Lady Louise 21st birthday - end of privacy?

[PrettyFlyforaMaiTai]

So first of happy 21st birthday to Lady Louise!

I wouldn’t have even realised save for seeing a few articles online showing her celebrating with her boyfriend. The photos have been credited to Facebook and shows her posing for a photo and looking into the camera, but also a photo of her posing for a selfie and not seeming to be aware someone is photographing her. It looks like the media have been trawling through her/friends Facebook accounts or else someone has sold her out. Is this is now that she is 21? Is she not entitled to privacy any more? Is she going to get stalked and papped from now on?

Didn't her mum try to sell royal meet ups to a fake sheik?

Didn't her mum recently visit Sudan and listen to personal testimony from women who had been victims of violence in war? And hasn't she made trips to other places to raise awareness of the issue?

I can only recall Louise in an awfully embarrassing situation at one of the big weddings, can't remember which one now. I think she was bridesmaid or something. Anyway it was a windy day and bless her heart, her dress/skirt blew up to her shoulders in a gust of wind showing off her lovely smalls underneath. I really felt for her that day. The clip was deleted toot sweet of course, and I'm glad, although I've no doubt it is somewhere around t'internet.

As a family who are generally low key in the publicity front - their son wasn't seen for years - I hope they continue to have a bit of privacy in the future, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Why do people appear to think that’s the only alternative to being a girl guide who works in a garden centre?

Well, there’s an argument for her and Edward finding it terribly convenient that they were called the step away from their professional careers to be FT royals once they’d both monumentally fucked up their professional lives. You won’t see either of them espousing causes that would contravene, for instance, Britain’s arms trade, or having any difficult conversations that draw attention to anything that risks drawing attention to negative perceptions of the monarchy — like the tone-deaf Caribbean tour where unimpressed locals were kept on the far side of a wire fence..

Yes she did. It was due to her being premature, it was a rare eye condition and I can’t remember the name of it right now but she’s had quite a few surgeries I believe and her eyesight is better now

Why does being teetotal and preferring a quite dinner with friends mean that you wear "shapeless" clothes? Lady L seems to be classy and educated, not dreary and boring. Rather that than she look like some Love Island wannabe identikit girl pictured falling out of the nightclub plastered in make up.

@Bbq1 - you misunderstood- the press want good copy. If they can’t get her partying with other young posh types and minor celebrities, or drunkenly falling into cabs at 3am, they’ll take her looking stylish in nice outfits for photos to fill some space about the lovely Louise.

worst case scenario for the press is her being sensible and not wearing clothes that give them good photos.

i dont think its our business that she has a boyfriend or not!

That was Fergie. Sophie had a Fake Sheik scandal as well but she thought she was meeting potential clients for her then job in PR. She criticised the Blair government and called the Queen “the old dear”.

That’s what I’m trying to say. I knew nothing about her private life until those photos were published. And it’s fairly obvious that the media have either trawled through friends Facebook accounts to obtain the private photos, or someone sold her out. It seems as soon as she turned 21 she wasn’t entitled to privacy any more!

They marked her birthday but didn't seem scandalous or disrespectful to her. Hopefully the press will stay that way and she doesn't seem like the person to give them fodder.

We bumped into princess anne in a shop once, I'm sure security wasn't far but wasn't obvious and she was queuing. Also William was at a restaurant we were in eating with another man, I think his security detail, he'd been at an event and was staying locally as had a further engagement the following day, he smiled and acknowledged people but was just another customer, not demanding nor making a fuss.

I think the privacy arrangements around minor royals who are still in full time education will continue until she graduates. 21st birthday (a traditional landmark event) has been used as an exceptional occasion.

The Edinburghs have been good at keeping their DC out of the press (except when attending royal formal and family occasions). The press may or may not have known about the garden centre job whilst she was still doing it, but there was no reporting about it until after its conclusion (and the announcement that she was off to university). That is, I think, a good thing.

Yes, Sophie and the Fake Sheikh (deliberate sting by News of the World reporter Mahzer Mahmood) was huge news at the time in the 1990s, and she was absolutely pilloried in the press for ages - unfit to be a member of the royal family, national disgrace etc.

Their "half in, half out" ended with that, and they opted for "in"

In the three decades that followed, they've carried out royal duties in unexceptional fashion. They've not tried to spin their way out of it - they've changed the substance. And the plaudits the Duchess now receives, particularly for her work against VAWG, FGM and rape as a tool of war, are thoroughly deserved. They rarely make the headlines though, which is unfortunate.

But that was

What do you mean what do I mean? 😂

This detailed article about Louise, her boyfriend, her life and her birth & some medical stuff has been up all day in the Telegraph.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2024/11/08/louise-mountbatten-windsor-felix-da-silva-clamp-st-andrews/

If anyone wants to read that Telegraph article (it's behind a pay wall) in full, here is the link.

https://archive.ph/bolG4

So am I but I am trying to #bekind. It was undignified and utterly embarrassing if I am being honest!

Well you're the one calling that lifestyle "dreary"! I'm not sure what you expect from her??

I hope she had a lovely birthday - I think she looks pretty and does her own thing her way.

When I saw "dreary" upthread I thought that was mean - having looked at the definitions of "dreary" it was cruel.

I remember this quite clearly- it was Eugénie's wedding in Oct 2018 and it was a rather windy day!

Recall seeing the effect of a big gust of wind and Louise having her knickers on show for a few seconds...embarrassing in any situation but especially as she was only maybe 15 ish. Quite righty, the clip was not seen again.

Although it probably lingers somewhere on the internet like everything else!

I thought the critisicm was a massive over reaction, and I think she punished because people percieved her as second rate Diana. It was not Sophie's finest moment but what said was nothing worse than the comments Prince Philip made over the years, and he was lauded for 'not being PC'. If anything, the most cringe comment was her denying Edward was gay.

Anyway, I have no idea why people are still harping on about it, it was over 20 years ago and they have appeared to have redeemed themselves. The Queen held Sophie in high regard, that must say something good about Sophie's character.

Lady Louise seems a nice enough young person. She doesn't court publicity or antagonise anybody by bizarre behaviour and she and her parents keep mostly out of the spotlight. I think this will continue.

Thanks for that 😀

They even managed to shoehorn a mention of Harold into it. Full marks for written acrobatics 😂

Sophie's business partner was the one that finished her working outwith the royals with his actions. She fucked up with the fake sheik thing, but it was his actions that caused the most problems.

At the time of the whole fake sheik thing he was also spoken to by NOTW and he told them he could set up access to Edward, as well as Sophie. Alluding to being able to get him to endorse their businesses for cash. So he was trying to sell access, simple to Fergie later.
He also mentioned sex parties and taking drugs.

Sophie was very hard done by in that whole saga. She gave a one-on-one interview to the NOTW in exchange for them not publishing the fake sheik content - as was very common with people who were tricked by him - and then they leaked enough little bits to other papers that eventually they said they "had" to publish it anyway.

Then the full transcript showed she didn't actually said anything that bad anyway. And she hadn't called the Queen Mother an old dear (which seemed at the time to offend more people than her saying William hague sounded like a puppet 😂)

It's an extraordinary article on quite a few levels, isn't it? I wonder how much co-operation there really was from actual 'friends' at St Andrews and how much, if any, there was from the Edinburghs & the royal quid pro quo machine.

Handy distraction from the Dispatches thing.