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Who are Meg's "Five Friends" who spoke to People Magazine?

A long-term friend, a co-star, a former colleague, a friend from Los Angeles, and a close confidante. These are the "five friends" who supposedly spoke to People magazine to defend the Duchess of Sussex - and who may now be dragged into her court case against Mail on Sunday.

This is because the Duchess is alleging that the Mail on Sunday violated her privacy by reprinting portions of a letter Meg sent her father, Thomas Markle. 

But some of the five friends, interviewed for an issue that came out in February, were able to quote verbatim from a letter that had been sent in August. This suggests that Meghan not only told them about the letter, but showed it to them, as well as showing them Thomas Markle's reponse. 

Since the friends were able to quote the letter word for word, perhaps she even sent them copies. 

Or perhaps there never were five friends after all - only Meg repeating her own words to the team at People

Dragged into court 

If there were indeed five friends, Meg has put them in a difficult spot. Although People did not disclose their identies "to protect the private relationships they hold dear", their names seem likely to be revealed as part of the lawsuit. 

The Mail on Sunday's lawyers are sure to ask why the news outlet is being sued for sharing parts of the letter when Meg never sued the "five friends" (or People) for doing precisely the same thing. 

While it was certainly nice of the friends to "stand up to the global bullying and speak the truth about our friend," it wasn't quite as nice of their so-called buddy who "personifies elegance, grace, and philantropy" to put them in this position. 

Ordinary people generally don't want to be part of an internationally-followed court case that will dog their Google mentions until the end of time. 

What about the People reporter?

And what about Michelle Tauber, the author of the People article? Won't she end up on the witness stand as well? 

How embarassing it would be for Tauber, a senior editor who has been at People for almost 20 years, to admit that she was fed the quotes for her oleaginus cover story directly from a PR firm, or from Meghan herself. 

For what it's worth, Tauber's Twitter feed has only three words in her profile description - "Editor. Evidence-based" - and her Tweets reveal that she shares Meghan's political leanings. 

So who are the friends? 

Generally, journalists try to avoid guessing at other journalists' secret sources. It's bad manners. 

That said, Tauber's "five friends" seem destined to come out in court, so I'll do it anyway.

People identifies them as women, which eliminates Meg's weepy makeup artist Daniel Martin and Meg's super-special buddy Markus Anderson.

Lindsay Roth? Genevieve Hillis? Those were the women who attended Wimbledon with Meg. 

Heather Dorak? She is listed on Wikipedia as a "celebrity Pilates instructor" and attended Meg's wedding to Harry.  

Celine Khavarani, who also attended the wedding as a friend of Markle, according to Wikipedia? Isabel May? Lucy Meadmore?

Jessica Mulroney? Misha Noonoo? 

Who do you think the "five friends" might be?





Comments

Liver Bird said…
How could anyone possibly know the contents of a private individual's bank account?

Sounds like nonsense to me.
Mimi said…
and HOW stupid can a person be to insult the one person, (TRUMP) who, with the push of one button, destroy your life, your families lives now and for generations to come simply through use of the IRS!
Hikari said…
@Liver Bird,

Point taken . . though large sums of money either in the plus or debit column seem to have a way of attracting attention to themselves.

We may as well ask why so many media outlets are quoting, with various levels of outrage, the exact sums spent on the phantom renovations of Frogmore Cottage, when 1. the renovations are still ongoing (allegedly) and neither the Duchy of Cornwall or BP would have released their final expense reports for the year. Why do journalists have access to *that* info so specifically, or are they also engaged in embellishing figures?

It's good you're around with timely comments to reign in some of the wilder speculations around here. I'm confident that there's enough genuine malfeasance which will be revealed to discredit Meghan and potentially her mother too without embroidery. Verifiable *facts* will be quite enough--and I hope the Mail on Sunday attorneys find them all.
Liver Bird said…
"Point taken . . though large sums of money either in the plus or debit column seem to have a way of attracting attention to themselves"

Well yeah... but you'd have to see them first. Nobody has seen Doria's bank account, so the tales of how much is in said bank accounts are 100% fabricated. Simply invented. Not sure what the point of rehashing such nonsense is when as you say, there are more than enough solid reasons to be sceptical of the Harkles.

"We may as well ask why so many media outlets are quoting, with various levels of outrage, the exact sums spent on the phantom renovations of Frogmore Cottage, when 1. the renovations are still ongoing (allegedly) and neither the Duchy of Cornwall or BP would have released their final expense reports for the year. Why do journalists have access to *that* info so specifically, or are they also engaged in embellishing figures?"

Because that is what publically available royal accounts show. Also the money came from the Soverign Grant, not the Duchy of Cornwall.
Lurking said…
@Hikari

That twitter isn't Smegs. It's some woman who gets her rocks off by winding people up.

I read elsewhere that Doria was an air stewardess, whatever you want to call them and that's the reason Smeg was living with her father. Read somewhere else she was a travel agent, so no idea what's true, but it's been floated out there.

I'm wondering about why Doria suddenly quit her job. She goes through the trouble and expense of getting an education. Masters degree! Has a job that likely payed substantially more than she ever made before, but quits it shortly after Smeg gets engaged. Why did she quit only to continue teaching yoga, which would earn her much less?
lizzie said…
@Liver Bird et al. A number of "people search" sites contain estimates of net worth. These "estimates" are based on publicly available data not bank acct balances. I suspect estimates for DR are more like $900,000, not $9,000,000. (Maybe the $9 mil story started because someone misread or couldn't read big numbers correctly.) The house she inherited is likely worth close to that (it's California, after all.) Throw in a new car and some boilerplate formula for additional personal property...and she's worth close to a million.
Mom Mobile said…
Have any of you read the Vanity Fair article about the Harkles? It might be behind a paywall so I'll cut and paste here:

"He Basically Hates the Press”: Prince Harry’s Battle Against the Media Has Only Begun
The Sussexes aren’t just taking several tabloids to court; they’re aiming to reinvent the relationship between royals and the press. By Katie Nicholl

"The Sussexes are taking no prisoners in their feud with Fleet Street. Last week, Prince Harry sent shock waves through the British newspaper industry when it was announced that he is reportedly taking legal action against the Sun and the Daily Mirror over “the alleged illegal interception of voice-mail messages,” most likely the phone-hacking scandal that went public in 2011. The surprise news came just days after Harry issued a powerful statement on the Sussexes’ newly created website announcing that his wife, Meghan Markle, is taking the Mail on Sunday to court for breach of copyright and misuse of private information, after they printed a private letter Meghan wrote to her estranged father after her wedding.

The news, which came on the penultimate day of the couple’s tour of South Africa, was a “bombshell” for reporters covering the tour, as well as some of the couple’s aides, who were completely taken aback by the news, and the timing in particular, coming off the back of an official tour on behalf of the Queen that was funded by the British government.

But for Harry and Meghan, it is all part of a carefully considered plan to circumvent the traditional press machine and rewrite the rules of how royals interact with the media. According to royal insiders, Harry and Meghan don’t just plan to take on the tabloids in court; they are on a mission to redefine how the press operates—and they have a secret weapon to aid their mission.

Enter 26-year-old David Watkins, a former employee at Burberry who was hired by the couple this past summer to help run their Instagram account and who is transforming coverage of the Sussexes. “For them, the future is Instagram over the press,” said a source. “They are reaching a global audience that’s more than the broadsheets and tabloids combined, and crucially presenting themselves the way they want to. As far as Harry is concerned, it’s a way of cutting out the mainstream press, which is very convenient because he basically hates the press.”

The source continued, “Whether they win or lose the case, Harry’s intent on paying the press back for what they did to his mother, the endless scrutiny into his private life, and now their vendetta against Meghan. This is payback time, as far as Harry is concerned.”

Even before his relationship with Meghan began, Harry was rumored to have plans to phase out royal reporters and photographers by taking control of his own image via social media. In private, the prince would gleefully predict how the royal rat pack’s (the term given to royal reporters and photographers) days were numbered because “social media is the future.”

And in his passionate statement last week, Harry made his feelings about the British press clear. He referred to months of abuse his wife has suffered at the hands of the press, claiming that he has been, until now, a “silent witness.” While Meghan has previously said she does not read tabloids, Harry does, and he even reportedly reads the comments.

So while they wage their war with the press, Instagram remains their plan for the future, and the reason they hired a full-time social media manager. Scooping the press with breaking news and exclusive pictures and footage on Instagram, the Sussexes have started using their own social platform to circumvent more traditional press and P.R. It‘s a method already favored by many celebrities, and even Donald Trump, who seems to prefer a tweet to an official White House press conference.

Mom Mobile said…
Second Part:

The couple announced the birth of their son to the world on Instagram, and during their recent tour in South Africa, reporters on the ground were given a heads-up that Archie would be meeting Archbishop Desmond Tutu, but were asked to adhere to an embargo. Within moments, though, Harry and Meghan had shared footage of Archie—his first public appearance since his christening—to their Instagram Story.

“The fact that there was an embargo was ludicrous,” said one royal reporter. “They were meant to agree to an embargo on a story that the Sussexes were streaming to millions of people online. Suffice to say, the reporters broke the embargo on their Twitter feeds and hit send on the story.”

Veteran royal photographers have also privately complained that Harry and Meghan are making them “redundant” by using their own photographers and excluding them from some engagements. “At the root of all this is their plan to shake things up,” the royal source added. “Harry is not afraid to take the media on. He feels like he has nothing to lose.”

Harry and Meghan are not the first royals to push back against the tabloids, but this is already an unusually public battle. The Queen, who has returned from her summer holiday in Balmoral, is said to have concerns about what could potentially be a very public trial. For Meghan’s case against the Mail, it could even lead to her coming face-to-face with her father in court. With Prince Charles and Prince William also yet to publicly support Harry and Meghan’s efforts to take on the media, it’s possible that the Sussexes will have to face this fight alone."

Article from October 5th
Hikari said…
@Lurking,

>>>I'm wondering about why Doria suddenly quit her job. She goes through the trouble and expense of getting an education. Masters degree! Has a job that likely payed substantially more than she ever made before, but quits it shortly after Smeg gets engaged. Why did she quit only to continue teaching yoga, which would earn her much less?<<<

Why *would* a divorced woman who's had a hardscrabble financial existence and documented problems with money quit a job as a social worker when her daughter gets engaged to marry the Queen of England's grandson? That's a stumper, all right.

LOL

Social work in L.A. may pay more than part-time yoga but it's notoriously low-paying and highly stressful. I'm sure we can all agree that Doria saw which side her crumpet was buttered on when her daughter got engaged to a British Prince.

The greater mystery for me is, why would a woman with Doria's background pursue an advanced degree in social work in her late middle age when there was a lot of hard work and expense involved, and her earning window would be very brief in a high-burnout career? She didn't get this degree until she was nearly 60. I'm all for people having meaningful second acts in life . .but based on her actions subsequent to Meghan getting engaged to a British Prince, perhaps she did not have that fire in the belly to practice social work after all.

As for 'ThisLittlePetal', I was convinced that it was not Meghan off the bat owing to the plethora of political articles she posts. Lots of political commentary from the Guardian and not a single post about fashion or rose. There was a picture of some bare feet in a chaise lounge clutching an alcoholic drink once (as Meg was allegedly breast-feeding).

Petal is a troll, but I check in with her from time to time just to see what she alleges Meg and Harry are doing. Hospice care was, at last check, not one of the Harkle's woke charities. People facing their end-of-life are not as appealing as globe-trotting with celebs, and all.
Girl with a Hat said…
@Mom Mobile - I read the VF article you posted. Thank you.

There is one line that tells me this whole story is BS though. It's the one about Harry reading all of the comments. Someone with dyslexia and ADD, and if some are to be believed, substance abuse problems, is hardly going to spend time reading, let alone all those negative comments about him and his wife. I can't see him getting through one article at the DM daily.
Clarissa said…
I have just seen a Sainsbury’s ad for their fashion range. It starts by saying “we don’t need to wear a suit to empower us”. Possibly a dig at Meagain or am I reading too much into it. On another site I was looking at they mentioned that Harry and Meagain were staying at Soho House and have never lived in Frogmore House.
Miggy said…
@Mischi

She definitely reads the newspaper comments and if Harry can read a speech to camera, (as on tour) then I'm pretty sure that he manages to read them too.
Miggy said…
@Clarissa,

Sounds like a dig to me! Love it. :)
Girl with a Hat said…
@Miggy - reading a speech is a necessity and has been rehearsed countless times. Reading the comments requires concentration and discipline to focus, neither of which Harry possesses.
abbyh said…

I wondered that too about Doria and the social work degree and then quitting it after all the hard work.

I wonder about Instagram. Yeah, it is the hot thing to be part of now but is that really this great source of good news (the idea that Instagram should replace the reporters)?

When I think of it, mentally I'm thinking the influencers (who are trying to get stuff for free), photos of people in exotic places or the picture perfect life (which comes off as I'm so much better than you because I'm here and you're not). I can remember someone being hounded because instead of real pancakes, they had tortillas stacked as if they were really going to eat them for breakfast. I thought: so fake. And so much energy used to create this perfect for this moment that I'm not completely certain they are really enjoying living that life.

I'm thinking it is useful for some stuff (if you are living what I call the debutante life) but not for the real business world. I don't see a company like IBM releasing their 4th quarter earnings that way.

So thinking that you can control and release what you want via Instagram would be parallel thinking to I want a celebrity life and not terrible business formal outlet.

But ... what if you release incorrect information? Deliberate lie? If you can delete the post, without any correction, what then? Can there be the same kinds of legal consequences the way print reporters can get into trouble over?

So, is this the way the BRF is really headed or is this just MM with PH along for the ride and the rest of them will use this for fun stuff only?

Or am I just overthinking this?
Miggy said…
@Mischi

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. I'm pretty sure he's capable of reading comments.
Miggy said…
... and if there's something he doesn't quite understand, mummy Meggie will be sure to fill him in. :)
Meowwww said…
Popping on to say....
Hubby and I are now in London. Came here from the USA. We were at dinner tonight and sat among a group of wonderful young Brits. Conversation turned to the royals. They all said they don’t know anything about Harry and Meg and don’t care to follow their story. This was a group of about 8 in their 20s. Deemed them old and not relevant. Interesting as it’s Meg’s target group.
Miggy said…
@Meowwww

Hope you enjoy your visit to London. Have a great time!

As an aside, my son has just turned 40 and doesn't follow the Royals at all. Neither do his friends.
Mimi said…
Well good luck to them targeting the younger generation because they sure aren’t influencing the older generation who have years or living and wisdom and are not buying whatever brand they are selling.
Fairy Crocodile said…
Sorry to bring up the tapes again but I was very surprised to learn today that in March 2019 many if not all newspapers in Holland, Germany, Belgium and Spain published news about the alleged sextape of Meghan Markle. UK press was silent. Here is the link https://megawatch19.blogspot.com/2019/03/fact-or-fiction-is-there-meghan-markle.html

The blogger says if such a video exists it is just a matter of time before it hits the public domain. Here we go.
Miggy said…
@Mimi

As they say... you can't teach your grandmother how to suck eggs! We've seen it all, heard it all and won't be swayed by PR. We're too long in the tooth for all that rubbish!
Mimi said…
Miggy, you said it much better. As for the sex tapes, I have not, nor will I ever watch them. I check out Yankee Wally and Danja Zone on you tube occasionally and from the few comments I read, the tapes are disgusting!!!!! truly awful!!!! Ha ha! I personally don’t believe they are legit but I love that they are close enough that people who DO believe they are legit are freaking out over them..
Mom Mobile said…
Okay, two things:

1. Instagram is owned by Facebook. I have an ecommerce business and I use social media to promote it, however, I am VERY careful with investing too much time/resources in either IG or FB. It seems quite foolish for a public figure to attempt to circumvent/alienate the traditional media/press because they "don't like them" and put all of their eggs in one Instagram basket.

2. With regard to the alleged sex tape, please forgive me. I know the Celebrity Jihad tape is an impersonator. At first I thought it might be her because she kept looking at the camera, however, the real MM would have jumped up in the middle of things, grabbed a sharpie and written an inspirational message on that "banana".

Miggy said…
@Mimi

Haha! I'm not as eloquent as many of the posters here, so tend to keep things short and to the point.

Right - I WAS curious, so did watch the video. (much to my embarrassment) As someone else mentioned, I also deleted my search history after doing the dirty deed and I also needed to wash my eyes with bleach! A few seconds was enough for me...!!

My opinion for what it's worth. It's NOT her.

On that note - I'm off to bed and hoping I don't have nightmares!
Mimi said…
Miggy...😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂. Too funny!!!!!!! Is it that bad? I read one poster say they took a shower after they watched it!!!!
Marie said…
abbyh - You raise interesting thoughts about the consequences. I tend to agree, that this desire to bypass traditional news via tightly controlled Instagram releases just doesn't work for a publicly funded figure. An independent press needs to to be able to critique, oppose, and evaluate; none of which can really happen if the news reporters are the same as the social media managers, who are being paid by the Instagrammers to release the news and may even be given the news directly by aforementioned Instagram account owners. And the press are held accountable to a code of professional ethics and there are both internal and external avenues for complaining or correcting mistakes. So not only a conflict of interest is at play here, but also the inability for any processes to correct mistakes made in the reporting.

A second point is that Instagram, via its micronews programming, creates echo chambers in which opposing opinions would rarely be introduced and rather extreme, niche opinions are no longer seen as extreme but taken for granted as the norm. Newspapers are already fairly biased towards a particular outlook, as is their readership. But the readers aren't usually as biased in the way Instagram followers are, i.e. on the individual topic level. I can subscribe to the Guardian and be more left-leaning without having to agree with the reporters on every single issue, or the Telegraph and be more conservative. Yet if you subscribe to the account of a public figure, you're hearing ONLY their point of view in this echo chamber, discussing the issues primarily only with other fans without necessarily hearing unpopular opinions. It's probably an echo chamber if dissenting opinions are met ONLY with "you're just a blind fanatic" or "you're just a hater/a troll" instead of being considered whether the opinion indeed is coming from an inflexible black/white knee-jerk reaction towards the issue, or if it has been deliberated based on acknowledging one's assumptions, biases, and reliability of data sources. The internet gives rise to such echo chambers. This is probably why we've got such unusually bitter polarisation on political issues other or dubious "scientific" information passed around in Facebook anti-vax and flat-earther groups.

The press aren't great, but they're much better than what news via Instagram has to offer at the moment.
Girl with a Hat said…
@Marie - well said! I subscribe to a variety of newspapers to get a variety of views.

@ Miggy, it's definitely not her. There were topless photos of her on the beach posted on that same website before the wedding and her breasts are not that colour. And in the sex video, the woman has larger breasts which are natural. If and when Meghan had larger breasts, it was because they were implants and wouldn't look or bounce like that.
Mimi said…
So now that The Sussexes have thrown their tantrum and threatened law suits all over the place and created all this chaos....where are they?
Jalice said…
OT I JUST WATCHED THE SEX TAPE. HOLY CRAP IT IS TOTALLY HER!!! And people saying her mole isn’t there!? It’s totally there! It’s just covered with makeup but you can see the bump of it!! Mind blown. Girl likes getting chocked!
Jalice said…
Just google Meghan markle sex tape celebjihad
Jdubya said…
https://www.bylineinvestigates.com/

Have you seen this before?
Lurking said…
@ Hikari... sometimes questions are rhetorical. ;)

"The greater mystery for me is, why would a woman with Doria's background pursue an advanced degree in social work in her late middle age when there was a lot of hard work and expense involved, and her earning window would be very brief in a high-burnout career?"

That was the point of my questions. She pursued an education, an expensive education, late in life. Was it because she needed to support herself financially and had plans to work for at least 10 to 15 years? Now circumstances have changed. Does she have financial support from another source? Sussex Foundation? Allowance?

She owns a home in LA. She can live fairly well on a small income. The largest expense for most people living in CA is housing. Taken care of. She has to budget for property taxes and living expenses.


Mimi said…
BTW....who paid for her expensive education? Rumor has it HRH The Sista either paid for all of it or helped pay for it.
Scandi Sanskrit said…
@Mimi:

Speaking of expensive educations.

I heard she was the only one of her siblings to enjoy a privately-funded education, none of her older half-siblings went to the nice institutions she was enrolled to.

I try not not to be morbid around here (but I can't help myself even when I'm trying to be a anonymous because it's just my base personality) but that aspect of her life/childhood always reminded me of Andrew Cunanan.

Andrew Cunanan was enrolled in a fancy-pants school when in fact he didn't have much of a fancy-pants background at all. When you're in your formative years, that has to mess you up. Trying to fit in with the properly upper-upper (as opposed to upper-middle class) became a lifelong obsession.

Then he saw his Father's living conditions in southeast Asia. Allegedly/supposedly facing this unglamorous reality was what made him lose his mind.

People forget that Andrew Cunanan was first and foremost a social climber and a fameheaux, before a spree killer. His spree killing was just a desperate attempt to achieve notoriety. He probably didn't know any other way how. There wasn't any social media back in the Versace days.

I sometimes wonder if Andrew had social media things would have been different. I mean he dropped out of college to become an older dude's sugar baby, he had no marketable skills apart from his social skills and skills of manipulation.

On this week's episode of "Killer Women with Piers Morgan"...

I'm bloody morbid like that.
Rainy Day said…
We’ve had a lot of comments about the Smarkles at Sandringham at Christmas, but what about the Buckingham Palace balcony at Remembrance Day? I really enjoyed seeing Meg off by herself with the German dignitary’s spouse the other year. Do they have any other balconies that would exile her even further?
Lurking said…
@Mimi:

Doria's undergrad school hasn't been revealed, at least not on wikipeadia, she went to USC for the master's. No idea who paid for undergrad, but Smeg has claimed she paid for grad school.

Smeg's private education was paid for by lotto winnings. Her father won the lottery and used part of the prize to pay private school tuition and I believe part of Smeg's college education.
Mimi said…
Lurking......OH NO! You are mistaken!!!!!! According to HRH The Sista....SHE paid her way through the university by working tirelessly at whatever jobs she could get!!!!!! At least that’s been her story from day one and when Samantha heard that, well, I believe that’s when she came out and said.....”Wait a minute....our father paid your tuition”. And that’s when all that stuff began. HRH continues, to this day....in her speeches...and on the SA tour..... to insist and preach about how working her way through the university ON HER OWN was difficult but she did it and so could they!!!
Poodle12 said…
Poodle 12 here, long time lurker, first attempt tp post so I’ll make it brief. My brother is a long-time Hollywood screenwriter who has friends working on Suits and worked with Markle. Consensus opinion of that crowd— “A royal bitch.” That from before she was actually royal. Also, the understanding among those folks concerning Doria’s whereabouts during a large chunk of Meg’s childhood is that she was involved in a cult.
Poodle12 said…
Poodle 12 here, long time lurker, first attempt tp post so I’ll make it brief. My brother is a long-time Hollywood screenwriter who has friends working on Suits and worked with Markle. Consensus opinion of that crowd— “A royal bitch.” That from before she was actually royal. Also, the understanding among those folks concerning Doria’s whereabouts during a large chunk of Meg’s childhood is that she was involved in a cult.
lizzie said…
@Lurking, Meghan was also educated privately well before Thomas won the lottery. She attended the Hollywood Schoolhouse (AKA "Little Red Schoolhouse") where preschool- 6th grade tuition currently ranges from &19,950 to $25,950 per school year.
Poodle12 said…
Sorry for double post, Nutties. And to Nutty herself THANK YOU for this wonderful blog and community,
Mimi said…
Rainy Day.....speaking of balconies.......when “ The Duke” snapped at Meghan on the balcony at the trooping of the colors I was elated. I thought to myself...”YES! He DOES have...ummmmm.....well....he does have what it takes to stand up to her and put her in her place! Then the next time I saw them together my heart sank...I believe it was at the Lion King thing.......he was all lovey dovey with her and even tried getting her gigs with Disney. I knew then and there he was hopeless.
Mimi said…
She probably beat the shit out of when when they got home!!!!
FrenchieLiv said…
New BFF is... Kim Kardashian !!! A member of the BRF having a Kardahian defender... i’m waiting for the meeting between these 2 and KK/K.West as they have so much in common (surrogacy :-), fake humanitarian advocacy, diva lifestyle, thirst for fame ...)!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-7551855/Kim-Kardashian-praises-Prince-Harry-Meghan-Markle-bringing-attention-important-issues.html
Scandi Sanskrit said…
It drives me nuts that I have to say "privately-FUNDED education" because apparently the Brits call that "PUBLIC-school" of all things.

Wankers can't even speak their own language.

*I don't actually think you're all wankers. I just wanted an excuse to use my favorite British word.
Scandi Sanskrit said…
I'm shocked - SHOCKED - Kim Kardashian would "praise them for bringing attention to important issues", St. Kim is just like them: https://www.newsweek.com/victims-mom-slams-kim-kardashian-trying-free-kevin-cooper-death-row-inmate-convicted-killing-1441810

Can this sick trend of using human rights causes like the new accessory pet just stop already? Thirsty celebs twisting their lives story so they can fit a mould of victimhood, thirsty fameheauxs using the plights of REAL victims.

Make it stop make it stop!

*And I say that as someone who lists The Innocence Project as one of my favourite causes.
emeraldcity said…
@Hikari

They definitely were expected at Balmoral, due for a weekend when William and Kate were not there and they blew the Queen off. Even a few royal commenters made oblique reference to the fact of the snub. My guess is they were too cowardly to face the Queen or Philip. I'm sure she would have liked to talk to them about the up coming tour in person.

Richard Jephson said a few days ago after Harry rolled his mothers coffin out once again "Diana may have been something in the mould-breaker stakes herself, but she never ducked Balmoral, lectured voters on democracy or borrowed invective more normally found in the White House to communicate with a free and fundamentally friendly press". She never ducked Balmoral.....in other words Harry and Meghan did.

There was lots of online chatter about the Queen and Philip not getting to see Archie and Harry put out some reply about him living at Windsor and the Queen being able to see Archie a lot. Don’t buy that one at all. They Queen only turns up at Windsor on weekens and not every weekend, she might have been able to see Archie but did she? Also Philip is very rarely at Winsor now, in May and the Christening only.


Regarding the Frogmore cottage renovations, “Why do journalists have access to *that* info so specifically, or are they also engaged in embellishing figures?”

The media will have a pretty good idea of the exact figure for structural renovation costs because it is a matter of public record , they can just ask for the information and it will be given, the cost has nothing to do with the family. The family don’t pay for these renovations , nor are they given the money to pay for them. The bills are paid directly by treasury to the contractors.

Interior refurbishment is something entirely separate , the Sussex’s (read Charles) have to pay for ‘interior decoration’ and any non-standard interior fittings along with soft landscaping (plants). The seemingly high cost of the do-over is really not that unusual for Frog-cot because it is a listed building and can only be renovated in a specific way , using specific materials, by specifically licenced builders, it’s very old and I’m guessing there was also an asbestos issues and probably plumbing, electricals and some re-roofing needed. Even then the costs being reported are only part of the picture......how much has Charles been aked to pay for the interiors?

Regarding Doria and the inflated bank account, the IRS will be on Meghan’s tax returns with a ‘special scrutiny tick’ against her name for the rest of her life after her idiotic attempt at suing them, Doria would be included in that sweep (especially if there were legal issues in the past with financial irregularities). The $9million is utterly laughable though. Doria would be in the clink (again?) before she could bat an eye lid, there is no way she could account for that amount of legal income. It is however, highly likely that Meghan and/or Harry are helping her out financially, perhaps amounting to tens of thousands but that’s not illegal, unless she doesn’t declare it to the IRS.


Ozmanda said…
@Alice, I have read that Priyanka is even more thirsty, her Bollywood career died when it was found she was getting it on with a male (married) co star. Rumours said her marriage was one of convenience, she got some respectability back to appear in Bollywood again and her Hollywood career has pretty much stalled since that FBI show. Rumours also stated she was a yachter along with megs.
Scandi Sanskrit said…
Congratulations, Meghan. (I mean it.)

You know you've made it when you have Kim Kardashian for a clout-chaser riding on your coat-tails.
Ozmanda said…
I am sure this has been discussed before but if not has anyone seen this twitter?

https://twitter.com/TudorChick1501?lang=en

They seem extremely Pro-Megs. The vernacular has me thinking it could be one of her accounts or one of her cronies)
Scandi Sanskrit said…
Uuuuuugh

I need to take a break from all this.

Meghan is bad vibes. It's so overwhelming.

Like I need a coconut oil bath or something.

Take care everybody! ✨
@ozmanda ... I agree with you about Priyanka to some degree. She is extremely ambitious, her acting skills to me at least, arnt all that great and she seems to want to be famous for being famous. But at least she still does movies. unlike mms other friends like -
1. Misha whose claim to fame is a white boring highly overpriced shirt (and now a black tank top)
2. Jessica who reportedly wanted to pull a Pippa at MMs wedding and is an abysmal stylist.
3. The 2 Wimbledon friends who will forever be known as the Wimbledon friends.
4. Daniel Martin who is bow famous for crying, and his top secret makeup tip is to dab the concealer with tour finger tips **urghh**
5. Serena who is always going to be on MMs speed dial because she is a black woman so apparently gets mm like no other crerure in the entire universe could (poor Serena got played)
6. Amal who forever had a meh expression and cut her losses pretty soon into the game because she totally cares about her PR and her career first and foremost.
7. Markus anderson who to be honest seems like the one person who is to some degree invested in mm but will forever be in the shadows like a vampire puppet master.

Oh look, that's seven friends for Meg's.. one for each day of the week! Poor hazzy and arxie obviously don't figure.
Nutty Flavor said…
Ha ha ha @Alice Surrey James! Good summary of Meg's PR friendships.

@MomMobile

Thanks for posting the Vanity Fair piece. Clearly a PR placement; no wonder Graydon Carter quit if he'd have to put up with this type of material in his beloved magazine. (I still don't think it's a coincidence that he quit the day after the Meghan cover story was published; perhaps someone forced his hand, and he decided he couldn't work under those conditions, along with other things that were bothering him.)

The premise is dumb: Instagram can certainly supplement professional media coverage, but it cannot replace it, because it is by definition the perspective of just one person. A good journalist collects perspectives from several people and puts them into context. As another commenter said, no one wants to get rid of political media and replace it entirely with Trump and AOC's Tweets. It's not the same thing, and Vanity Fair knows it.

@Poodle, thanks for your inside info. And @emeraldcity, thanks for clarifying the Balmoral and Frogmore situations.

Re: the discussion about Harry reading comments

I also firmly don't believe that Harry reads "all the comments". As someone with a small media presence in a field totally unrelated to Royal gossip, I also sometimes get online comments saying that I am a big fool and should take a long walk off a short pier. They are a little upsetting every time, even if they are one negative comment amid a dozen positive comments.

Reading hundreds of negative and sometimes brutal comments about you and your spouse every day seems beyond the capacity of any human being, even Harry and Meghan.

Most celebrities outsource this. So does Facebook: it has a huge facility of poorly-paid people in the Philippines who spend their day reviewing and deleting all the gruesome content people try to post. Terrible job.
Miggy said…
@Nutty

As one of those who remarked about Harry reading comments, I agree that he doesn't read ALL of them but I certainly feel he's read enough to gauge public opinion of himself and Sparkles.
Miggy said…
@Mimi

"Too funny!!!!!!! Is it that bad? I read one poster say they took a shower after they watched it!!!!"

Yes, I agree with that person. As I said, I only managed a few seconds but came away feeling distinctly grubby!
Unknown said…
@Lizzie
I seem to have read somewhere that prisoners are encouraged to consider studying towards a qualification, due to the amount of free (pardon the pun ) time they have on their hands. All standard degrees require 3 years. Possible explanation.
Sandie said…
Maria, well said ... your post should be read again and again ... muzzling the free press is a huge threat to democracy.

'abbyh - You raise interesting thoughts about the consequences. I tend to agree, that this desire to bypass traditional news via tightly controlled Instagram releases just doesn't work for a publicly funded figure. An independent press needs to to be able to critique, oppose, and evaluate; none of which can really happen if the news reporters are the same as the social media managers, who are being paid by the Instagrammers to release the news and may even be given the news directly by aforementioned Instagram account owners. And the press are held accountable to a code of professional ethics and there are both internal and external avenues for complaining or correcting mistakes. So not only a conflict of interest is at play here, but also the inability for any processes to correct mistakes made in the reporting.

A second point is that Instagram, via its micronews programming, creates echo chambers in which opposing opinions would rarely be introduced and rather extreme, niche opinions are no longer seen as extreme but taken for granted as the norm. Newspapers are already fairly biased towards a particular outlook, as is their readership. But the readers aren't usually as biased in the way Instagram followers are, i.e. on the individual topic level. I can subscribe to the Guardian and be more left-leaning without having to agree with the reporters on every single issue, or the Telegraph and be more conservative. Yet if you subscribe to the account of a public figure, you're hearing ONLY their point of view in this echo chamber, discussing the issues primarily only with other fans without necessarily hearing unpopular opinions. It's probably an echo chamber if dissenting opinions are met ONLY with "you're just a blind fanatic" or "you're just a hater/a troll" instead of being considered whether the opinion indeed is coming from an inflexible black/white knee-jerk reaction towards the issue, or if it has been deliberated based on acknowledging one's assumptions, biases, and reliability of data sources. The internet gives rise to such echo chambers. This is probably why we've got such unusually bitter polarisation on political issues other or dubious "scientific" information passed around in Facebook anti-vax and flat-earther groups.

The press aren't great, but they're much better than what news via Instagram has to offer at the moment.'
Nutty Flavor said…
Changing the subject a bit, but there is an excellent comment today from "Aunt Jane", the Lipstick Alley poster who is one of the best writers on the Royals right now - better than many professional Royal Reporters, in my opinion.

She talks about why she believes the Harkles were never going to move into Apartment 1A at Kensington Palace, and places in the context of the relationship between the brothers.

I can't link directly to the post, but it is on this page: https://www.lipstickalley.com/threads/meghan-markle-unpopular-opinions-thread-pt-2.2215591/page-1594

Scroll down to post #47806.
R_O said…
About Sandringham, I think Harry and Markle won't be going this year. They will claim to want to spend the holidays with Doria in lalaland.
Nutty Flavor said…
@R_O, if they want to go to Los Angeles, it'll be interesting to see how they finesse the Archie situation.

For example, will Archie have a passport with his correct birth date?
lizzie said…
@Unknown--If Doria was in prison and I'm not convinced she was (personally I think a commune, cult, or a selfish "finding herself" hedonistic lifestyle choice more likely explains her apparent absence in the early/mid 1990s) you're right she could have earned some credits towards her undergrad degree. But an undergraduate degree in the US would take at least 3 years of year round, full-time study---about 40 3-credit hour courses. And prisoners aren't enrolled in their studies fulltime. For those who pursue education while incarcerated, the most common programs are vocational certificates like auto repair followed by study for the GED (high school equivalency)

And we know DR wasn't in prison by 2002 (when M was 21) because that's when DR declared bankruptcy over $50K+ in credit card bills. And we know she earned her MSW 13 years later in 2015 with an entry-level ASW license to follow. So I'm not seeing a big tie-in between the MSW and prison, if, in fact, prison occurred.

I suspect DR pursued the MSW because she thought she'd need to support herself well into her 60s. If she has a spotty employment record with breaks, has been paid "under the table," or has been self-employed (as reports claim) social security payments upon retirement will be fairly meager. And she can't claim on Thomas's much more robust record because they weren't married 10 years. But M hit the jackpot. (M should be paying gift tax to the IRS on what she gives DR if it's over $15K in a year but gifts aren't taxable to the recipient so DR wouldn't have to report.)
@nutty ... They could easily change the date on Archie's passport couldn't they? If the birth cert is issued for may 6th then who would ever know?

What I'm more interested in is to see his name in tbe passport. I still can't believe the name archie harrison! Is it Archibald? Archangel? Archirod? Archismal?

Btw, just saw a teaser trailer of some video on Sussex ig, Harry and Ed Sheeran in what seems to be Frogmore Cottage! Seems like they are finally going to debunk all conspiracy therories about where they live with this one. So sneaky! Can't wait to see more. It's supposed to release tomorrow, Oct 10th on their Ig.
Hikari said…
@Nutty,

Everybody should follow your link to Aunt Jane's postings . . she's acerbicly hilarious.

I particularly enjoyed her characterization of the transformation of KP from an 'aunt pile' to a residence fit for the future Prince of Wales/King.

It is profoundly sad to realize that the relationship between Diana's sons has been compromised for a very long time. Harry's resentment has been festering for decades, since before Diana died, and Meghan was the petrol bomb that fully lit the conflagration. She accelerated and encouraged it by feeding his grievances and his sense of entitlement, but all the negative traits we are seeing now were likely ones he's carried around with him since he was small. The mythology has grown up around Diana's two motherless boys: The Two Musketeers, Orphans against the World. William's impending role as the future King and his choice to attend uni in Scotland and get involved with the Middletons took him gradually further and further away from his kid brother, both physically and emotionally. All was not cosy, pre-Meghan, at KP with Harry in Nott Cott and coming over to raid William's fridge. Wills joked about it, but behind the scenes, Harry had gotten drunk in front of his children one too many times. There are no photos of Uncle Harry interacting with William's children, even when they share official events together. Meg is not the sole reason for that, apparently.

If not for our 21st century trappings, this is the stuff of a Shakespearean play . . or perhaps an arc in 'Game of Thrones'. It really breaks my heart to think that Diana's sons are permanently estranged, but that seems to be what's going on.
Stacey1985 said…
Has anybody read the latest MM blind on Blind Gossip? They're claiming that the recent flurry of legal activity IS a preemptive warning blow to the media to stop them from reporting on topless photos and an sex tape allegedly featuring Meghan. Honestly, if they were hoping to scare the press, this was a terrible way to go about it...they've made an enemy of the press when they really, REALLY needed them to be on side. Ah well they've made their bed now, I guess...
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