Dear Gossips,   

As mentioned in yesterday’s open, Prince William attended the Diana Legacy Awards last night in London after visiting with youth programs earlier in the day. 

 

That’s where this video was filmed – as William was decorating cookies, listen to what he says: 

I am screaming. “My wife is the arty one”… as both he and his allegedly missing wife are embroiled in a photo doctoring controversy that’s become the biggest headline of the week, for which she was made to apologise… 

 

It’s the latest cringe in a seemingly endless deluge of cringes. Speaking of cringes, Pete Souza, President Obama’s official photographer during his administration, has now entered the chat to talk about why he’s cringing when he sees someone refer to Kate’s Mother’s Day photo as being “photoshopped”. Pete’s issue is with the language. “Altering” is not the same as “photoshopping” and Pete would prefer that we use the words “altered” or even “fake” in situations like this instead of “photoshopped”. And then took the opportunity to remind people that the orange buffoon who is once again running for president has faked photos of himself before. 

 

 

So Kate Waldo and her whereabouts remain in the news cycle which I’m sure continues to be mortifying for Kensington Palace, although they did get an assist yesterday from Meghan Markle. It’s long been rumoured that Meghan would be launching her own brand, and confirmation came yesterday on Instagram. 

 

We will be discussing American Riviera Orchard (terrible name) from a brand perspective in another post, but here let’s talk about the timing. On 14 March 2020, Meghan and Harry left Vancouver Island to permanently relocate to Los Angeles – in their Netflix docuseries, Harry called it the “Freedom Flight”. Some are saying, then, that Meghan chose to reveal her new lifestyle brand yesterday specifically to commemorate the fourth anniversary of their “freedom”. 

As expected, she’s now being accused by the British tabloids and the Sussex haters of being insensitive to Kate’s situation. Or maybe there’s another takeaway? Prince Harry is no longer a senior working member of the British royal family but, like, he undoubtedly knows more than any garden variety TikToker speculating on whatever the f-ck is going on with Kate. If she was in danger, if she was in crisis, if there was anything horribly wrong, he would be made aware, there is no doubt. So the fact that he and Meghan decided to jump into the spotlight yesterday with their Montecito farmer’s market should tell us, at least in my opinion, that Kate is probably fine. Even if you’re in the camp of people who think the Sussexes are famewhores, a reasonable read of the situation would still allow that even they wouldn’t be out here all “pre-order my organic vegan, free from GMO, hydrated from the dew of angel wings blueberry jam!” if Kate was in some kind of emergency. 

 

The fact that Meghan’s selling jams and jellies though, I mean, LOL FOREVER. That said, they aren’t technically supposed to be using their titles for commercial gain, which the British tabloids are already pointing out. Will the Palace come after them for this? Will there be another skirmish related to the Sussexes’ new enterprise? 

Maybe, eventually? But in the immediate? Um, they kinda have other things to worry about. Like the fact that the AFP yesterday just declared that Kensington Palace is no longer a trusted source. Phil Chetwynd, the head of the news agency, was asked yesterday on BBC Radio 4 about the “kill notice” that was issued on Kate’s Mother’s Day photo and this was his response per Deadline: 

“To kill something on the basis of manipulation [is rare. We do it] once a year maybe, I hope less. The previous kills we’ve had have been from the North Korean news agency or the Iranian news agency,” he explained.

Chetwynd added: “One thing that’s really important is you cannot be distorting reality for the public. There’s a question of trust. And the big issue here is one of trust, and the lack of trust and the falling trust of the general public in institutions generally and in the media. And so it’s extremely important that a photo does represent broadly the reality that it’s seen in.”

 

Kensington Palace mentioned alongside North Korean and Iranian news agencies? Could you have imagined this in your wildest f-cking dreams?! We’ve gone from Kate basically becoming a Kardashian by getting called out for photo doctoring to a major news agency comparing what Kensington Place did with that photo to problematic regimes… 

Yeah, so, um, with all that in mind, it’s probably not a good time for KP to start diverting comms resources to Meghan’s garden of écru, you know? 

Yours in gossip, 

Lainey