As we discussed on Monday, Zara Phillips and Mike Tindall debuted their six-week-old daughter on the cover of this week’s Hello! Magazine. Apparently, Mike and Zara gave up the full spread – several full-color photos and an exclusive interview with the magazine. Zara even talked about having an epidural, which I’m sure is a bit too much information for the royal family’s standards.
As I said on Monday, there was no way that Zara and Mike would have done the full Hello spread without some cash changing hands. Zara’s brother Peter sold his baby’s first photos to Hello in 2008, and at that time (the heyday of paid baby photos), those pics went for £500,000, which is what I would consider a more than generous profit, especially for a member of the royal family. But as it turns out, Zara’s baby wasn’t worth that much.
In a very un-royal move, Zara Phillips, granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth II and 15th in line to the throne, has sold pictures of her new baby, Mia, to Hello! magazine for a reported £150,000.
In a 13-page story, Phillips and husband Mike Tindall reveal personal details like the use of an epidural and her hopes to resume her equestrian career come September at the Burghley Horse Trials. According to sources, Buckingham Palace was not made aware of the pictures prior, and the Queen has not commented publicly.
This is sure to bring up residual family drama from when Zara’s brother, Peter, sold his wedding pictures of himself and bride Autumn Kelly to Hello! in 2008 for a reported £500,000. But then again, the deal was brokered by Sports and Entertainment Limited, where Peter is managing director, so clearly the siblings know what they are doing.
That’s quite a downgrade in cash payouts, especially since I would say that more people are interested in Zara and Mike than Peter and Autumn. Zara is an Olympian medalist and Mike is a famous rugby player. Peter is… some corporate suit. How is it that Peter’s wedding photos are worth so much more?! Perhaps the discrepancy in numbers is just because the bottom dropped out on tabloids paying for first baby photos. There just doesn’t seem to be the same thirst for celebrity/baby photos as there was 2006-2008. I mean, £150,000? That’s barely worth the trouble for someone like Zara.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Hello!.
While life-changing for most, that sum does indeed seem like a drop in the bucket for Zara, and I am wondering why she bothered? Surely there was/is more interest in Mia than in either of Peter’s daughters?
I think it’s just the decline in dead tree circulation rather than the level of interest. There’s much less money in the pot.
Worth it? She’s rich, so she couldn’t need £150k that badly. But she doesn’t get paid from the Sovereign Grant so she can do what she likes. On a personal level, I find ALL baby celeb features icky. But that’s just me.
I’m also not a big fan of celeb baby pics. Especially the über fascination some people demonstrate.
I’m also not a fan of the entire, papping kids industry. During the Suri heyday, the craziness surround that poor kids every move was gross.
And now celebrity gifting has created a whole industry of giving away free product to new celeb parents, for the benefit of the brands, the celebs and the magazines.
150,000 quid? Who is she?
Wow. To sell out for such a small amount (relative to a member of the royal family, regardless of title) is… damn. They must need the money or the publicity. *My* money is on both. Anyone care to chime in on when Mike last dogged around on Zara or have two cents on the state of their finances?
Peter’s 1st child was born in 2010 , not 2008. Was the £500,000 for wedding pictures?
Peter’s 1st child was born in 2010 , not 2008. Was the £500,000 for wedding pictures? Or baby pics in 2010? And his baby was the Queen’s first great-grandchild, so it was a bigger deal IMO.
Peter married in 2008 (thanks, google!)
I thought the sum quoted was for wedding pics too. Not for baby pics.
Yeah, and the wedding pics had all the senior members of the royal family, and I could be misremembering this but I think both Kate Middleton and Chelsy Davy, too, because there was a big fuss about their being asked. So you can see why those pics were worth more, if I’m remembering that correctly.
I could be wrong, but I seem to remember a huge fuss because most of the royal family had no idea there would be sold photos, so they were really relaxed in them. Kind of had their privacy invaded by one of their own, so to speak.
Definitely no Middleton, and not even the whole royal fam was there – William skipped Peter Phillips wedding to attend the Craig brother’s (yes, I’m too lazy to Google). So those photos wouldn’t have been THAT ridiculously in demand.
She can do whatever she wants, isn’t that cool? She is free from all those “royal” rules. She doesn’t have to ask permission for anything. Then, 150,000 is good money. The economy changed a lot since 2008.
On another note I am so curious about the reaction of the royal family to Princess Anne’s decision to decline royal titles for her children.
It didn’t surprise any of them — Anne was following in her aunt’s footsteps too. Margaret tried to give her kids as normal a life as she could.
That hat in the bottom pic is everything.
She’s worth around 10 million yes? I would imagine she organizes her finances so she has a certain amount of cash released annually, so an extra $150,000 could have been a big boost to her ‘available’ funds iyswim.
Plus, it was 150,00 pounds, which is about $250,000. Nice little college fund.
College fund????!? Dahling, that’s my budget for my next weekend getaway. You ARE coming with, yes????
*decides the day is too bright and crawls back into slumberland*
*whispers* dahling? Slippy? Are you awake dahling? Hard to tell with that eye mask. I came right over as soon as I read you had a budget of $250,000 for the weekend. Dahling, what happened? Your budget is usually 250 a day! Are you…poor? Cash flow problems? You can always come to me, dahling. Here, I brought you a little pick me up. Poor baby.
So much for doing so little.. .my spouse has cancer from being chronically over exposed to chemicals by years of fixing peoples busted crap- and he will never ever see that kind of money that is given for a baby picture even though he is a kind man who has done a lot of good for others. His boss made $$$ on his back and went for vacations and had the nerve to call his employees while in exotic locals and say ha ha. So the innocent people who get cancer makes the world seem an unfair place and people getting so much money for this seems almost galling.
I am sorry for your husband’s diagnosis and what your family is going through. Life, indeed, is unfair. But I believe it does somehow even out in the end. Hang in there and show your husband and everyone else you love how much more valuable they are than all the money in the world. *hug*
Peter’s pictures were worth more because there were Royal wedding guests in them
Perhaps the wedding photos brought so much more in because it included photos of other members of the Royal family who weren’t pleased those photos were then sold to an outside source and published without the permission of the palace. The baby photos of this couple included only three people-Mother,Father and the newborn.
The 500k for Peter was for his wedding photos (including photos of the RF that was there, including the Queen), not his baby’s photos.
Peters wedding pictures fetched that much because the magazine was hoping to get intimate pictures of the guests at the reception, unfortunately come wedding day they were told they were not allowed to take any photos of guests without their permission , only photographs taken of guests arriving and leaving the ceremony were carte blanche . Hello was basically stiffed by Peter and they were not happy about it.