This is a photo of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge which was released by Kensington Palace on Friday. The Friday before Oprah’s big interview with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. They did that on purpose, as “business as usual” cosplay, like William and Kate haven’t haphazardly orchestrated one of the most pathetic and obvious smear campaigns we’ve ever seen. They want to be able to say “look at us, the good ones, reliable and true.” Kate even wore £5 Accessorize earrings to complete the norm-core cosplay. If you want to hear more about the Zoom call they made, go here.

Late Friday, the Telegraph dropped a long, bitchy story by Camila Tominey, who has spent much of the past four years being pretty unhinged about Meghan and Harry. Much of the piece is just a summary of everything that’s gone down in the past week, plus some regurgitated old smears, like Harry apparently shrieking “what Meghan wants, Meghan gets” to Angela Kelly, the woman who purposefully arranged for Meghan to borrow those earrings from the House of Saud (what happened to that story hmmm). There are some new pieces of information, including a pretty funny, vague assessment of William and Kate. Some highlights:

Once the engagement happened, people “accommodated” Meghan: Behind palace gates, it was quickly becoming apparent that Meghan had no intention of she and Harry being seen as the “supporting act” to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, despite their seniority in the royal pecking order. “Everyone wanted her to be happy because they knew that would make him happy,” said one. “Do whatever it takes to make it work for Meghan was the mantra. We all cared deeply about harry. contrary to this idea that they weren’t supported, we were going to great lengths to accommodate their needs.”

Harry & Meghan emailed staffers! Staff had grown used to “email bombardments” by Meghan and Harry, with one describing how “the last thing we’d do before going to sleep is reply to their messages and the first thing we’d do in the morning is reply to their messages. Weekends, holidays – there were no boundaries. They live on their phones all the time”.

Thin-skinned: Despite publicly claiming they largely ignored the press coverage, in reality the couple were often consumed by it. “They’re both very thin-skinned,” said one former employee.

Duchess Kate’s tears: Yet it was not just palace employees who found themselves on the receiving end of “inescapable screaming and shouting”. Much has been written about the bridesmaids’ dress fitting, first revealed in The Telegraph in November 2018, that left the Duchess of Cambridge in tears. Contrary to subsequent reports that the row concerned Princess Charlotte’s tights, what actually happened was that the dress itself did not fit Kate’s then nearly three-year-old daughter. According to a well-placed source, “demands were made about when subsequent fittings would be, and Kate left sobbing”.

Meghan never wanted to be friends with Kate? While Meghan’s allies suggest that Kate did not make enough of an effort to welcome her future sister-in-law into the royal fold, allies of the Cambridges suggest she “tried to arrange social things” and invited her to watch tennis together but “there was a sense that Meghan never really wanted to be friends”.

The Cambridges are so lazy and mean: Those inside the palace concede, however, that the Cambridges can “appear standoffish” and are “often out of contact for extended periods”. Another former royal aide claimed the Duke, particularly, appreciated the “deflection” from his own occasionally demanding behaviour. “Bullying is endemic across all the households,” the former aide added. “The Meghan thing is a disgrace, but it’s not in isolation. They cut you out, undermine you, talk down to you. One minute you’re in – the next you’re persona non grata. Some staff have special protection. I’ve never witnessed behaviour like it before. I wish I’d never seen behind the curtain.”

Oh, a fun nickname for Harry: Little did the Prince know at the time that staff had also given him a nickname: “The hostage”. According to one person with first-hand knowledge of the events: “They insisted that they had the same inflation-adjusted budget for the wedding as William and Kate – she got the choir she wanted, the dress, the carriage procession, the tiara – she got everything she wanted but it still wasn’t enough. “She was constantly looking for reasons to say she had been deprived. Also, she wanted drama from the very beginning.”

[From The Telegraph]

It just goes on and on and you would think with all of this ink being spilled over Meghan’s “bullying” of palace aides, someone would be able to come up with a more concrete and detailed story than “Meghan and Harry emailed people all the time ahead of their wedding.” Or “Meghan and Kate disagreed about Charlotte’s fitting and somehow Kate ended up in tears.” Okay, what was said? And why does that dumb story keep changing, hm?

Anyway, the best parts of this article were the details about how the Lazy Keens are “often out of contact for extended periods” and that, oh right, William f–king terrorizes his staff. I would love to know how the MIA-Keens thing happens at Kensington Palace. Does Kate just pop in once a month, proclaim she’s keen about something and then she f–ks off to Anmer and never checks in with her staff for weeks on end? Because… that’s what it sounds like. And if the Kensington Palace aides were used to that, it must have been downright shocking to find themselves working for two people who wanted to have staff meetings every day, did follow-up emails and expected staffers to show up on time for meetings and such.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.