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The royal family

PR disasters thread 30

1000 replies

BigWillyLittleTodger · 22/08/2026 19:11

Flying through these threads at a rate of knots! A shiny new thread for yet more Sussex shenanigans!

PR disasters thread 30
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39
My2cents1975 · 25/08/2026 19:31

The people who have displayed the foresight of an average goldfish have a 15 year plan. Apparently.

Disbelief No GIF
bluegreygreen · 25/08/2026 19:34

TheTwerkingDuchessOfMonteshitshow · 25/08/2026 19:31

Me too. In fact I wish I could unread it.

Edited

I'm sorry.

MissFenellaPrism · 25/08/2026 19:35

bluegreygreen · 25/08/2026 19:34

I'm sorry.

What's this?

GrouvilleMaLuv · 25/08/2026 19:36

I think there’s a lot of sense in this article:-

https://archive.ph/RSCrO

Edited for spelling.

sumlean · 25/08/2026 19:36

Ratherhaveacupofteaandabiscuit · 25/08/2026 18:19

And broken people can either work on understanding themselves and not spreading the hurt or they can go the other way.

See her second son as an example.

Plenty of us have been through trauma which makes either Diana or Harry’s life look like an episode of the Waltons but we don’t hurt everybody around us.

See her first son as an example.

I agree but I don't believe Diana had the chance to work on herself. She jumped from the frying pan into the fire. She was very young and I don't think much could have prepared her for the media frenzy and global interest. She brought a bunch fragilities and vulnerabilities and knowing a small bit about the system she was part of I am certain that it was a cut throat business being the RF. I don't think much compares to the pressure she would have been under.

Doesn't excuse anything just feel sorry for her as I would for anyone going through such times.

The mad thing is that Meghan is trying to emulate that sort of fame (which was one of many factors that broke Diana). I am guessing that Megan being abandoned by her own mother needed to believe that ONE DAY she would be queen of the universe to manage her feelings of abandonment and shame. Maternal abandonment must be a particularly horrific experience. But as opposed to Diana, she was late 30s with a career and marriage behind her and was no vulnerable deer when she married Harry.

TheTwerkingDuchessOfMonteshitshow · 25/08/2026 19:41

Starryfifty · 25/08/2026 14:00

They never ever learn. Omid is utterly toxic

But has he really been employed by them again or is he just mouthing off in the newspaper?

Tiddlywinks63 · 25/08/2026 19:42

ShamedBySiri · 25/08/2026 19:18

It’s unconscious uncoupling. 😉

I completely agree.

Carrierbagseverywhere · 25/08/2026 19:46

The idea that Harry considers his future to be in the role of full time dad, does not surprise me. I genuinely think his greatest joy comes from being with people - he is a classic extrovert who gets his energy from being around people. He grew up surrounded by people all the time - not necessarily his parents, but William, his extended family, the staff, peers and staff at Eton, comrades in the army. He has never really been alone and I suspect that being in Montecito without community must have been incredibly difficult for him.

I also believe that he genuinely wants to raise his kids well - not to monetise them, but to raise them in a way that means they know they are always loved - something he didn’t necessarily have growing up. So for him to focus on raising his kids in community rings true for me.

Conversely, while Meghan clearly craves attention - I don’t think she actually craves relationships in the way Harry does. I suspect she is quite happy in her own company, and as she is always looking to use people for how they can benefit her, I doubt she gains energy from simply being around people and living in community with them.

I also think she quite possibly isn’t that close to her kids - as has been said; her model as a child was a largely absent mother, and I think she views everything through the lens of success, rather than relationship, so can compartmentalise enough to leave her kids with Harry.

I think Harry needs his kids - I don’t think Meghan needs them. Of course, the fact that the kids need both their parents is secondary. 🙄

sumlean · 25/08/2026 19:52

Hadn't caught up with all that. How desperately said if Meghan is not around to parent her children. They are still so very young.

I also can see harry doing a decent job parenting them in his home country. Strange situation.

TheTwerkingDuchessOfMonteshitshow · 25/08/2026 20:00

sumlean · 25/08/2026 17:30

Wait, Diana was 19 years old and Charles was 31 when they stared dating, they got engaged 6 months later and married after 12 months of dating and being engaged. She left school at 16 after failing her o-levels she left Swiss finishing school after only one term. She was however reportedly very creative and a highly sensitive and vulnerable young person. Her upbringing while of course very privileged sounds appalling. She was super extremely shy too. Throwing this young person into the royal family with a husband who did not know what to do with her and couldn't relate was just awful.

I'm sorry but while her behaviour in later years was complex and abusive to some extent, she herself was experiencing a horrendous pressure. I believe she was broken.

I agree with you. She was a broken soul even before she met Charles.

MaturingCheeseball · 25/08/2026 20:01

I am sceptical about any separation or long-distance marriage. We all know Meghan thrives on attention and is hungry for fame and fortune. Her biggest grin ever was when she was at that red-carpet thing in LA - sideways poses and lit-up face - just before she was asked to move along (and the messenger in the form of her PA duly shot…).

I think they’re going to give it another go over here as things have absolutely fizzled out in the US. Meghan has no business empire, no important friends, and is nfi to anything half-way decent. She is no way going to live quietly at some country pile. Another crack at the limelight beckons!

GoodnessGraciousMeh · 25/08/2026 20:06

Carrierbagseverywhere · 25/08/2026 19:46

The idea that Harry considers his future to be in the role of full time dad, does not surprise me. I genuinely think his greatest joy comes from being with people - he is a classic extrovert who gets his energy from being around people. He grew up surrounded by people all the time - not necessarily his parents, but William, his extended family, the staff, peers and staff at Eton, comrades in the army. He has never really been alone and I suspect that being in Montecito without community must have been incredibly difficult for him.

I also believe that he genuinely wants to raise his kids well - not to monetise them, but to raise them in a way that means they know they are always loved - something he didn’t necessarily have growing up. So for him to focus on raising his kids in community rings true for me.

Conversely, while Meghan clearly craves attention - I don’t think she actually craves relationships in the way Harry does. I suspect she is quite happy in her own company, and as she is always looking to use people for how they can benefit her, I doubt she gains energy from simply being around people and living in community with them.

I also think she quite possibly isn’t that close to her kids - as has been said; her model as a child was a largely absent mother, and I think she views everything through the lens of success, rather than relationship, so can compartmentalise enough to leave her kids with Harry.

I think Harry needs his kids - I don’t think Meghan needs them. Of course, the fact that the kids need both their parents is secondary. 🙄

I totally agree with this.

KittyHigham · 25/08/2026 20:07

So for him to focus on raising his kids in community rings true for me
But where is the community? @Carrierbagseverywhere

He has publicly vilified the community of his immediate (paternal) family and his maternal family (well his uncle's family) is fractured and dysfunctional.

He has ostracised himself from the community of his friends. He and Meghan have absolutely failed to find community together. He has no work community because he doesn't work. He has no purpose to ground him and make connections.

I can believe this is what he wants but has absolutely no idea how to achieve that. It's actually really sad that he might believe moving his kids across the Atlantic and getting them into a school in England is going to achieve it!?

CoffeeCantata · 25/08/2026 20:07

TheTwerkingDuchessOfMonteshitshow · 25/08/2026 19:31

Me too. In fact I wish I could unread it.

Edited

I thought Diana was a flawed woman-and not the perfect mother she was cracked up to be, but one thing I didn’t doubt was her total sincerity in her care for sick and troubled people, especially children. I’m not saying it was all an act, but clearly it wasn’t the spontaneous outpouring of love that I’d taken it for!

AtIusvue · 25/08/2026 20:08

I mean As ever, has pretty much tanked. We’ve heard nothing since her Emma Grede podcast, Bloomberg interview about how the business is doing and the plan for the business.

Since then, NF and Snow Commerce have pulled out as partners.

She’s posts once a week on insta from an old catalogue of photos. The white label items just picked from a list.

How is she expecting us to believe that she cannot parent her children because she needs to operate from the house in Cali? As if she’s producing the jam from the garden or something and it has to be where she is settled?

She is actively choosing not to parent her children or there’s some sort of separation. No parent would choose to do this.

GoodnessGraciousMeh · 25/08/2026 20:09

ShamedBySiri · 25/08/2026 18:02

You have reminded me of a contemporary at a well known girls’ boarding school who announced her engagement before we did our A levels.
Instead of revising she would leaf through Brides and Vogue magazine. I was utterly bemused by the whole thing.
We did have a couple of teenage pregnancies in my year (not handled well) but marriage????? She must have been no more than 18.
Though my own mother got engaged at 19, married at 20 and pregnant for her 21st birthday. As Mum so succinctly explained - if you wanted sex you had to get married back then.
I’ve no idea what happened to her (the teenage bride from school) , I’ve tried googling her name but of course I don’t know the married name.

I remember this scenario at school too.

flapjackfairy · 25/08/2026 20:15

well one huge question remains...how are they going to fund multiple homes if Harry is a stay at home dad and Meghan is flogging jam ? That is not going to jeep 2 / 3 huge houses running and pay school fees for 2 kids surely.

TheTwerkingDuchessOfMonteshitshow · 25/08/2026 20:16

bluegreygreen · 25/08/2026 19:34

I'm sorry.

No. It’s okay. It really is. It was just my way of (badly) expressing my feelings.

MaturingCheeseball · 25/08/2026 20:20

They must be selling the Montecito place. It’s too expensive for them as it is, let alone when it’s sitting empty for 50 weeks a year. They would still have to retain gardeners, cleaners, maintenance people, security - and the property taxes don’t stop just because you’ve decided to buy an 8-million pound house elsewhere.

BasiliskStare · 25/08/2026 20:20

I agree with @Atlusvue and others. I think M having to work from Montecito is a face saver. "The business is doing really well". I can believe H wants to come home. I can believe M thinks going to a tony English private school will the give the children a bit of gloss. I can believe they both want to rekindle a bit of royal stardust. Whether I can believe M wants to move back to the UK permanently , much harder to believe. I think it's going to suit H down to the ground - bit of charitying , taking the children to school , going to the pub with what friends he has left. However , here term time , California and Portugal in the holidays , what's not to like for him. It's not like he's got an actual job to worry about. I note we haven't been briefed H will have to go back regularly for BetterUp , but then I think the demands on his time for $1m a year from them didn't seem to be terribly onerous.

edit - missed out a word.

RecoIIectionsMayVary · 25/08/2026 20:21

He sees himself as a full-time father and he will be here for them spending every Saturday watching Archie play rugby

So ongoing fucking up of children - having ideas of what children will be and their genders roles.

What is Archie hates rugby, or sport for that matter, what if Lili wants to play rugby?

TheAutumnCrow · 25/08/2026 20:22

ShamedBySiri · 25/08/2026 19:04

I know we have often discussed their monumental outgoings on here but it occurs to me we have forgotten to factor in the cost of buying first rights (or whatever the correct term is) to proposed projects which fail to materialise eg Meet me at the Lake, the Afghanistan books and probably others I’ve forgotten about. Plus all that jam and rosé.
They are going to have to start reducing outgoings soon!

I do believe Charles is not such an indulgent parent when it comes to spaffing money on a spendthrift daughter in law and her ambitions plus a son with a taste for court action. (Anyone remember Harry offering that Meghan could make her own clothes??? 😂😂😂)

I think Harry was being pointedly sarcastic about the clothes, while trying to get sympathy for himself in Spare when Pa queried the £900k per annum frock bill for Meghan. (I don't think that Harry revealed the amount involved to his readers, just that Pa talked about her clothes bill and for Harry this was very bad.)

Btw @ShamedBySiriif you want to track your married friend down, you'll need a subscription to the Times and then you can access their archives online, including Birth, Marriages & Deaths, Announcements, etc. I've done it track down a historic divorce notice. It's fascinating stuff.)

MissFenellaPrism · 25/08/2026 20:22

RecoIIectionsMayVary · 25/08/2026 20:21

He sees himself as a full-time father and he will be here for them spending every Saturday watching Archie play rugby

So ongoing fucking up of children - having ideas of what children will be and their genders roles.

What is Archie hates rugby, or sport for that matter, what if Lili wants to play rugby?

Lilibet has to help mommy in the kitchen and choose clothes from the closet.

MaturingCheeseball · 25/08/2026 20:24

@BasiliskStare - if only there were more chimpo jobs. Sounds perfect to me. Grin (with Fox filter) on a website, collect $1million.

IcedPurple · 25/08/2026 20:25

MaturingCheeseball · 25/08/2026 20:24

@BasiliskStare - if only there were more chimpo jobs. Sounds perfect to me. Grin (with Fox filter) on a website, collect $1million.

I think he got a million for that job in the same way he got 100 times that from NF. In other words, not at all.

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