Countdown to Meghan Markle on CBS
It's Gossip Time!
Hello and welcome to Gossip Time, a weekly guide to the stars by Allie Jones. This week: The royals freak out, the Olsen twins live it up, and an actress discovers a new way to be rude to her ex-husband.
How do you stop an Oprah interview from airing on primetime television? Well, you can’t. But the royals are trying their best to derail, delegitimize, and distract from what promises to be the TV event of the year (or at least the weekend): Oprah’s interview with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Have you memorized the teasers yet? The best one is obviously Oprah going, Were you sileNT? Or sileNCED?
Really good. We don’t yet know what Harry and Meghan said in response to that question, but it doesn’t matter. Buckingham Palace is flipping out.
Unfortunately, this means unnamed palace sources and “courtiers” or whatever are talking shit about Meghan in the British tabloids again. The Times of London reported this week that in 2018, certain royal aides accused Meghan of “bullying,” and Harry and Meghan’s communications secretary at the time, Jason Knauf, made an official complaint about it. Why is this coming out now? The Times copped to the motive directly in their report, at least: “The sources approached The Times because they felt that only a partial version had emerged of Meghan’s two years as a working member of the royal family and they wished to tell their side.”
These royal sources are trying to undermine Meghan because they are afraid of what the couple will say in an interview that the palace has no control over. After the Times published the story, the palace issued an icy statement assuring the public that they plan to investigate this two-year-old complaint. While we wait on what I’m sure will be a fair and balanced investigation, I think it’s worth noting that this is exactly the kind of thing that makes Americans more sympathetic to Harry and Meghan. For all the royals’ determination to paint the couple, Meghan especially, in a negative light, they can’t seem to figure out how to manage their PR campaign effectively. Now Meghan’s friends, like her old Suits co-star Patrick J. Adams, are coming to her defense and directly criticizing her in-laws:
It will be interesting to see what else comes out over the weekend, as the palace presumably gets more desperate. My favorite distraction attempt so far has been from Carole Middleton, mother of Kate Middleton, who chose this week to announce that her other daughter Pippa Middleton is pregnant with her second child. Wow, incredible — I’ve forgotten all about Oprah now.
See you Sunday night at 8!
Elsewhere in London, the paparazzi caught the Golden Globes’ most relaxed winner Jason Sudeikis skulking out of his alleged new girlfriend’s flat. The alleged new girlfriend, of course, is Keeley Hazell of “Page 3” fame. You can see the Daily Mail’s exclusive photos here; both Sudeikis and Hazell look kind of tired and cold. Later, Hazell was photographed again, this time wearing the same hoodie that Sudeikis wore during the Golden Globes.
So they’re going steady? Not so fast, says Us Weekly. The tabloid reported yesterday Sudeikis and Hazell “are not dating.” A source claimed that Sudeikis is “still really heartbroken” about his split from Olivia Wilde, who as you know is currently dating Harry Styles. I don’t know, I’m rooting for Hazell now. Make Page 3 proud!
Also getting back out there is Mary-Kate Olsen, who was photographed having dinner with a man named John Cooper at Estiatorio Milos in Manhattan. According to the Daily Mail, Cooper is the CEO of the financial news analysis agency Brightwire. I don’t have any thoughts about him, but Olsen looks great:
A source provided E! News with this trenchant analysis about the dinner date: "It definitely looks like they are dating. There was a lot of flirting going on between Mary-Kate and John. They were constantly looking over and smiling at each other."
For better-sourced gossip about the Olsens, I recommend this very fun behind-the-scenes look at The Row by Matthew Schneier at New York. Perfect headline!
STUFF BY HILARY DUFF: Hilary Duff’s new line of rompers has sold out.
Finally, I’ll leave you with this image of a painting done by Winston Churchill:
Churchill painted "Tower of Koutoubia Mosque" during World War II and gave it to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1943. Sixty-eight years later, Brad Pitt bought it at an auction in New Orleans for $2.95 million and gave it to his then-girlfriend Angelina Jolie. Well, Jolie more than tripled her money this week and sold at auction in London for $11.5 million. No word on who the buyer was, but hopefully they’ll think twice about gifting their prize to a romantic partner.
Thank you so much for opening this email. And thank you to everyone who sent in questions last week! There are sooo many good ones, and I promise to work through them all in the coming weeks.