Meghan’s latest interview lifts the lid on her gilded life in the millionaires’ haven of Montecito in California.
Over 6,400 gushing words, American journalist Allison P. Davis describes everything from the Soho House-branded rosewater candles that she burns to the conjoined palm trees at the Sussexes’ home that the loved-up couple compare to themselves.
In New York magazine The Cut, she even quotes Meghan telling her what to write after the duchess answered a question with ‘moaning’ and ‘guttural sounds’.
But it was her and Harry’s apparent jibes at the Royal Family that caused jaws to drop on the other side of the Atlantic last night.
The interviewer explains that Meghan discussed how ‘toxic tabloid culture has torn two families apart’, an apparent reference to Meghan’s falling out with her own father, Thomas Markle, and Harry’s fractured relationship with Prince Charles.
She is quoted as saying: “Harry said to me, “I lost my dad in this process.” It doesn’t have to be the same for them as it was for me, but that’s his decision.”
Her comment was widely interpreted as meaning that Harry felt he had ‘lost’ his father because of the fall out.
But hours after the piece was published, an ally of the couple came out to suggest that is not what she meant.
Royal reporter Omid Scobie, known to be close to them, said: “I understand that Prince Harry is actually referring to Meghan’s loss of her own father, and Meghan is saying she doesn’t want Harry to lose his.”
US publication Page Six separately quoted a ‘highly placed royal insider’ as saying: “I’m not aware that Harry has broken up with his father. Charles gave Harry and Meghan millions when they left the UK. Right now, the family are all at Balmoral, and I’m sure they are aghast at this interview.”
Meghan’s comment was made after the interviewer asked her about a letter Thomas Markle provided to The Mail on Sunday, and the legal case that followed.
Meghan Markle on The Cut cover. Campbell Addy/The Cut Credit: Supplied
Harry’s relationship with his family became increasingly strained after he and Meghan gave an explosive interview to Oprah Winfrey last year in which he claimed Prince Charles had cut him off financially and stopped taking his calls.
“It was bittersweet, you know? Knowing none of it had to be this way,” Meghan said when talking about the couple’s decision to leave the UK and criticism of their £2.4million taxpayer funded refurbishment of Frogmore Cottage.
Meghan said the couple wanted to earn their own money so tabloids could no longer attack them under the ‘guise of public interest’ because their lives were taxpayer funded.
“Then maybe all the noise would stop,” she said, adding they were willing to move to any commonwealth country, including Canada, New Zealand or South Africa.
Anything to just … because just by existing, we were upsetting the dynamic of the hierarchy.
The couple had proposed a hybrid arrangement, mixing official duties with private commercial work but were told it would not work.
Meghan said: “That, for whatever reason, is not something that we were allowed to do, even though several other members of the family do that exact thing.”
Meghan recalled an encounter she had at the 2019 London premiere of a live-action version of The Lion King.
She said a cast member from South Africa pulled her aside. “He looked at me, and he’s just like light. He said, “I just need you to know: When you married into this family, we rejoiced in the streets the same we did when Mandela was freed from prison,” she said.
Among the most shocking claims by Meghan is that her children have been called the highly offensive and racist ‘N-word’.
She made the comment while discussing how she was angered by the Royal Family’s arrangement for releasing pictures of her children, which she said needed to be distributed to the media’s accredited royal correspondents, known as the Royal Rota, before she could post them herself.
The interviewer said that this ‘didn’t sit right with Meghan, given her strained relationship with the British tabloids’.
Meghan is quoted as saying: “Why would I give the very people that are calling my children the N-word a photo of my child before I can share it with the people that love my child?” she said.
It was unclear who she was accusing of using the racist language.
The couple are known to have faced abuse from online trolls. Harry said the couple working together from their shared home office for their company Archewell feels ‘natural and normal’.
But in what will be seen as a swipe at his own family, he added: “Most people that I know and many of my family, they aren’t able to work and live together.”
The interviewer said he enunciated family with a ‘vocal eye roll’.
The interviewer, who apparently accompanies Meghan to pick son Archie, three, up from pre-school as part of the piece, says Meghan felt she would not be able to do the school run in Britain without being hounded by the paparazzi.
She feared it would have become a ‘royal photo call with a press pen of 40 people snapping pictures’, the interviewer states.
Royal experts pointed out strict rules governing the press prevent taking photographs of children in education. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge regularly drop their children off at school most days without note.
Any pictures published of their children are ones released to the press with their approval or taken at public events. Meghan told the magazine she is still very aware that people see her as a princess.
“It’s important to be thoughtful about it because - even with the Oprah interview, I was conscious of the fact that there are little girls that I meet and they’re just like, ‘Oh my God its a real-life princess’.”
But she said her ambitions for the little girls who look up to her are more than to marry well. “I just look at all of them and think, “You have the power within you to create a life greater than any fairy tale you’ve ever read”. I don’t mean that in terms of “You could marry a prince one day.”
“I mean you can find love. You can find happiness.”
A gushing Prince Harry told his wife she could be both model and a ‘mom’.
He made an appearance to tell the interviewer how he’d had to reassure his wife after a ‘ten hour’ cover shoot the day before.
Addressing his wife he said: “Tell her the first thing you said when you got back last night,’ before turning to the interviewer and saying: “She said, “I’m not a model”. I was like, “No, you are, of course you can be a model”. And she’s like, “I’m a mom!” And it’s like, “You can be both”,’ he said.
Meghan, who included privacy concerns among her reasons for quitting the UK, welcomed the interviewer into their Californian home, and she in turn described it in detail.
“The Montecito house is the kind of big that startles you into remembering that unimaginable wealth is actually someone’s daily reality,” the journalist wrote.
“Meghan said they initially dismissed the property believing it to be too expensive because they ‘didn’t have jobs’.
But they later went on to sign multi million pound deals with Spotify and Netflix. Meghan said: “We were looking in this area and this house kept popping up online in searches.”
They did eventually view it and fell ‘almost immediately in love’.
“One of the first things my husband saw when we walked around the house was those two palm trees,’ she said.
“See how they’re connected at the bottom? He goes, “My love, it’s us”.’ Meghan said she told Harry ‘We have to get this house’ after only touring the grounds.
Meghan dictated how the noises she was making should be interpreted by interviewer Miss Davis.
The writer said: “At one point in our conversation, instead of answering a question, she will suggest how I might transcribe the noises she’s making: “She’s making these guttural sounds, and I can’t quite articulate what it is she’s feeling in that moment because she has no word for it; she’s just moaning”.’
Meghan hinted that the couple’s upcoming Netflix documentary would be about their ‘love story’.
“The piece of my life I haven’t been able to share, that people haven’t been able to see, is our love story,’ she said.
The couple are reportedly filming a fly-on-the-wall style documentary and have been spotted accompanied by a camera crew. Harry and Meghan are trying to teach their son manners, she revealed.
“We always tell him: ‘Manners make the man. Manners, manners, manners, manners, manners.’
She also recalled a saying she’d learned from a friend’s mum: Salt and pepper are always passed together.
“She said, ‘You never move one without the other.’ That’s me and Harry. We’re like salt and pepper. We always move together.”
Meghan has made up black back packs containing water, peanut butter crackers and granola bars to give out to the homeless.
In the car on the way back from the preschool run, they stop to get one from the boot and a member of the security team gives it to an ‘unhoused man on the corner’.
She said they were teaching Archie that ‘some people live in big houses, some in small, and that some are in between homes’.
Meghan says: “I’ve never had to sign anything that restricts me from talking,’ she said:
“I can talk about my whole experience and make a choice not to.
Asked why she hadn’t, she replied: “Still healing”.
Asked if she thinks there is room for forgiveness between her and her royal in-laws and her own family she said: “It takes a lot more energy to not forgive.
“But it takes a lot of effort to forgive. I’ve really made an active effort, especially knowing that I can say anything.”
Samantha Armytage has revealed she intends to keep her private life with husband Richard Lavender all to herself.
The former Sunrise star, 45, explained in a new interview that the pair prefer a quiet life in the country these days.
She also took a thinly veiled swipe at some of her ex-partners.
'I always felt that until I was married or really sure about someone, then I'm not going to talk about them publicly, and I'm really pleased I didn't because boy, oh boy, there were a few who didn't deserve to be spoken about' she told Stellar magazine.
'Even with Rich, [fame] isn't his world. He's a very private person, so I feel like I give enough of him without having to share too much'.
Elsewhere, Sam said that she will never return to breakfast television program Sunrise and is concerned that journalism is too woke these days.
'I'd never go back. You don't go backwards in life. You've got to keep going forward' she said.
'When I do listen to radio and TV, no-one's actually saying what they mean. Everybody's walking this tightrope because they fear they'll say the wrong thing and the mob will descend on them, and that's not journalism'.
Samantha wed her doting partner Richard, 60, on New Years' Eve in 2020 at his home in Bowral in the Southern Highlands.
After signing off on Sunrise in March last year, she was replaced by newsreader Natalie Barr, and has been enjoying a quieter life in the countryside.
In July 2020, Samantha sold her North Bondi home in Sydney for $2.8million, which suggested she was planning to move to the country full time.
Richard owns a 40-hectare property in Bowral, while Samantha sold her Southern Highlands cottage for $3.1million in September 2020.
In April last year, Samantha told The Daily Telegraph that she hasn't turned her back on television and is looking for the 'right' job at the 'right time'.
'I don't think I am done with TV. I am for now but I may some day get back in but it has to be the right role and it has to be at the right time,' she said
Prince Charles has been making regular visits to see the Queen at Balmoral as she continues to suffer mobility problems.
Royal experts say the frequent visits are a sign the prince is concerned about his mother's wellbeing, after she was forced to cancel several high-profile events this year.
Royal biographer Ingrid Seward said it's "highly unusual" for Charles - the heir to the British throne to make such impromptu visits to see his mother.
"It's highly unusual for Prince Charles to make these kinds of impromptu visits to see his mother," she told The Sun.
The 96-year-old monarch is expected to appoint the new Prime Minister at her Balmoral residence rather than at Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle on September 6.
The Sun revealed plans are underway for candidates Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss to join outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson for the handover in Scotland.
This year would mark the first time the "kissing of the hands" ceremony with the new Prime Minister would happen outside London or Windsor.
The Queen has been forced to miss many celebrations this year, including her Platinum Jubilee thanksgiving service in June, due to episodic mobility issues.
Buckingham Palace said the Queen made the decision to miss the service at St Paul's Cathedral "with great reluctance" after "taking into account the journey and activity required to participate".
Britney Spears is back. The pop icon has just dropped her first new song since 2016, a joyful dance version of Tiny Dancer made in collaboration with Elton John.
Titled Hold Me Closer, the track came about after Spears professed her love for the 1971 ballad on Twitter back in 2015. John created the remix with producer Andrew Wyatt and then, after a suggestion from his husband David Furnish, the 75-year-old singer reached out to Spears this year to work on the vocals together.
John has praised Spears as “one of the all-time great pop stars” upon the song’s release.
Britney Spears and Sir Elton John met for the first time at the 21st Annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Awards viewing party in 2013.Credit:Michael Kovac/Getty Images
“I am absolutely thrilled to have had the chance to work with Britney Spears,” he said. “She truly is an icon ... and [I’m] delighted with what we’ve created together.”
This is one in a string of many recent collaborations for Elton John. When his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour was paused due to the pandemic, he started working with a number of diverse musicians (from Nicki Minaj to Eddie Vedder to Lil Nas X) to produce The Lockdown Sessions, a playful and unexpected album released in October 2021.
The lead single of that album was Cold Heart – a hugely successful mashup of his songs Rocket Man, Sacrifice, Kiss the Bride and Where’s the Shoorah? produced by Australian dance act Pnau and performed with Dua Lipa.
In a similar vein, this new release takes elements from not just Tiny Dancer but also The One and Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.
This legal arrangement, which had been in place since 2008, stripped Spears of her ability to make decisions about her career, finances and personal life – to the point that her requests to have her IUD removed were denied, despite her desire to have another child.
When the conservatorship was terminated, Spears thanked her supporters for their support and advocacy. “My voice was muted and threatened for so long,” she said. “I honestly think you guys saved my life.”
In that broader context, Hold Me Closer feels like a celebration; a sign the singer is chasing her passions and finding her groove again.
“It’s pretty damn cool that I’m singing with one of the most classic men of our time,” Spears wrote on Twitter. “I’m kinda overwhelmed... it’s a big deal to me!!! I’m meditating more and learning my space is valuable and precious!!!
“I’m learning every day is a clean slate to try and be a better person and do what makes me happy... yes, I choose happiness today. I tell myself every day to let go of the hurt, bitterness and try to forgive myself and others to what may have been hurtful.
“I want to be fearless like when I was younger ... I choose happiness and joy today.”
Speaking to The Guardian, producer Andrew Watt praised the artist for her exacting standards and professionalism in the studio: “She was really collaborative and had really good ideas about the production. She’s an expert in music to make you dance.”
However, John added that she still felt apprehensive about releasing the track.
“There’s a lot of fear there because she’s been betrayed so many times and she hasn’t really been in the public eye officially for so long,” he said. “We’ve been holding her hand through the whole process, reassuring her that everything’s gonna be alright.”
“I’m so excited to be able to do it with her because if it is a big hit, and I think it may be, it will give her so much more confidence than she’s got already and she will realise that people actually love her and care for her and want her to be happy.”
Our Breaking News Alert will notify you of significant breaking news when it happens. Get it here.
The tumour that sent music legend John Farnham into a marathon surgery session was in his mouth, his wife Jill has revealed.
Farnham remains in a stable condition in intensive care this morning, after doctors operated from 8am-7.30pm yesterday.
The news of the 73-year-old singer's diagnosis came as a shock to Australia yesterday morning.
John Farnham has been diagnosed with cancer. (AAP)
In a statement this morning, the Farnham family said they had been overwhelmed by the "incredible wave of support, love and messages" they had received.
"The cancer tumour was located in his mouth and it has been successfully removed," Jill Farnham said.
"There is still a long road of recovery and healing ahead of us, but we know John is up for that task."
The family also thanked the doctors, medical workers and surgical team that had been involved.
Jill, James, Rob and John Farnham in a family photo. (Farnham Family/Supplied)
'He is the voice'
The diagnosis has prompted a wave of well wishes from around the world.
"I haven't spoke with him since his diagnosis but it was a big surprise for us as well for him," friend, Lindsay Field told 9News.
"He was here for lunch three weeks ago and it was lovely, there was no suspicion at that time of this.
"Anyone you love and care for, you have a concern for their well-being."
John Peter Farnham at VFL Grand Final January 01, in Melbourne, Australia. (Getty)
Molly Meldrum was among those wishing him the best in his operation and recovery.
"He has been a friend of mine for a very long time, and we have been through lots in that time," he told 9News.
"He is the voice, there is doubt about that and he will always be the voice.
Kiss founding member Paul Stanley also posted to social media in a show of support.
"John… You ARE the voice!!! We are all sending you our prayers, energy and light for a full recovery," Stanley tweeted.
The 73-year-old's 1986 album Whispering Jack, featuring the single You're The Voice, remains the second-highest selling album in Australia, behind only Meat Loaf's Bat Out Of Hell (1977). (Nine)
Earlier today, entertainment reporter Peter Ford told 3AW details about his specific illness remained unclear.
"We don't know too much about the type of cancer that he does have. We know there is a tumour involved, but we don't know where on his body that would be," he said.
The family has requested privacy during this time.
Farnham has been a mainstay of Australian entertainment since he was billed as teen idol "Johnny Farnham" in the late 1960s.
The 73-year-old's 1986 album Whispering Jack, featuring the single You're The Voice, remains the second-highest selling album in Australia, behind only Meat Loaf's Bat Out Of Hell (1977).
He has received 19 ARIA awards, and was named an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1996, and Australian of the Year in 1987.
Mundi Mundi Nutbush WR attempt falls short news.com.au
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMinQFodHRwczovL3d3dy5uZXdzLmNvbS5hdS9lbnRlcnRhaW5tZW50L211c2ljL211c2ljLWZlc3RpdmFscy9vdXRiYWNrLW51dGJ1c2gtYXR0ZW1wdC1jb21lcy11cC1zaG9ydC1hdC1tdW5kaS1tdW5kaS9uZXdzLXN0b3J5LzkyYWQ5ZjhjMWI3YzI1ZjllYTVhMjYwZmM5Yzg4OTY30gGhAWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lm5ld3MuY29tLmF1L2VudGVydGFpbm1lbnQvbXVzaWMvbXVzaWMtZmVzdGl2YWxzL291dGJhY2stbnV0YnVzaC1hdHRlbXB0LWNvbWVzLXVwLXNob3J0LWF0LW11bmRpLW11bmRpL25ld3Mtc3RvcnkvOTJhZDlmOGMxYjdjMjVmOWVhNWEyNjBmYzljODg5Njc_YW1w?oc=5
Chicago: A woman who says she was sexually abused hundreds of times by R. Kelly before she turned 18 has testified that she agonised several years ago about whether to cooperate with federal investigators who were looking into child abuse allegations involving the singer, but that she ultimately did because she didn’t want to “carry his lies”.
But the witness — who is now 37 years old and going by the pseudonym “Jane” at the trial — also conceded that even after she began cooperating, she lied at one point when she told federal agents that she wasn’t sure if Kelly had abused minors other than her. She said she lied because she didn’t want to get others in trouble.
R. Kelly leaves a hearing in Chicago.Credit:AP
Jane testified for over four hours on Thursday (US time), saying it was her and Kelly in a videotape that was at the heart of his 2008 child pornography trial, at which he was acquitted. She also said Kelly sexually abused her hundreds of times from the late 1990s before she turned 18. Kelly, 55, was around 30 years old at the time.
While cross-examining her on Friday, Kelly’s lead attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, sought to cast the imprisoned R&B singer in a more favourable light after Jane testified the day before about how Kelly pursued her sexually starting when she was around 14 years old.
Kelly has been trailed for decades by complaints and allegations about his sexual behaviour. The scrutiny intensified during the #MeToo era and following the 2019 release of the Lifetime television docuseries Surviving R. Kelly.
Under questioning, Jane said her relationship with Kelly lasted 12 years and continued for two years after his 2008 trial, until she was 26. Bonjean asked if, “after you broke up, you cared about him and he cared about you?” Jane said that was true.
As Surviving R. Kelly was coming out, Jane said she was concerned for Kelly and reached out to him. In one text to him, she wrote: “I love you. Don’t let the devil win.”
She said she repeatedly tried to contact him in 2019 for advice as she pondered whether to speak to authorities at length about him for the first time. She told jurors: “I felt comfortable enough to reach out to him because I was afraid.”
She said she decided shortly thereafter to speak to investigators.
“I no longer wanted to carry his lies,” she said.
R. Kelly at the BET Awards in 2013. Credit:AP
Kelly, who denies any wrongdoing, is serving a 30-year prison sentence following his conviction in a New York federal court last year for using his fame to sexually abuse fans.
At his current trial in his hometown of Chicago, he faces charges of child pornography and conspiring to rig his 2008 trial by intimidating and paying off the girl — Jane — to ensure she didn’t testify. He also faces four counts of enticement of minors for sex at the Chicago trial — one each for four other accusers. They, too, are expected to testify.
On Thursday, Jane said publicly for the first time that the girl in the videotape that was central to that 2008 trial was her and that the man was Kelly. She said she was about 14 years old at the time it was shot.
Some of that trial’s jurors said afterward that they had no choice but to acquit Kelly because the girl — by then an adult — didn’t testify. On the stand Thursday, Jane conceded that she lied to a grand jury in 2002 when she said it wasn’t her in the video. She said she did so because she was afraid “something bad would happen” to Kelly and because she was ashamed.
Jane said she grew up in a musical family in a Chicago suburb and was homeschooled because she was in a touring musical group that she joined when she was about 12. She said she met Kelly through an aunt who worked with him, and that she asked him to be her godfather when she was 13 because she viewed him as an inspiration and a mentor. She said within weeks, Kelly would call her and say sexual things. She told jurors she was 15 when they first had intercourse.
She described her parents confronting Kelly in the early 2000s about whether he was having sex with their daughter. Kelly dropped to his knees and begged her parents to forgive him, Jane testified. She said she later implored her parents not to do anything to get Kelly in trouble, telling them she loved him.
Kelly, who rose from poverty on Chicago’s South Side to become a star singer, songwriter and producer, knew a conviction in 2008 would effectively end his life as he knew it, and so prosecutors say he conspired to fix that trial.
!['Even with Rich, [fame] isn't his world. He's a very private person, so I feel like I give enough of him without having to share too much' she added](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2022/01/20/06/53151165-10421535-Happiness_The_passage_went_on_to_encourage_the_reader_to_redefin-a-12_1642661183702.jpg)
