Nutty Flavor Blog

Let's say a time-space portal has opened up and the Diana of August 24, 1997, is able to step through it and meet Duchess Meghan. They meet up at the Harbour Gym in Chelsea, always one of Diana's favorites, and repair to the juice bar in the spa for a chat. Diana is the same kind-hearted but flakey, obsessive, and occasionally manipulative woman she was before her death, and she has been following Meghan and Harry's recent adventures from the other side. What do they say to each other?  Specific lines of dialogue encouraged. 

The controversy over uber-environmentalist Meghan and Harry's private jet flights took another turn Thursday, when the Cambridge family was photographed emerging from a budget airliner on which they travelled to Scotland. In what is being called a PR masterstroke, the Cambridges demolished the idea that the Sussexes were unable to travel commercial for security reasons . (Although I'm guessing there was some additional security on that flight; I doubt the Royal Family would trust the lives of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th in line to the throne to some novice pilot who had just finished flight school. Military pilot in the cockpit?) Vacationing at home The Cambridge photo shoot also made clear that it is possible to take one's summer vacation in one's own Kingdom, instead of someone else's kingdom (or republic). And drove the nail in a bit deeper that the Sussexes have apparently not been invited to visit the Queen and Prince Philip at Balmoral. What do you...

The past 24 hours have seen an unusual outpouring of support for The Duke and Duchess of Sussex from an unusual range of celebrities. The American singer P!nk, who to my knowledge has never had any previous connection with Meghan and Harry,  sent out this Tweet early Tuesday European time. The Tweet was unusual for several reasons. First of all, it was longwinded compared to many of P!nk's other Tweets, which are usually just a few words or emojis. Secondly, it garnered 18.6 thousand likes in less than 4 hours - four hours which began around 6am Tuesday Central European Time, or 9pm California time on a Monday night. (Does P!nk maybe have a lot of Sussex crossover fans in Australian and Asia?) Finally, it garnered 18.6 thousand likes very quickly. P!nk's last Tweet to get that many likes, a well-rendered fan art drawing, has been up for 9 days. What's going on here? Is it a sudden and unexpected organic show of crossover support by fans of P!nk, whose politics...

There are plenty of new mysteries surrounding the Harkles over the past week. First of all, why did they take not one but two luxury vacations in the month of August (so far) - first to Ibiza , then to the South of France - both on private jets? Even someone with Harry's limited brainpower must see that this type of high-CO2 travel is a bad look for a man desperately worried about climate change. Could someone be using the Harkles as a rage magnet to take attention off Prince Andrew and his troubles? Archificial makes an appearance Secondly, why did they agree to photographs with their son Archificial when deplaning in France? (Since they disembarked in a restricted part of the airport, the photos must have been planned for and approved.) Archificial appeared to be precisely the same size he was 5 weeks ago when he made an unplanned appearance at a polo match - a size that was way too big for a 2 month old baby then, and is way too big for a 3 month old baby now. Hi...

In today's People Magazine , we learn that Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor is a "happy baby." This comes from an unnamed royal source; anonymity is of course required when communicating such sensitive, high-level national security information. In addition, the secret source reveals, Archie has "lovely, puffy little legs and tufts of reddish hair. He's really adorable." But there aren't any photos to confirm this. In fact, there are no new photos of Archie at all. More than a month with no photos My first thought: this is more of Meg's PR drivel, perhaps an extension of the contract she reportedly had with People to print five positive stories per month. The lack of pictures gives me pause, however. Why didn't People insist on a new photo of Archie before running the story? The public hasn't seen Archie since July 10 - and that's if you believe that whoever or whatever Meghan was carrying during her surprise polo match a...

The Sussexes have managed to stay out of the media recently, with the exception of Nigel Farage's mostly accurate but unhelpful comments about them. Instead, the spotlight has focused on Prince Andrew and his connection to the recently deceased sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein , as well as the many financial missteps of Sarah Ferguson, Andrew's ex-wife and longtime paramour. Sarah has repeatedly used her royal association for financial gain . What is it about the second son, the spare, that tempts them towards dissolute living? And why are both Andrew's and Harry's wives involved in dodgy financial situations? Glamour, position, but little money Is it just the access to glamour and position without the funds to pay for it? Does the knowledge that you will never actually reign give second-in-line princes (and their wives) a sense of invincibility and irresponsibility, or just a demoralizing lack of purpose? "Randy Andy" and Harry both enjoyed heartthr...

It's a time-tested parlour game: What is celebrity X doing right this minute? In the case of celebrity women who are roughly Duchess Meghan's age (Beyoncé, Chrissy Teigen, the Duchess of Cambridge) the answers are pretty easy. Spending time with the kids. Having a wardrobe fitting. Working with trusted staff to plan future projects. But if you assume that Meg doesn't have custody of her (potentially nonexistent) son Archificial, can't keep staff, has no announced future projects, and certainly doesn't do much wardrobe fitting - what, in fact, does she do all day? You can only spend so much time writing Word Salad posts for @SussexRoyal Instagram and harassing royal reporters using multiple pseudonyms on Twitter. What do you think Duchess Meghan's daily routine consists of?

Speculation is running high that Princess Beatrice will announce her engagement this week to Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi , 34, a longtime York family friend. The wedding will be somewhat unusual in that Mapelli Mozzi, who is the British-born son of an Italian count, is already a father himself. His two-year-old son Woolfy was conceived about a month after he began dating a Chinese-American architect, and some reports say that he is the primary parent as the child's mother travels the world for her career. Meg likes the focus on her A cute groom with a cute biracial toddler might make for a pleasing story about the modern Royals. But it would take attention away from Duchess Meghan and her potentially nonexistent son Archificial. It's hard to forget how Meg announced her "pregnancy" at the wedding of Bea's sister Princess Eugenie, pushing photos of Eugenie's long-postponed nuptials off the front pages. Today's question: What will Meghan do to spoil B...

In Prince William and Catherine Middleton's engagement interview , William famously said that while the pair appeared calm, "We're like sort of ducks, very calm on the surface with little feet going under the water." The phrase occurred to me again the other day when I saw yet another anti-Meghan screed from the Sun's Royal reporter, the New Zealand-born Dan Wootton. Wootton, who is openly gay, is what Popbitch in its recent issue called "such good pals" with the Cambridge's press secretary , Christian Jones. What role might Jones and the Cambridges be playing in the recent run of negative press about the Sussexes? Keeping the kids away William and Kate may not be the smartest people in the world, but they're also not the dumbest.  Along with Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, they seem to have had Meg's number early on, and William famously encouraged Harry not to marry her, or at least wait until he got to know her better....

When Enty referred to Meghan as a "former Royal" in a blind item the other day, it was probably just a typo. He usually calls Meg a "alliterate former actress turned Royal"; perhaps in his haste to get out another true-crime podcast he missed a couple of words. Or perhaps it was a Freudian slip. It seems clearer to more and more people, including former supporters like Tom Sykes of the Daily Beast and Elaine Lui of Lainey Gossip that things aren't really working out, and that sooner or later Meg will join Fergie and Mark Philips in the ranks of cast-side former royals. What will she do next? A Real Housewife? There's always the entertainment business; the gentlemen over at Data Lounge say that Meg wanted to join the cast of the reality franchise "Real Housewives" as far back as the Trevor days, and some even suggest she has been contacting the Bravo people again about possibly joining one of the shows. (But which one? I don't watc...