You can yell all you want, but everyone loves to talk about Duchess Kate’s hair. Her hair is one of the most noteworthy/controversial/discussion-worthy parts of the whole “Duchess Kate” brand. First her hair was billed as “the curls that saved a nation” (I’m barely joking, I remember the hair coverage back in 2011), then there was Weave-gate, then multiple stories and discussions about her sausage curls, her reliance on weekly blow-outs and monthly organic dye jobs, and most recently, debates about her grey hair. So what fresh hell is this? Well, The Telegraph notes that Kate has ditched her old hair guy for being majorly indiscreet.

When James Pryce was asked to style the Duchess of Cambridge’s hair for her wedding and then tend to her locks on her tour of North America, he took advantage of his new-found fame by cutting his ties to Richard Ward, the owner of the Chelsea salon where he made his name.

Sadly, Mandrake hears that Pryce has not been able to retain his most famous client.

“Richard Ward still cuts Kate’s hair and she has her colour done at the salon,” one of Pryce’s fellow crimpers tells me. “Plus, she has her stylist, Amanda Cook Tucker, who blow dries her hair for events, but James has really been pushed out.”

Pryce took a job at Josh Wood Atelier, in Holland Park, where he now works part time. “He only works three days a week. When he went solo and tried to tour around the USA – he launched a Facebook page and Twitter account which featured hundreds of pictures of Kate and her various hairstyles to promote his business – obviously, that did not go down too well with the Palace at all.”

Mandrake disclosed in 2011 that Pryce, who created the Duchess of Cambridge’s demi–chignon style for her wedding, had parted company with the salon that made his name. He had been a “creative director” at Richard Ward.

After the royal wedding, at which Ward had eight assistants to look after the hair of the Duchess and other members of the Middleton family, he said: “She’s been an absolute poppet. All the time. Really. I know you would expect me to say that, but she’s amazing. And that’s why we are going to be in safe hands with her because she’s just so amazing with people.”

Last month, this column reported that the Duchess had booked Joh Bailey, a hairdresser in Sydney, for the tour of Australia that she is planning to make with the Duke of Cambridge next year.

He is the same snipper who tended to the locks of Diana, Princess of Wales during her final visit to the Antipodes the year before she died.

Pryce declines to comment.

[From The Telegraph]

I believe that some of this is old news – didn’t we already know that Kate still goes to the Richard Ward salon and that she did not “leave” to go with James Pryce? I think we already knew that. It’s sad that this guy, James Pryce, thought he was launching a whole new business with Duchess Kate as his master showpiece, but what did he think was going to happen? Did he really think Kate and the royal family was going to be totally jazzed about Pryce using Kate’s image constantly and taking credit for “the curls that saved a nation”? No. That kind of thing might fly if someone named Middleton did it, but not someone dispensable, like a hair person.

Two more details: one, it would SO INTERESTING if James Pryce decided to fully burn his bridges and “tell all” about the “real” Kate. And by that I mean that Pryce could say definitively that Kate uses weaves. Two, Kate has an on-call blow-out stylist? Plus she goes to the Richard Ward salon every month, plus she hires special hair people for tours? Good God.

Photos courtesy of WENN.