Since the media cannot move on from the car chase, I guess that asking the thread to move on is too much. But please remain respectful.
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Just read a story about Harry and his trial against the British press. The article suggested that his dad would make jokes about Harry’s biological father being the riding instructor? If so, that it really cruel. I cannot imagine having to grow-up with a cloud about parentage and then your dad uses it as a punch-line? Very sad.
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I absolutely agree! At least she furthered her education; many young people i the UK do not have that ‘luxury’
This is indeed horrendous if true.
I question whether it is true, however. Harry doesn’t mention it in his book ( to the best of my recollection). He does talk about the rumors that frequently circulated in the press, but not that Charles ever said anything to him about it. It seems odd Harry would omit such a fact if true.
If there was enough suspicion that Charles isn’t Harry’s father, wouldn’t a DNA test have been done decades ago?
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He did mention it in the book - said it was one of his dad’s favorite jokes.
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Ah, okay, I do not remember that at all.
Did a quick search and this quote was all I could find:
“If Pa had any thoughts about Major Hewitt, he kept them to himself.” (p 39)
Pa liked telling stories, and this was one of the best in his repertoire. He’d always end with a burst of philosophising … Who knows if I’m really the Prince of Wales? Who knows if I’m even your real father?
“He’d laugh and laugh, though it was a remarkably unfunny joke, given the rumour circulating just then that my actual father was one of Mummy’s former lovers: Major James Hewitt. One cause of this rumour was Major Hewitt’s flaming ginger hair, but another cause was sadism.”
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Apologies for belaboring a point, but this to me is a good example of how people can read the same thing and come to different conclusions. I had previously read the passage you partially quoted, but do not have the same interpretation, i.e. that Charles was directly referring to Major Hewitt.
Charles’ story in question is about a patient at a psychiatric hospital who claimed to be the Prince of Wales. When he jokes to Harry about his “real father”, I read it as him (Charles) saying the patient might be his father. It is Harry who, very understandably, makes the connection to the rumors about Hewitt.
Now Charles’ joking is tone-deaf at best, given those rumors. But whether it was a veiled reference, a passive aggressive jab, or just the random philosophizing he’s been known to do over the years, I have no way of knowing. Not defending Charles (who I find mostly indefensible), just pointing out how we can interpret the same scenario differently. This is also a good example of how partial quotes can give a misleading impression.
Here is a more complete quote, if anyone cares (sorry, very long):
"Adding to this general sense of bedlam was the psychiatric hospital down the road. Broadmoor. Some time before I came to Ludgrove, a Broadmoor patient had escaped and killed a child in one of the nearby villages. In response Broadmoor installed a warning siren, and now and then they’d test it, to make sure it was in working order. A sound like Doomsday. Mr. Marston’s bell on steroids.
I mentioned this to Pa one day. He nodded sagely. He’d recently visited a similar place as part of his charitable work. The patients were mostly gentle, he assured me, though one stood out. A little chap who claimed to be the Prince of Wales. Pa said he’d wagged a finger at this impostor and severely reprimanded him. Now look here. You cannot be the Prince of Wales! I’m the Prince of Wales.
The patient merely wagged his finger back. Impossible! I’m the Prince of Wales!
Pa liked telling stories, and this was one of the best in his repertoire. He’d always end with a burst of philosophizing: If this mental patient could be so thoroughly convinced of his identity, no less than Pa, it raised some very Big Questions indeed. Who could say which of us was sane? Who could be sure they weren’t the mental patient, hopelessly deluded, humored by friends and family? Who knows if I’m really the Prince of Wales? Who knows if I’m even your real father? Maybe your real father is in Broadmoor, darling boy!
He’d laugh and laugh, though it was a remarkably unfunny joke, given the rumor circulating just then that my actual father was one of Mummy’s former lovers: Major James Hewitt. One cause of this rumor was Major Hewitt’s flaming ginger hair, but another cause was sadism. Tabloid readers were delighted by the idea that the younger child of Prince Charles wasn’t the child of Prince Charles. They couldn’t get enough of this “joke,” for some reason. Maybe it made them feel better about their lives that a young prince’s life was laughable.
Never mind that my mother didn’t meet Major Hewitt until long after I was born, the story was simply too good to drop. The press rehashed it, embroidered it, and there was even talk that some reporters were seeking my DNA to prove it—my first intimation that, after torturing my mother and sending her into hiding, they would soon be coming for me.
To this day nearly every biography of me, every longish profile in a paper or magazine, touches on Major Hewitt, treats the prospect of his paternity with some seriousness, including a description of the moment Pa finally sat me down for a proper heart-to-heart, reassuring me that Major Hewitt wasn’t my real father. Vivid scene, poignant, moving, and wholly made up. If Pa had any thoughts about Major Hewitt, he kept them to himself."
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A joint statement from Harry and Meghan’s company and the streaming giant said they had “mutually agreed to part ways”.
Spotify confirmed it was not renewing Meghan’s podcast Archetypes, which ran for 12 episodes from August 2022, for a second series.
The contract was estimated to be worth $25m (£18m) in late 2020.
The podcast deal was one of the major commercial agreements the couple entered into after quitting royal duties and relocating to the US in 2020.
When the agreement with Spotify was first announced, it was billed as a relationship which would produce several series - but in the end, only one materialised.
American media reports suggest the royal couple failed to meet the productivity benchmark required by Spotify, and therefore wouldn’t be receiving the full value of the contract.
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Lol. I guess Harry and Meghan aren’t going to have Bill Simmons over for dinner
I have no idea why Bill went off on the Sussex’s. Bill is a media genius but I’d rather hear him go off on the Celtics than the Sussex’s.
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“Simmons, who still runs the Ringer and is also Head of Podcast Innovation and Monetization at Spotify, made the comments on his eponymous podcast.”
Well, he is a senior exec at Spotify, although I doubt other execs there love him saying what he said.
Also, from the article:
“The f-cking grifters. That’s the podcast we shoulda launched with them,” he said. “I gotta get drunk one night and tell the story of the Zoom I had with Harry to try and help him with a podcast idea. It’s one of my best stories.”
I would like to hear that story!
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I think Spotify looks as bad as H&M in this story. Spotify is the expert in podcasts. They should know what will sell and what won’t, and should not have made an offer at the top of the pay scale, a billion year contract, etc.
Was there even a competing offer out there?
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Netflix signed a $100 million deal with them in 2020.
I don’t think that one will get renewed either. I think Netflix is cutting back also.
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But Netflix wasn’t competing with Spotify, they each have their markets.
I just don’t think Spotify looks that great dissing H&M for failing when Spotify failed too.
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I thought I read somewhere that M’s podcast did win some awards, so it doesn’t sound like it was a bad podcast, per se, but rather that she wasn’t producing enough content. The article I saw compared her pod to other popular pods on Spotify, like Armchair Expert (one of my faves) which produces a ton of content.
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You can be #1 and win awards and still not earn out. Spotify overpaid for M&H, spent a ton on promotion and publicity. M&H did not deliver much content to Spotify and do not seem to have recorded anything beyond that first season. She has a tremendous new agent in WME so I don’t think it’s hopeless but I’m not sure how they parlay the current situation into bigger and better deals. But of course, we really don’t know all the details. It’s amazing to me that the Spotify exec would trash them like that - and no backlash so far. That would alarm me if I were their agent.
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Bill Simmons was badmouthing Harry on his podcast back in January - he never liked him. I find it fascinating that he takes shots at Harry’s silver spoon life, when he himself went to expensive private schools and obviously had a privileged life. I guess the size of the spoon matters.
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