106: Duchess Meghan targeted by coordinated hate campaign, Prince WIlliam and Duchess Kate plan US visit, Princess Mako gets married

Gossip With Celebitchy

Introduction: Minutes 0 to 6:00 We’ll have episodes out the next two weeks and will be off on November 20th and 27th for the Thanksgiving holiday in the US. I binged all of season 3 of You. Chandra has been rewatching Mad Men. You can listen below!

British Royals: Minutes 6:00 to 30:30 The software firm, Bot Sentinel, completed an investigation into the Twitter accounts targeting Duchess Meghan. They found a targeted online hate campaign run by about 83 different accounts who are coordinating with each other and are responsible for 70% of the negative content about Meghan. Buzzfeed’s Ellie Hal interviewed Bot Sentinel’s CEO, who said that “This level of complexity comes from people who know how to do this stuff, who are paid to do this stuff.” Many of the Sussex Squad knew this but it’s validating to see it studied and reported on like this.

Omid Scobie tweeted that at “a known writer” DMed with an anti-Sussex leader. Chandra follows many royal reporters on Twitter and has seen them interact with these troll accounts. I play a segment from Zoom where we talk about this. We wonder who the author could be as there are several candidates.

For the past couple of weeks we have heard how Prince William and Kate are going to come to the US for a visit. This came after William’s largely ignored Earthshot awards ceremony, after which we mostly heard about William and what he’s done rather than the winners and their environmental work. William covered People Magazine last week, where he gave an exclusive interview. (We didn’t think the Cambridges even acknowledged the Earthshot winner on their Instagram, but we were wrong. I needed to read to the bottom of this Instagram post to figure it out.) British outlets claim the Cambridges are planning to come to America and that this will “rock” the Sussexes.

Last week while we were off Meghan wrote an open letter advocating for paid parental leave in the US. It was so well put and true. She was trying to make sure that extended parental leave stayed in the infrastructure bill, which originally allowed for up to 12 weeks paid parental leave but that’s since been cut to 4 weeks and it might be cut entirely due to Manchin not conceding. I play a segment from Zoom where we talk about this.

We just got a really lovely video of Meghan reading her children’s book, The Bench, for the publisher’s YouTube channel called Brightly Storytime. She was so genuinely happy and proud of it, it was awesome to see. Meghan is in full teacher mode.

On Tuesday, November 19, the Queen canceled her planned two day trip to northern Ireland. The public was told two days later that the Queen had been hospitalized overnight.

We got paparazzi-type photos of the Cambridges with their kids at the airport. The photos were taken on Thursday and were not released until Friday night. Chandra doesn’t think those photos were set up by the Cambridges. Those photos were moved to another URL by the Daily Mail and the comments were turned off. We heard excuses that they were so busy the last few weeks and needed to spend time with their children. We also heard that they were supposedly coming back from vacation when those photos were published, but that didn’t add up with their public schedule. We haven’t heard anything about the Cambridges in a while.

Japanese Royals: Minutes 30:30 to 33:45 Princess Mako of Japan married her college sweetheart, a commoner named Kei Komuro, in a private civil ceremony this week. They’re both 30. Mako gave up her royal title to marry Kei, and she’s giving up her $1 million dowry as well. Her parents do not approve of Kei. Apparently 80% of Japanese people dislike Kei and he’s been smeared in the press. They’re moving to a one bedroom apartment in New York where he’s going to work as a lawyer. They seem really devoted to each other and ready to start their new life together.

Comments of The Week: Minutes 33:45 to end My comment of the week is from Nic on the post about Roger Waters’ marriage. Chandra’s comment of the week is from Princess Peach on the post about William being mad at The Crown for dramatizing his mom’s interview.

Thanks for listening bitches!