Anyone else feel this was an entirely random post yesterday in the Independent?

[HornMeister]

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/royal-family/sarah-rose-hanbury-duchess-cholmondeley-william-kate-b2510472.html

He’s in the US, covered by the First amendment, so he can pretty much say anything. That’s how it works there.

Would you say the same about all the jokes that are fairly widespread around Harry's father not being Charles?

@Serenster but can he say it if its not true? Surely they all know something us plebs don't?

U.K. and US laws are different.

Still though if there is no truth to it ?

You all and your whataboutism is exhausting! So because it happened to Harry, which wasn't even William's fault, it doesn't matter if William gets accused of having illegitimate children.

And yes, Harry being accused of not being a Windsor was unfair.

@Nono22972 no I wasn't saying that. I was saying that if the jokes about William being the father of this other child mean that it must be true, are the jokes about Charles not being Harry's also therefore true?
I'd say the jokes about either situation do not make it true, and don't mean the people making the jokes have any credible info.

Yes. You can’t sue someone for defamation in the US just because a statement is untrue - the untrue statement would have to have been made with actual malice to be defamatory.

And you are very unlikely to be able to prove that Stephen Colbert, renowned satirical commentator, has actual malice towards either Prince William or Rose Hanbury.

I did feel really bad for Harry when he said that he believed the rumours until 2014, when he was around 30. I can't even imagine that having those doubts in the back of my mind for most of my life and those remours started in the 90s, when Harry was still very young

That reminded me of the Khloe Kardashian situation where so many believe she was the product of an affair because she looks different from her sisters

@Nono22972 yes I agree. And I think it's even worse to do it to Rose Hanbury's son, who is a completely private citizen. Not that it's ok to do it to Harry, but there is a vague public interest argument you can make if the 3rd in line to the throne (as he was then) doesn't have the father everyone thinks he does.
I believe Rose Hanbury's son was a page boy (is that the right term, probably not) at the coronation, presumably because of his father's role(?). But of course that set the rumours going again that William was insisting on a role for his illegitimate son and Kate was furious etc etc.

Also, the rumour that Rose's son is William's doesn't make any sense. He and his twin were born in 2009, years before Kate and William even got married

I feel bad for him. He's now 14-15. I'm sure he and all his friends are on social media

I don't see why he believed it until his thirties its obviously untrue if you have access to his family pictures

Wouldn't that be an even bigger scandal, if the future king's first child was illegitimate?

The mother then marrying a much older, childless, gay aristo two months before the birth would take the heat off a bit though..

The thing with defamation is it's rarely a black and white situation even in the UK, and the US is even more murky because of the 1st Amendment.

It's also tough because you have to prove reputational harm, not just that the statement is not true. And if the comment was published in the US to a US audience expecting comedy and satire then it would be hard to prove reputational harm - for the US audience jokes about a UK prince are not going to significantly damage his reputation in the USA, and it would be difficult to prove that Stephen Colbert's TV joke harms William significantly to people in the UK.

The lawyer who approved the copy for that joke would have weighed up that a) William would be very unlikely to sue, and b) if he did they'd have a very good chance of winning based on the above.

Interesting!

It's a nightmare talking to laywers about libel though - when you ask them for their advice they always give you a "well it will PROBABLY be fine" and then explain all the risks, and always hedge their bets. Then you have to repeat it all to the senior editors and then everyone makes their best guess and holds their breath if it's slightly on the line.

Even something simple-ish like copyright has nuance when things like 'fair usage' come into play. It's why the editors who got penalised for printing Meghan's letter to her father got into trouble. They used too much of it for it to be fair usage. If they'd used a few snippets and paraphrased the rest they could have shaken off the copyright lawsuit - although that wouldn't necessarily have protected them against the privacy issue.

I imagine they did a full cost benefit analysis and worked out that the clicks they'd get from printing it were going to be worth the risk of the court case.

Papers are shit stirring for clicks. Simple as that

I think it’s shot stirring to show nice and clear to William / KP - the press have given him and Kate a soft ride for a while, but if KP are going to piss about with fake photos and fake timelines to the papers, they need to be prepared for the papers turning on William.

This was a shot across the bow. a reminder that William and Kate need the press on side. The UK press could get as many clicks with negative stories about them as positive. If someone doesn’t get hold of the PR at KP, they might find a lot more of these sort of stories.

It was interesting that the evening standard, the independent’s sister paper, also ran a piece on rose hanbury today. What is possibly more interesting is that both papers are owned by Evgeny Lebedev, whose father was a kgb agent, and who mi5 recommended should not be made a lord due to security concerns. By sewing seeds of discontent with regards to the royals, this could potentially help to undermine confidence in the state institutions which is very much in Putin’s playbook…

They're making jokes all over US TV about this now. William needs to get a grip of this situation, it's totally spiralled out of control. Instead of protecting his wife he seems more inclined to throw her under the bus. Seems Harry had the right idea after all.

Honestly there's something dodgy AF about the entire royal family at the moment. Has anyone been reading about the shock death of Thomas Kingston, Lady Gabriella Windsor's DH, ex boyfriend of Pippa Middleton and apparently a close friend of Kate.

@TotalDramarama24 there definitely is especially with all the articles about Rose. No I havn't seen anything re Thomas Kingston except his tragic cause of death & his funeral was a few days ago. Is there more to it?

His cause of death is horribly common in men of his age.

Well he's 63. Is that elderly?