace. Chandra is surprised that Buckingham Palace hasn’t taken a side on this PR disaster either way. William is in no way ready or suited to be king. Comment of the Week: Minutes 27:30 to end Chandra’s comment of the week is from Cerys on the post where the DM questions whether they can trust anything that comes out of Kensington Palace. My comment of the week is from Little Penguin on the Best of the Oscars post. Thanks for listening bitches!  

170: Princess Kate's Frankenphoto compared to North Korean propaganda

Sign up for our mailing list There are mailing list signups on the last few podcast posts on our site, accessible through the podcast link at the top of our menu. Thank you! Introduction: Minutes 0 to 7:30 The Oscars are next weekend so we won’t have a podcast unless something huge breaks. Since we last talked Chandra and I both saw American Fiction, that was my favorite. Chandra liked it but wanted it to focus more on Issa Rae’s character. She thought The Zone of Interest was very disturbing, but loved Poor Things. She is also watching Capote vs. The Swans and loves the performances. If Emma Stone takes home the Oscar over Lily Gladstone, Chandra is fine with that. Royals: Minutes 7:30 to 29:00 In our last podcast we mentioned Charles’ cancer diagnosis and Kate disappearance following abdominal surgery. Kate has not been seen in over 60 days. A Kensington Palace spokesperson gave a snotty statement about it to Page Six that did not reveal much. Their PR is so terrible. On February 15th the Sussexes made a three day trip to Canada to do events ahead of next year’s winter Invictus Games. Harry had an interview with Good Morning America. The Sussexes also launched Sussex.com and Meghan got a podcast deal with Lemonada media. They’re getting positive coverage apart from silly criticism. Harry was also criticized for answering questions about visiting his father. At first we heard that William, who is BAFTAs president, was not going to attend the BAFTAs on February 18th. That’s pretty typical for him. However after Harry and Meghan got so much press for their Canada trip, he announced that he was going. A photo went viral where William was talking backstage to actresses, including Ayo Edebiri and Phoebe Dynevor, who were looking at him skeptically. It turned out that Prince William had made a very inappropriate comment to Mia McKenna-Bruce about her movie. He was very unprepared to meet the actresses and admitted to not having watched any of their films. On Tuesday the 20th, William issued a statement on the Middle East crisis, which no one was asking him about. William was scheduled to visit the British Red Cross and could have just issued a statement about their work instead. On Thursday, February 29th, William went to an event at a synagogue in central London to discuss anti-Semitism. Kate was originally scheduled to go with him to that event. We remember when Kate did an event with Holocaust survivors in 2021 in which she was engaged and charming. After William’s statement on the Middle East and after he looked drunk at an investiture ceremony, Piers Morgan published a story about how William has been drinking wine since he was 13. On Tuesday February 27th there was a memorial service in London for King Constantine II of Greece, who passed last January. Neither Charles nor William went to the funeral in Greece in 2023. Charles announced ahead of time that he would not make it to this memorial. William was scheduled to give a reading, but canceled less than an hour before. It became international news. At the service were Camilla, at the head of the procession to the church, and Prince Andrew and Fergie were also upfront. Also there were Prince and Princess Michael of Kent. She’s a notorious racist. The Kents’ son-in-law, Thomas Kingston, passed away at just 45 in Gloucester on Sunday. His death was not announced for two days and his in laws went to that memorial service before the news got out. The press announced that William’s absence at the memorial wasn’t due to Thomas’s death. Meanwhile there are all these stories about how the monarchy is fragile and the cracks are showing now. The way the Waleses have bungled their own PR is astounding. Here’s a link to the story Chandra mentioned from The Daily Beast. Comments of the Week: Minutes 29:00 to end Chandra’s comment of the week is from Walking the Walk on the post about Harry losing his case over royal protection while in the UK. My comment of the week is from Christine on the post about the Willy Wonka kids experience in Scotland. Thanks for listening bitches!

169: Princess Kate has been missing for over 60 days, Prince William skipped King Constantine's memorial

Introduction: Minutes 0 to 5:45 I cut my finger and needed stitches. I saw the movie Chandra recommended in our last episode, Anatomy of a Fall, and loved it. May December was OK. I really liked Nyad and it inspired me to work out. We’re looking forward to seeing Poor Things and American Fiction. Royals: Minutes 5:45 to 24:00 While we were off, Kate was hospitalized for abdominal surgery. The surgery was successful and she will need months of recovery. Right after the news broke about Kate’s surgery, it was reported that Charles was scheduled for treatment for an enlarged prostate. Kate’s medical condition is unclear. We heard that William’s focus was on his family, that he was visiting Kate and taking care of his kids. However he was only seen at the London clinic where Kate was recovering once. We didn’t hear about the Middletons or Kate’s children visiting her. Charles’ prostate procedure was at the same hospital, and Camilla was seen visiting several times. There was a story that photographers were only allowed outside the hospital for a day during Kate’s hospitalization but Camilla showed that wasn’t true. We heard that Charles visited Kate when they were in the same hospital, but not that William visited Charles. Camilla was happy to be representing the royal family and did a few events when Charles was hospitalized. There were stories about how she’s the power behind the throne and the last one standing. William reportedly picked Kate up from the hospital on Monday January 29th at 11 am. She is said to be recovering at home. There weren’t any photos of William at the hospital. Just a few hours later Camilla picked up Charles from the same hospital and they were photographed walking out together. On Monday February 5th in the afternoon our time we heard that Prince Charles has cancer! At that point he had known for a week. So Camilla’s appearances after his diagnosis and before the announcement to the public looked cold, especially considering the messaging around that. Stories in the Spanish press claimed Kate’s condition was dire despite the reporting that she was fine and recovering. Palace sources denied that she had been in a coma. The Spanish reporter who broke that story, Concha Calleja, said in an interview after that she trusts her sources and stands by her reporting.  Starting around the time of the King’s prostate procedure, the rota was griping “where’s Harry?” Right after the announcement of Charles’ cancer diagnosis, it was reported that Harry would travel to England. Harry arrived in London on Tuesday, and he went straight to Clarence house. He only met with Charles for 45 minutes, tops, at Clarence House. They met alone, and Camilla was not there. Charles left in a helicopter for Sandringham afterwards. Harry stayed at a hotel Tuesday night and left Wednesday morning. There’s been a steady chorus of “Harry should come back, and maybe Meghan too” They’re trashing Harry for visiting his dad and making it very clear what they’ll do to the Sussexes. We know that Harry didn’t see William because we heard that William refused to meet with him and doesn’t trust him. Of course there were stories attacking Harry for daring to come to the UK to see his father. William stood in for Charles at an investiture service on Wednesday. He did not look sober. That night William went to an air ambulance charity event. A reporter asked a question and he said "We really appreciate everyone’s kind messages." A source told the Daily Mail that’s about all the work we can expect from William for a while. William does not seem willing to do the work to be king and Charles does not want to cede any power to him. William is so focused on hating Harry. Comments of the Week: Minutes 24:00 to end Chandra’s COTW is from Harper on the post about Prince William not wanting to take on extra responsibilities. My COTW is from Jais on the post about Tracy Chapman’s performance at the Grammys. Thanks for listening bitches!

162: Harry and Meghan called Charles on his birthday, Kate's golden thread speech

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