The last time Prince William and Kate were out on an official engagement together, William was asked about his brother, Prince Harry, and about racism in his family. His response was embarrassingly bad. Because, as we have seen, the British royals’ and their comms team are embarrassingly bad at crisis management. Today there were no provocative questions so Will and Kate were able to operate on auto-pilot in Newham in East London to visit with emergency and other frontline workers at an ambulance station. 

 

At one point during the visit, while speaking with paramedic Jahrin Khan, they did a video chat with her father in Bangladesh.

Britain's Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Britain's Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge talk with paramedic Jahrin (Jay) Khan and her family via a video call on her mobile phone during a visit to Newham Ambulance Station in east London on March 18, 2021

This isn’t necessarily a selfie, obviously, but it’s closer to a selfie than we’ve heard the royals are allowed to do. And now I’m wondering about the royal selfie policy. It was Meghan Markle who, back in 2017, told well-wishers about the rule: 

Some say it’s because commoners aren’t allowed to turn their backs on British royals and in some cases, when you’re selfie-ing, you might twist around and inadvertently end up with your back to them. Which, for the British royals and in particular their courtiers, is basically a crime, for the Queen to have to look at the back of your body, like your ass. She can turn her back on you, obviously, but you will do no such thing to the sovereign. 

 

I mean, a hundred years ago, that line of thinking was generally more widely accepted. But these days, especially now that selfies are practically a way of life (a lot of people would rather take a selfie and control the shot than give over their phones to someone else to take a picture they can’t see and might not be happy with), it might not be all that realistic anymore. 

I wonder, then, if the British royals are inching closer and closer to selfies, a thing that is already, like, over a decade old. That pretty much sums up their whole sh-t, always well behind the times. 

In other William news, according to Vanity Fair sources, there’s a “lack of trust” between William and Harry and it’s one of the many barriers to reconciliation, if that’s even possible. This is not a surprise. Gayle King already told us earlier this week that while they’ve spoken, the conversation was “not productive”. And now, per VF, 

“William is now worried that anything he says to his brother will be plastered over American TV.”

 

That’s fair… but it’s also rich. 

Because that’s actually one of the reasons that Harry stopped trusting William, from well before the Television Event of the Year. As Harry and Meghan pretty much confirmed during their interview with Oprah, there were leaks against them coming from inside the royal institution. This, you’ll recall, is one of the most notable quotes (everything that was said during those two hours was notable!) from the special – when Oprah asked Meghan how she thought the palace would react to what she and Harry would say, Meghan responded: 

“I don't know how they could expect that after all of this time we would still just be silent if there's an active role that the Firm is playing in perpetuating falsehoods about us. And if that comes with risk of losing things, there's a lot that's been lost already."

 

So for William’s team to be all like, he can’t trust his brother anymore, well, his brother learned a while ago that he couldn’t trust William and those viper courtiers, who kept leaking to the UK tabloids. Which is not quite the same as Gayle King going on the record on CBS This Morning and sharing that SHE spoke to Harry and Meghan, and this is what THEY themselves told her. It’s a lot more solid, traceable, and definitive than “a royal aide tells the Daily Mail that x, y, z”. 

You might even say it’s not as dirty. Because in authorizing Gayle to do it on American television, Harry and Meghan at least are standing by their words, instead of letting royal aides whisper anonymously to the tabloids like what Kensington Palace has been doing and thereby claiming plausible deniability. He gets to talk sh-t and distance himself from the sh-t he talked? It’s grimey. And we haven’t talked about who it was that leaked the “bullying” allegations to the newspapers too, ahead of the Oprah interview. 

The point is, again, if William’s issue is trust here, it’s a little hypocritical, non?