Grace and Glory 2/14/2021

Grace and Glory 2/14/2021

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  • Harry and Meghan accuse British royal family of racism

    Prince Harry and Meghan Markle delivered a devastating indictment of the U.K. royal family in their conversation with Oprah Winfrey: Both said unnamed relatives had expressed concern about what the skin tone of their baby would be. And they accused "the firm" of character assassination and "perpetuating falsehoods." Why it matters: An institution that thrives on myth now faces harsh reality. The explosive two-hour interview gave an unprecedented, unsparing window into the monarchy: Harry said his father and brother "are trapped," and Markle revealed that the the misery of being a working royal drove her to thoughts of suicide. Get market news worthy of your time with Axios Markets. Subscribe for free.What they're saying: The Times of London summed up the global reaction with the headline, "Revelations worse than Palace could have feared."Details: The couple revealed they're expecting a girl this summer. Both said that before their son, Archie, was born, Harry was asked in family conversations about, as paraphrased by Winfrey, "how dark your baby is going to be."Harry said: "At the time it was awkward and I was a bit shocked." He refused to give details: "That conversation, I am never going to share."In describing the treatment of Markle, whose mother is African American, Harry said: "[O]ne of the most telling parts — and the saddest parts, I guess, was: Over 70 members of Parliament ... called out the colonial undertones of articles and headlines written about Meghan. Yet no one from my family ever said anything over those three years. ... That hurts."Both denied that their lucrative media deals had been planned. "Netflix and Spotify were never part of the plan," Harry said. "My family cut me off financially and I had to do this to afford security. ... [D]uring COVID, the suggestion by a friend was: What about streamers?"Markle added: "We genuinely hadn't thought about it."Harry said his family's lack of support was partly driven by "how scared they are of the tabloids turning on them."The prince spoke of what he said is described as "behind closed doors" as "the invisible contract" between the family and U.K. tabloids — press access in exchange for better coverage.The bottom line: Harry, spilling ancient family secrets, said that there's "a level of control by fear that has existed for generations."The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-8255) provides 24/7, free and confidential support for anyone in distress, in addition to prevention and crisis resources. Also available for online chat.Like this article? Get more from Axios and subscribe to Axios Markets for free.

  • Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s Oprah Interview Was a Royal Family Depth Charge

    Joe Pugliese/CBSThe contemplation of suicide, blatant racism, and a family of “trapped,” emotionally stunted snobs: nobody expected Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s interview with Oprah Winfrey to be as dramatic as it was, or as grim. It was less a night for popcorn and low-stakes royal dish, and more one for stricken looks of surprise. One bombshell and within-palace-walls horror story followed another, one numbing thud after another. The opening revelation that Kate Middleton had made Meghan cry, not the other way round—as had been previously reported—was a relatively innocent aperitif. This grand guignol was just getting started.Meghan Markle: ‘I Just Didn’t Want to Be Alive Anymore’Harry and Meghan told a similar raw story of gilded nightmares just as Princess Diana told BBC’s Panorama in 1995. We have heard it before, and assumed the institution might have changed in response to the criticism that followed. Not a chance.It was every terrible part of being a princess/duchess in a fairytale-gone-wrong as Diana had told—with a happy ending of a kind, although the question lingering at the end, despite the principals’ smiles was: at what cost? Harry said he felt his mother’s spirit during this time, as well as living off her money having been cut off by the royal family. “She saw it coming,” he said.The British tabloid press, and Harry and Meghan’s harshest critics, will likely find ways to dismiss their words, to criticize them anew. Perhaps, as has happened before, Meghan and Harry will be decried as rich cry-babies, entitled whiners. But these familiar attacks will be harder to make, given how the couple told their stories to Oprah. Britain will finally see this documentary tonight, Monday.Oprah did not, as her detractors expected, simply act as a friend with a shoulder to cry on; she didn’t supply warm bathos or easy platitudes. Sure, she visited the couple’s hens. She joyfully welcomed Meghan’s pregnancy bump. But she interviewed with care and rigor. Every time Meghan or Harry waffled or said something imprecise, she asked them to be precise—especially when it came to identifying the racist or racists within the palace who demeaned Meghan, and who queried how dark Archie’s skin would be when he was born.That person (or persons’) identity remains unknown, but the stricken expressions on Meghan and Harry’s faces, their determination not to tell Oprah, suggest someone who was very close to them, or significant within the palace. The possible darkness of Archie’s skin, the fact he would be the child of a biracial couple, apparently necessitated he would not be thought of as a prince, and that he deserved no security.Oprah asked questions about what had gone wrong in the royal family, and was told bluntly about a catastrophe that—if true—shows just how unfit for modern purpose the royal family is. This was such a compelling interview, brilliantly done, that two hours did not seem enough. Indeed, Oprah said more would be revealed on CBS This Morning in a few hours time, co-anchored by her best friend Gayle King. Sure, Meghan was not asked about the investigation into bullying allegations that broke after the interview was recorded and had so focused minds before its transmission, and which seem—for now at least—the least of the royal family’s concerns.That family is very selective when it comes to opening investigations. For instance, at the time of writing there is one underway about alleged bullying by Meghan Markle of palace staff, and not one about Prince Andrew’s friendship with dead pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.Here is a suggestion for a few more, after Meghan and Prince Harry’s interview.Is it true a palace figure raised “concerns” about the “darkness” of unborn Archie’s skin? If so, whose racism was this? Why did they feel they could voice it to the baby’s father and mother? Why is this being said in the 21st century? What does it say about the royal family as an institution? Was it a royal family member, an aide, who? Will they be as thoroughly investigated, and if necessary reprimanded, as Meghan? What does the royal family have to say about this proud racism it exhibits directly to a woman of color, carrying a royal family member in her belly?Another investigation idea. Meghan said she felt suicidal when she was five months pregnant and that she approached the palace authorities seeking help, and was effectively told to get lost—when they surely have access to all the best doctors and specialists in the land. This reminds the casual royal observer of the complete dereliction of care when it came to Princess Diana, who was also left by this family to go mad within the confines of the palace.This investigation would focus both on both alleged cruelty and ignorance. Cruelty, because a woman is clearly struggling to maintain her psychological equilibrium. She is not only suffering, she is suffering right in front of you, and you are essentially rolling your eyes at her as if she is an inconvenience. Is this true? Who are you, the people that reportedly did this? And what are you, the institution that facilitates this behavior?After Diana died, so much was written about the changing royal family; that it would be the wake-up call to embrace at least the vestiges of 20th and now 21st century thinking. “Progressive” was the word. Harry and Meghan’s interview showed just how bogus that PR window dressing was. This is an institution, if Harry and Meghan are telling the truth, that is incapable of change, and more than that—actively resistant to it, and vicious to those who represent change, or who herald it. The royal family is not geared to welcoming such figures or forces. According to Harry and Meghan, the institutional instinct rather is to destroy. Prince Harry made brutally clear how deficient his father Prince Charles had been, and said—just as he felt “trapped,” so did his father and brother. The only winner in his recitation of awfulness was the queen, who Harry praised to the hilt.If we believe the couple, their departure from the royal family was quite literally a life or death situation. Harry left the royal family to save his wife’s life, and his son’s future. And to save himself. In her one misconceived idea, Oprah edged into the finale-of-Pretty-Woman territory, when she set up the dynamic of the couple saving each other, and it would have been easy for Meghan and Harry to go along with that, summoning up the image of Richard Gere and Julia Roberts on that apartment ladder joyfully clinging on to each other, allegedly equal saviors (but really, c’mon!).But Meghan could not go there. She said one of her regrets was “believing them when they said I would be protected,” meaning the royal family. They had done the opposite; they had left her not only exposed, she made clear, but life-endangeringly desperate. She told them this, and they did nothing. (Buckingham Palace, of course, may respond to this litany of charges, and claim things unfolded very differently—we shall see.) Harry and Meghan cautiously accepted the Pretty Woman dynamic Oprah offered, but their grim smiles suggested this was less a triumphant romantic ending, and more a case of lives saved by the grittiest of margins.Let’s say Pretty Woman had ended with Richard Gere weeping with fear on the ladder because of his fear of heights, and Julia Roberts coming to help him with the aid of the emergency services—that was more the tone of the end of the Oprah interview. When Meghan said it was “greater than any fairytale you ever read,” it sounded like she meant that this story could have ended very differently; that happiness had only just been snatched from the jaws of unhappiness and desperation.There seem to be a number of vying forces, which will govern the future of royal relationships after this shattering interview. The royal family were right to be nervous. This morning they will likely be pondering how on earth to respond to it.Judging by the sheer scale of anti-Harry and Meghan briefing hours before the broadcast, a war—and one without end—seemed very much on. We learned, variously, in the British Sunday papers that Meghan had exploded over a blanket shaded the wrong kind of red; that Harry was nicknamed “The Hostage” before his wedding, and that he had shouted “What Meghan wants, Meghan gets” in a row over a tiara.The other forces, probably mindful of how this rift might look publicly, were telling certain reporters that reconciliation between the warring Harry and William might be on the cards. The Sunday Telegraph said William and Kate were hopeful for a reconciliation whatever was said in the Oprah interview, and the Telegraph said that Harry was “determined to stand shoulder to shoulder” with William at the unveiling of a statue of their mother Princess Diana, scheduled for July 1 at Kensington Palace on what would have been her 60th birthday.Harry “desperately hopes” to attend the event and considers it “a priority,” the Telegraph said. That sense of old-school royal duty and loyalty mirrors the undertones of Queen Elizabeth’s message to the Commonwealth, broadcast earlier on Sunday by the BBC. The queen spoke of “friendship and a spirit of unity” in her address, praising examples of “courage, commitment, and selfless dedication to duty” in Commonwealth nations and territories, notably by those working on the front line, whether in health care or other public services. “The testing times experienced by so many have led to a deeper appreciation of the mutual support and spiritual sustenance we enjoy by being connected to others,” the queen said in the gentle program—also starring Prince Charles, Kate, William, Camilla, and Sophie, Countess of Wessex—which was in marked dramatic contrast to the Harry and Meghan interview. Post-pandemic, the queen said she looked forward to “a common future that is sustainable and more secure.”Harry and Meghan said they wanted to “move on” after the broadcast of the interview, considering it their opportunity to have their say, and now “consider the matter closed,” sources told the Telegraph. “It was something they felt they wanted and needed to do but now they have done it, they feel a line has been drawn under that chapter of their lives and they want to move on,” a friend told the paper.After the Oprah interview, however, all of this seems entirely unlikely—unless the royal family finally opens its minds and hearts to the multi-layered dysfunctionality it so willingly fosters and tolerates. The number and nature of revelations requiring detailed and considered response by the palace are simply too many. The fact that Meghan came so close to taking her own life; the fact the color of Archie’s skin was a matter of “concern” are matters that are un-spinnable (unless the palace challenges their veracity)—as is Harry’s damning summation of his relationship with Prince Charles. The Oprah interview is a depth charge. It can only be a roadmap to restored relations if the royal family rouses itself from its air of lost-in-time prejudices and snobbery, and answers the questions Meghan and Harry have laid at its door. As for Harry and Meghan, they didn’t seem too bothered about making friends, or making nice. Telling their truth seemed far more important, and this they did—devastatingly.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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  • Nanny Who Witnessed Woody Allen’s ‘Shocking’ Behavior Toward Dylan Farrow Comes Forward

    David McGough/GettyMost are likely unfamiliar with the accusation that helped kick off the investigation into Woody Allen’s alleged child sexual abuse of his 7-year-old adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow. It came from Allison Stickland, the nanny to Farrow family friend Casey Pascal, who was at Woody Allen and Mia Farrow’s Connecticut country home on Aug. 4, 1992.During the eventual child custody trial, Stickland, who was watching Pascal’s young children—who were friends with the Farrow kids—that day, testified that she saw Allen being inappropriate with Dylan.“Dylan was sitting upright on the couch and Woody was kneeling directly in front of her with his face in Dylan’s lap,” she stated. “His face was very close to her private area.”Since Dylan was not wearing underpants that day (according to the testimony of Dylan’s French tutor Sophie Berge, Mia Farrow, and their neighbor), Allen was, by Stickland’s account, burying his face in her naked lap while Dylan sat on a couch “staring vacantly in the direction of a television set.” Stickland’s testimony is of particular importance as she was the only adult in the house when the abuse allegedly happened who was not employed by Allen or Farrow (the other two were Farrow nanny Kristi Groteke and Berge).As Amy Herdy—an investigative journalist who headed the research on HBO’s four-part docuseries Allen v. Farrow—explains, this incident ultimately led to Dylan’s confession to her mother that Allen had allegedly molested her in their attic that day. (Allen has denied the allegation and accused Mia Farrow of “coaching” Dylan.)‘Allen v. Farrow’ Lead Investigator Amy Herdy Hits Back at Woody Allen Defenders“People just need to look at the timeline. You have a nanny [Allison Stickland] who walked in on Woody Allen with his face in Dylan’s naked lap. She disclosed that to her employer, who was Casey Pascal, that night,” Herdy told me. “Then Casey told Mia, and Mia immediately brought it up with Dylan the next morning. So that’s a lot of short-term intensive coaching, if you want to go the coaching route and explore that as a plausible allegation. That’s a short amount of time to do an enormous amount of coaching in a young child.”On Monday afternoon, Stickland appeared on the Allen v. Farrow podcast with the docuseries’ team, Kirby Dick, Amy Ziering, and Amy Herdy, to tell her side. Herdy spent two years trying to track down Allison Stickland in the U.K., eventually writing snail-mail letters to people by the name of “Allison Stickland” in the U.K. They only heard from Stickland after the Allen v. Farrow episodes had locked, so she unfortunately didn’t make it into the docuseries.“You don’t think something all those years ago is going to come back, so it was a shock,” said Stickland. “I didn’t respond very quickly because I had to let it sink in… I felt, you know, it’s something I kind of really need to do, because if I leave it and don’t, it will probably eat away at me.” Then Stickland discussed how she would oversee the Pascal children at Farrow and Allen’s country home in Connecticut during the summer months and what she thought of the sprawling Farrow clan.“I thought it was a lovely household. Lovely children, they all got along well together. There never seemed to be any sibling rivalry. The older children I would say had fun with the younger ones. It was just very happy. I wouldn’t say it was troubled at all,” described Stickland. “I thought [Mia] was lovely. She was a very soft-spoken, gentle lady. Very attentive. You could tell it was so obvious that she adored all her children.”The filmmakers proceeded to ask Stickland to recall what happened on Aug. 4, 1992. “From what I remember, Mrs. Pascal and Mia went away to do shopping for a few hours, and myself, Mia’s babysitter, and this French tutor, we were all at the house watching the children, and Woody came on a visit,” she said. “And at some point during the day, I didn’t see one of Mrs. Pascal’s children, so I went in the house to have a look, and I opened the door to this small TV room, and when I opened it, I saw Woody on his knees, kneeling down in front of Dylan with his head in her lap.” “I just walked, turned, and went,” Stickland continued. “I was shocked. I thought it was very odd. I thought… I didn’t know what to think of it, really. It’s not something you expect to see… a situation you expect to see a father and daughter in.” ‘Allen v. Farrow’ Filmmakers Fire Back at Alec BaldwinStickland said she was sure Allen was aware of the intrusion because she had just walked into the room normally, as she was looking for one of the missing Pascal kids. She told the filmmakers that she confided in Mrs. Pascal about what she saw later that evening during dinner. “I was just eating and I just felt, no, I need to get this off my chest and share it with Mrs. Pascal,” said Stickland, adding, “It didn’t strike me as normal behavior. You don’t expect a father to have his head in his young daughter’s lap, so that’s why it bothered me so much. [Allen] obviously looks at it differently, but it’s not the kind of appropriate behavior you expect from a father, really.”As for her court testimony during the child custody trial, she remarked: “All I could do was go and tell the truth.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

  • 5 hidden details you might have missed in Meghan Markle's Oprah Winfrey interview outfit

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  • Republican National Committee rejects cease-and-desist demand from Trump attorneys

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  • Papa John's founder says he's been working to get the N-word out of his vocabulary for the 'last 20 months'

    The former CEO of Papa John's is assuring the public he's been working on not using racist language, an effort that has apparently been ongoing for nearly two years. John Schnatter, the Papa John's founder who in 2018 stepped down as chairman after admitting he used the N-word during a conference call, told One America News Network the pizza chain's board has painted him "as a racist" when "they know he's not a racist," per Mediaite. From there, Schnatter described his "goals," evidently including no longer saying racial slurs. "We've had three goals for the last 20 months," Schnatter said. "To get rid of this N-word in my vocabulary and dictionary and everything else, because it's just not true, figure out how they did this, and get on with my life." The former pizza boss also told OANN he "used to lay in bed" after his ouster wondering "how did they do this," and he called on Papa John's to come out and declare that it "didn't follow proper due diligence" and that he actually "has no history of racism." Schnatter stepped down as Papa John's chair after Forbes reported that he "used the N-word on a conference call" that had been "designed as a role-playing exercise for Schnatter in an effort to prevent future public-relations snafus." He apologized at the time, saying "racism has no place in our society." Shortly after, though, Schnatter said he resigned because the board asked him to "without apparently doing any investigation" and that he now regrets doing so. Later, Schnatter would vow that a "day of reckoning" would come in a bizarre 2019 interview, in which he also famously declared he's eaten "over 40 pizzas in the last 30 days." Update: In a statement on Monday, Schnatter said he has been seeking to eliminate "false perceptions in the media" and that "on OANN, I tried to say, 'Get rid of this n-word in (the) vocabulary and dictionary (of the news media), and everything else because it's just not true,' – reflecting my commitment to correct the false and malicious reporting by the news media about the conference call." Papa John’s ex-CEO says he’s been working for the last 20 months “to get rid of this N-word in my vocabulary” (h/t @mount_bees) pic.twitter.com/8heITnJJxA — philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) March 8, 2021 More stories from theweek.com7 spondiferously funny cartoons about the Dr. Seuss controversyThe Harry and Meghan interview might have taken down more than the royal familyIowa governor signs GOP-backed bill that limits early and Election Day voting

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