Harry and Meghan’s kids will not be on screen
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle may be up and running with filming their new Netflix shows, but don’t expect to see their kids, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, in either of them, the Sun on Sunday reports.
Meghan is making a lifestyle show, an early salvo of which came last week with the delivery of 50 pots of her American Riviera Orchard strawberry jam to selected influencers. Harry’s new show will be about the sport of polo.
The Sun reports that Harry is more adamant about not letting the kids appear on screen than Meghan. An insider told the paper: “Harry and Meghan have not always agreed on how much they should expose their children to the media but, in this case, Harry has clearly won.”
DailyMail.com recently published official paperwork showing that Meghan’s crew of 50 are filming not at her and Prince Harry’s home in Montecito but in a nearby property located just two miles from them. The document shows that filming was authorized to start on Sunday, April 14, and can continue until June 25.
Aerial photographs of the shoot location showed the property’s driveway swamped with SUVs, production tents, and an RV. The property, owned by Tom and Sherrie Cipolla, successful business people known locally for their support of good causes, is located in a gated community and bordered by lemon and avocado orchards, DailyMail.com said. Meghan has said her new show will be about “the joys of cooking, gardening, entertaining and friendship.” Both new series are unlikely to feature are further grievances and allegations about royal family behavior towards the couple.
Wandering cockerels and feuding neighbors
Attentive readers will remember the bizarre mystery that emerged when the Middletons’ local village of Bucklebury was papered with aggressive posters attacking the family after their business, Party Pieces, went bust.
The posters accused the Middletons—Kate’s family—of leaving creditors in the lurch and were widely assumed to be the work of a disgruntled former business contact. Now however, James Middleton has claimed that the toxic posters were actually put up by a neighbor, who runs a motorbike firm, with whom he has been having a dispute for several years over noise and light pollution—not to mention noisy guinea fowl and a “wandering cockerel.”
Middleton, 37, has spilled the beans to British news outlet The Independent, making the astonishing claims about his neighbor in the otherwise adorable British village of Stanford Dingley. He also says David Alderton, 65 has trespassed on his property was part of a long running argument and warned James: “Things are gonna get brutal.”
Alderton, who runs a motorcycle dealership and lives in a bungalow directly across from James’ farm, fell out with James over a planning row, The Independent says, citing a neighbor.
James himself told The Independent: “Police were contacted shortly after our son was born as we became increasingly concerned by the activities surrounding a neighbor. “West Berkshire Council became involved when our neighbor complained about noise from tractors and animals at the farm along with a series of other complaints.” The council dismissed the complaints. Alderton, who has previously accused James of operating old, noisy and “derelict” machinery, did not offer comment to The Independent.
The plot thickened in July last year, when Alderton allegedly protested about the noise being made by Middleton’s guinea fowl, an unusual form of poultry much loved by English aristocrats.
Alderton apparently shouted at a house sitter: “Shut those f***ing birds up you noisy c***.” Alderton is apparently also regularly enraged by a “wandering cockerel,” which has turned up on his land. Alderton is also blamed by The Independent for the poster campaign targeting the family after Party Pieces, the party supplies firm set up by Kate’s mom Carole, collapsed.
“[Mr Alderton’s actions] bred animosity in the community, rumor, ill feeling, and caused myself and my family anxiety and distress,” Mr Middleton told the paper, which alleged that CCTV showed it was Alderton who posted them around the village.
Once bitten…
Princess Beatrice may have been told her services are no longer required by the royal family, but Spotify thinks differently. Despite having had its fingers burned by their ill-starred collaboration with Harry and Meghan, the streaming giant hosted Beatrice, 35, the elder child of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, at a discussion about the future of technology at their London office.
The Mail on Sunday reports that Beatrice was joined by “former Warner Bros Discovery boss Priya Dogra and Sakshi Chhabra Mittal, founder of science-based meal delivery service Foodhak.” The paper says she is also Vice-President of Partnerships and Strategy at US software and data firm Afiniti.
Still got the company car
Another sign that Prince Andrew is back in the fold? He is driving around in a specially modified Range Rover equipped with blue emergency lights, The Mail on Sunday reveals. The paper says he was spotted in the souped-up motor driving to lunch at Harry’s Bar, a members’ club in Mayfair.
This week in royal history
Prince Louis, master of many very funny faces, will turn 6 on Tuesday. He is fourth in line to the throne.
Unanswered questions
What will the new Netflix shows by Harry and Meghan look like? Who was the Middletons’ mystery poster tormentor? Meghan’s strawberry jam: Do you have a jar? Will the public ever taste it?