Last week, in the height of the Andrew Windsor drama, the New Statesman published their latest cover story. The piece was an interesting and well-researched argument for the abolition of the British monarchy. The New Statesman suggested letting King Charles’s reign run its course, and then getting Scooter King William to basically dissolve the monarchy. I bring up that article because one of the reasons why they suggest that William will be a terrible king is because there’s a growing body of evidence that William is functionally illiterate. It’s been known for some time that William refuses to read briefing memos and he has repeatedly admitted to not enjoying reading or having a favorite author or book.
Well, funny story – Scooter King heard the “illiterate” speculation and he’s been trying to not-so-subtly prove that he can read this week in Brazil. He actually allowed photographers to capture him “reading” his speech on the way to Belem, Brazil. They also got some wider shots of William performing his big COP30 speech, aided by a Teleprompter. See!! He can read!! WATCH HIM READ HIS BIG KEEN SPEECH!
The comments on this video and others on social media reminded me so much of the backlash to William talking about his other cause, homelessness. I’ve always argued that William actually does care about homelessness, he’s just too dumb to understand that he’s not the guy to talk about it or be a vocal advocate for homeless people. He’s just too much of a f–king hypocrite, with eleven forever homes and his slumlord duchy. He gets such well-deserved backlash for all of it, and it’s the same with environmentalism. He comes across as inauthentic because he genuinely lacks authenticity in this area, even more so than homelessness.
If you thought we were done talking about those volleyball pics from the beginning of the week, well, you were wrong. There’s a video now! A video of William sticking his hand down his pants while making eye contact with a woman. Yiikes.
Did you ever see the Crown Jewels ?#AbolishTheMonarchy #princewilliam #earthshot pic.twitter.com/NJOR80sxi0
— #NotMyKing (@NoKingCharlie) November 6, 2025
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- 06/11/2025. Belém, Brazil. The Prince of Wales during the World Leaders Summit at COP30. The Prince prepares his speech whilst travelling to COP30 in Belém, Brazil.,Image: 1050762241, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: © Kensington Palace. This image may only be used for news or editorial reporting purposes. This image must NOT be used for any commercial or other use, save for news or editorial reporting and cannot be altered or amended in any manner or form whatsoever., Model Release: no, Credit line: Pete Maclaine/Avalon
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- 06/11/2025. Belém, Brazil. The Prince of Wales during the World Leaders Summit at COP30. The Prince prepares his speech whilst travelling to COP30 in Belém, Brazil.,Image: 1050762297, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: © Kensington Palace. This image may only be used for news or editorial reporting purposes. This image must NOT be used for any commercial or other use, save for news or editorial reporting and cannot be altered or amended in any manner or form whatsoever., Model Release: no, Credit line: Pete Maclaine/Avalon
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- 06/11/2025. Belém, Brazil. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and The Prince of Wales attend the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference COP30 summit.,Image: 1050802082, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: This image is for Editorial use purposes only. The Image can not be used for advertising or commercial use. The Image can not be altered in any form. All images are Crown copyright and re-usable under the Open Government Licence v3.0, except where otherw, Model Release: no, Credit line: Lauren Hurley/Avalon
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- 06/11/2025. Belém, Brazil. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and The Prince of Wales attend the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference COP30 summit.,Image: 1050802103, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: This image is for Editorial use purposes only. The Image can not be used for advertising or commercial use. The Image can not be altered in any form. All images are Crown copyright and re-usable under the Open Government Licence v3.0, except where otherw, Model Release: no, Credit line: Lauren Hurley/Avalon
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- 06/11/2025. Belém, Brazil. The Prince of Wales during the World Leaders Summit at COP30. The Prince delivered a landmark speech, highlighting the need for urgent and inclusive climate action, and to galvanise world leaders to accelerate progress towards net zero. His Royal Highness then met with The President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for a discussion on shared priorities on climate and biodiversity.,Image: 1050803000, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: © Kensington Palace. This image may only be used for news or editorial reporting purposes. This image must NOT be used for any commercial or other use, save for news or editorial reporting and cannot be altered or amended in any manner or form whatsoever., Model Release: no, Credit line: Pete Maclaine/Avalon
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- 06/11/2025. Belém, Brazil. The Prince of Wales and British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer meet the President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula during the World Leaders Summit at COP30.,Image: 1050803020, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: © Kensington Palace. This image may only be used for news or editorial reporting purposes. This image must NOT be used for any commercial or other use, save for news or editorial reporting and cannot be altered or amended in any manner or form whatsoever., Model Release: no, Credit line: Pete Maclaine/Avalon
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- 06/11/2025. Belém, Brazil. The Prince of Wales and British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer meet the President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula during the World Leaders Summit at COP30.,Image: 1050803093, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: © Kensington Palace. This image may only be used for news or editorial reporting purposes. This image must NOT be used for any commercial or other use, save for news or editorial reporting and cannot be altered or amended in any manner or form whatsoever., Model Release: no, Credit line: Pete Maclaine/Avalon
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- 06/11/2025. Belém, Brazil. At the Museu Emílio Goeldi, His Royal Highness and the Prime Minister discussed with 15 young leaders how youth in Brazil are responding to the most pressing global issues, including climate action, inclusion, the future of work, and civic and political participation. They also heard about the findings of the Next Generation Brazil study on climate literacy, education and employment.,Image: 1050803118, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: © Kensington Palace. This image may only be used for news or editorial reporting purposes. This image must NOT be used for any commercial or other use, save for news or editorial reporting and cannot be altered or amended in any manner or form whatsoever., Model Release: no, Credit line: Pete Maclaine/Avalon
When will they sign Lea Michele on as an earthshot spokesperson?
@SarahCS ~ I don’t get it?
Lea Michele has been accused of being illiterate for a while now. It is an ongoing social media meme.
Those staged plane pictures were hilarious. They’re so desperate for him to be taken seriously that it just comes off as well, desperate.
The hand down the pants thing was gross. I get that he was tucking in his shirt but dude wait until you’re not talking to someone in front of the cameras.
His hand was too far down for him to be tucking his “shirt” in. 🙂 His shirt tail is not that long as you can see from him lolling sand prancing about on the sand, nor is anything else in that picture.
Ugh! “lolling AND prancing about”, I meant… 😀 I think my keyboard needs some coffee.
I know, this remind me of the staged photos of Kate in her office, with her blank notepad and surrounded by antiquated equipment.
This also reminded me of the staged photo of him on a train with a notepad. It’s really sad at this point that they keep doing staged photos and videos to make it seem like the little “work” they do is substantial.
How long until the English “press” call that a sexy alpha power move?
Ok maybe he can read but it doesn’t prove how absolutely incompetent he is about a host of other things.
The thing is, being functionally illiterate doesn’t mean he can’t read at all. But he probably doesn’t understand a lot of what he reads. My guess is that when people say that they mean he’s reading at a second or third grade level – so he can say the words on the teleprompter but can’t tell you what they mean when put together.
Kind of like how I read Dickens in 4th grade but barely understood it. Reading individual words doesn’t mean you have reading comprehension.
This is correct. It is increasingly the case over the last decade that there are Brits who have got into physical fights or verbal altercations with others (not just at the pub), cause they misunderstood quite innocuous comments. I have actually taught children and adults in the UK who became quite heated because they thought that they were being insulted when they were in fact being complimented. It is that bad.
Recall the description from the recent article about William becoming “over-assertive” with his father after misunderstanding or misinterpreting something? It’s the worst combination: someone who is short-tempered AND lacking in basic reading/listening comprehension. There’s a lot of it about, as the Brits say in some quarters.
It could be a struggle to read, There is dyslexia in the family.
I’m not willing to give him this out. People can be perfectly good readers, but illiterate in certain subject matters. I can give you a deep dive into Homer, but am clueless with an engineering manual. And this makes me think of David and Moira Rose making enchiladas – “Fold in the cheese.” They could tell you everything about eye cream and reading scripts, but how do you fold cheese?
You just…..fold it in. I cannot show you everything.
That’s an interesting take; I remember being proud of reading Great Expectations in middle school, but did I really “read” it like I read now? Probably not; I’ll have to revisit Dickens now.
Both William and Kate are dim and incurious people. More has been said about Kate being dull and incurious because she didn’t get the future king protection shield until later on.
Having a university degree doesn’t mean someone is intelligent despite the spin to the contrary. This is particularly true when both people come from money. I don’t think people realize just how much rich kids can buy their degree and remain incredibly stupid. William never had to work at anything and it shows. He almost failed out of St Andrews but Charles got them to switch his program. And Kate continually shows she is not a bright light herself. She was known to copy off of her classmates at St Andrews and by the last few years she was William’s girlfriend and would never have been failed out.
Also look at the orange buffoon and his family. They all have university degrees. Does anyone seriously think they worked at studying as regular kids have to?
Oh that’s a fascinating point.
I was a lonely child without access to many books. Or really to new books as i had read all of the ones in the house. And books were everything. So I ended up reading the “full works of xyz” set that came with our encyclopedia britannica. Even though say I didn’t understand exactly what Thomas Payne was saying in every instance, it did very much increase my comprehension because my the time I got to Freud I was actively critically thinking about his theories.
But I know that I’ve very lucky to have been able to cultivate that skill.
*pursed lips*
You just fold it in! I can’t teach you everything.
It’s starting to look like Harry wasn’t the only one of Charles’ sons whose dyslexia was ignored by their father.
Too busy playing polo, porking his sidepiece, and leaving the care and education of his sons, one of whom being heir to the whole ass throne of England, to servants. Servants that more than likely saw benefit in keeping them ignorant, on the back foot, and more easily put under the thumb of the courtiers.
Andrew is a lot of things, but he at least ensured Beatrice got help with her dyslexia.
That’s why “reading comprehension” was on our children’s report cards.
Yes, I took it to mean that he simply doesn’t read – as in he has no intellectual curiosity, no desire to learn or to broaden his mind. I suppose he doesn’t need to bother, as he gets the top job regardless.
I remember when Philip died, one of the major bookshops in London (where Philip had an account) did a fulsome tribute about how well read he was, and how broad his interests were. Let’s just say there won’t be any such tributes to William.
He practices the concerned looks.
I wonder if he and Kate have an acting coach to make them look like they care
If so that person should be fired (or more likely, they quit because their job was an impossible one).
An acting coach would suggest they work at something. These two are too lazy for that.
William’s posing as a reader; propaganda for the masses.
When William poses for photos showing he is listening (not talking) to people, he looks like he’s physically present but mentally absent. Either he doesn’t understand what they are saying of he’s uninterested in the topic. He contorts his face and stares with unfocused eyes. 🤦🏽♀️
William always looks awkward to me. He’s like an out of place object … and when he is unguarded (removes the façade) he does something awkward like “sticking his hand down his pants while making eye contact with a woman”. 😂 He’s a lost cause. The future of the Windsor brand looks bleak with him as the mascot. 🤷🏽♀️
What’s wildly bizarre is that both of them – w&k- have become steadily WORSE. Please go watch the 2011 video of Kate and William meeting First Lady Michelle Obama and President Obama. Kate is confident. She walks right up to her, hand outstretched, and engages her in conversation. She seems alive. Compared to now? It’s shocking. For both of them. What level of soul sucking life sucking is going on there?
I do not like Kate. But I have pity for her as she seems the victim of massive personal and institutional narcissistic abuse. I’ve seen it so many times – it’s just clear as day.
They usually looked at ease when they had engagements that Harry was also a part of. Whenever they had engagements without Harry, they looked hesitant, stiff, and somewhat out of touch.
Whenever they have the children with them they also seem at ease. So it definitely seems that they are uneasy whenever they don’t have a buffer with them. 🤷🏽♀️
Yet she,lacks empathy for Meghan. Sat back and let a false story about her stay in the media.
That top picture shows exactly why William is not the person to champion climate crisis. He was so intent to show the world he could read that he forgot that he was on a private jet! Seriously, who is advising him? Anyone with an ounce of sense would have just used the teleprompter shots or a couple of him going over his notes before he went on stage. The world is burning and by his actions his message is quite clearly “do as I say and not as I do.” SMH 🙁
This is the exact comment that I was looking for. The very first thought I had when I saw the photos of him reading on a plane, was that he and his team are so narrow minded and dumb that in there attempt to prove one thing, they confirmed another thing. They proved that he can read words, there’s no guarantee that he can read and comprehend what he reads but he can do what most 43 year old people can do, which is read. But in that attempt to prove him being able to read, they confirmed even more troubling, that he chose to fly to his environmental award show by private jet. There have been bots and trolls trying to convince us this whole time that he flew by commercial flight, but he and his staff blew that lie out of the water with this proof that he indeed did fly there on a private jet. The incompetence of him and his staff is always astounding to me.
The press said over and over and over again how he was “flying commercial” to Brazil. Which always seems like a farce. But even with the benefit of the doubt – he flew private while in Brazil. Well done 🙄
It’s strange, right? Because a photo of him alone in his suit looking over a singular piece of paper on a private plane doesn’t convey “global statesman”. It’s giving @sshole finance bro posting a photo of himself with the hashtag #always hustling. He doesn’t even have a pen to mark up this “speech”, like adding a pause or particular emphasis.
It’s not a fair comparison, but I’m thinking of photos of Obama where you can see he’s scribbled all over his remarks, circling things and adding his own wording.
He does have a pen in his hand, but the rest of your comment is accurate …He’s pathetic.
This!
The private plane comment – exactly this. They (Scooter and his staffers) are so incredibly stupid.
He allowed photographers to catch him reading? LOL. Isn’t that just his KP photographer taking glamour shots of him on a plane and then posting them on insta? Or are the rota flying with him again and taking pictures? Seems like a private plane. He might’ve been riding with Starmer from Rio to Belem? Anyways, lots of big boy global statesmen photos of William. Hopefully these images can assuage any anger he may be having about not being the only person out in the world doing something right now.
He studies photos of politicians on trains. Or planes in shirtsleeves and ties preparing notes. And wants that look for himself
Functionally illiterate people can read they just don’t understand what they are reading past a basic level of comprehension. So they are reading at a child’s level. Just reading a speech doesn’t disprove the accusation William!
🎯
Maybe Dolly Parton could send him some books 📚…
I’ve only seen a short piece of his speech and he’s a lightweight and lacks charisma. Furthermore he undermined his narrative that he’s approaching climate change with optimism. From the snippets I’ve seen he’s as doom and gloomy as the rest of us.
We know dyslexia run in that family. Maybe willie, even with an university degree, is partially dyslexic.
No. As Eurydice says below, William is ignorant and uninterested. He thinks he’s God’s gift, the future king, so he does not need to do the legwork, especially because he will always have the British media and an army of paid bots to lie and embiggen him. Another reason he has been SO incandescent that his scapegoat escaped and is thriving away from him.
I’d say that he IS ignorant and disinterested and also functionally illiterate. That’s why Jason Knauf is so tightly grafted to his side.
Reading about William is like reading about Donald Trump in several respects.
My husband is dyslexic, he was offered a place at university but he turned it down, he was fed up with school because dyslexia made it so difficult. This was before all sorts of provisions were made back in the early 70s.
William was eight years old when he sustained a fractured skull that required surgery. It’s likely that he sustained a traumatic brain injury that left him with permanent cognitive impairment. these can be subtle, ranging from irritable mood, difficulty concentrating, or more pronounced such as learning difficulties, short term memory issues, etc.
I’m sorry, but this excuse crops up all the time and the theory is not borne out by the facts: William was an entitled brat way before he got that injury and he remained (and remains!) an entitled brat afterwards.
Being dyslexic would not make you functionally illiterate. The two are not connected. A functionally illiterate person is someone who can read but doesn’t understand what they are reading on a deeper level. Dyslexic people have a problem decoding words but often have a high level of understanding and high IQs. Let’s not confuse lack of understanding (not being clever) with learning disabilities. Many people with learning disabilities are highly intelligent. William doesn’t have a learning disability. He’s just not bright!
Thank you Julia. This is quite an accurate assessment. There are millions of dyslexic people with a high level of functional literacy and reading comprehension and they are by no means exceptions, but rather the norm.
And from the reporting just this year alone, William even finds it difficult to understand basic *verbal* reasoning, hence his constantly flying off the handle whenever he gets the wrong end of a statement or argument.
Yeah, that New Statesman claim (for us to “read between the lines”) that W can’t read was shocking. He’s 43 and a FK, what??! I agree it’s more that he’s functionally illiterate, as was explained above. He can read, just at a basic level. This leads me to another possibility: He can’t understand the context of what he reads. Which is alarming.
I’ve been wondering for awhile if William rather than Harry has dyslexia. I can fully believe that the Palace/Charles didn’t arrange appropriate accommodations and just left William to coast through on his future king position
William’s not functionally illiterate; he’s ignorant and uninterested. He had tutors, went to public school, university and the military. If he doesn’t understand a subject it’s because he hasn’t bothered to study it. And he doesn’t bother to study because he thinks he doesn’t have to – he has minions for that.
This! It all comes down to laziness and entitlement with him! LOL this guy “helping his kids to study for exams!”
As if…
How the hell did he graduate Uni if this is the case?
And were all the negative articles on Harry growing up another case of deflection of W? Can’t have the heir looking bad so we’ll use the spare as a scapegoat?
He found art history too hard and wanted to quit university. Then went to geography. How did he ever write research papers. They wanted the prestige of a future king studying there so st Andrews was probably very lenient
And the exams are going to be essay exams. For William or Kate, it’s hard to believe either one got passing scores.
The right wing journalist Andrew Neil was “Lord Rector” of St. Andrews during William’s time at the university. He worked closely with the Palace to ensure William’s every demand was met. William went back to highgrove 11 out of the first 13 weekends he was at university. He didn’t go to Oxbridge because those schools are now so openly competitive and it’s so well known the royals don’t qualify it couldn’t be done. But why St. Andrews over Edinburgh is mystery – he spent many, many weekends partying in Edinburgh.
St. Andrews is well known to be academically weaker than The University of Edinburgh. He wouldn’t have been able to coast there.
I have no doubt that the teachers at St. Andrew’s gave him good grades, if you know what I mean.
That, and he had a ghost writer for all his assignments and someone who obtained test questions ahead of time for him. There is just no way in hell he did the work himself.
The same way tons of other rich and well-connected kids get through without studying or knowing anything (or even being qualified in the first place). Special accommodations, connections, parents buying a building on campus. No way in the world would the future king be allowed to fail.
I would have thought a geography graduate would be OK to discuss climate change. You wouldn’t know from his Earthshot speeches.
I suspect all the senior Royals who go to University get “diplomatic” degrees – i.e. they might bump the grades up a bit to avoid embarrassing the Royal family, what with them not tending to be intellectual heavyweights. I have it on pretty good authority that this was the case with Edward, for example (source being a Cambridge don who was there at the time).
Wasn’t William’s degree in Geography (after he switched from History of Art)? If so, you’d think he’d reference this in his climate “work” as it would have some relevance. But he never does. (And as for Kate – a degree in History of Art and no apparent interest in the subject at all).
I don’t know if perhaps geography just isn’t a well known degree in the USA but every time I hear that – I tend to think of him just filling in maps with the country and capital and getting an A+. Off to google I guess.
Geography is a serious, fascinating field, with strong links to sociology and anthropology. It involves studying the relationship between society and nature including migration with a focus on “place” (social geography). It should have. been excellent preparation for what William says interests him now, and he should have come out of uni with connections in the field and an acquaintance with major studies, scholars and creative work that he could draw on. His all round dumbness is very strange.
Nobody is going to fail the future king. NOBODY.
I note no one is talking about the actual speech itself. Perhaps because it shows how superficial and arrogant Scooter is. Talking to a hall filled with climate experts and the big contribution from him is that global warming is bad and will make future generations suffer. You think? Real contribution.
I wouldn’t expect anything else from a ceremonial head of state, the King of Sweden also gave a speech yesterday for comparison purposes. The problem is the media/KP hyping this up instead of treating it like a routine part of the work William should be doing. Every other Heir and monarch, who’ve finished their education, does many of these types of speeches a year
Actually, I think William is on to something. I think he should stay at home, and only come out for the very special days where he is just standing there, not saying anything, and occasionally let someone take his picture where he is “reading”, not posing, not baring those hideous teeth and making crazy eyes. I don’t think he should let anyone snap him looking down that ski slope of a nose, but that did produce my favorite picture of him to hate, where he is squinting and looking down his nose at the poor, sweet little Duchess of Sussex. And looking at her askance from the side at an angle that would make me go cross-eyed. And tucking in his shirt like that in front of a woman is so improper, indelicate and careless.
I really hate that photo too … looking down his nose at Meghan, like she wasn’t worthy of being in his presence! He really needs a comeupence in the worst way. How much is he in any way likeable, much less competent? He revels in his stupidity and arrogance. Oh, and unpreparedness.
Are those staged pictures of him reading on a private jet? Who thought that was a good image to put out when he’s talking about environmentalism?? Look i think most of get that sometimes high profile people have to take pjs for security but I wouldn’t broadcast that while you’re literally talking about the environment.
He’s just mad that Harry honored the veterans before him. Harry looked “royal” and he looked like a clout chaser. I know this isn’t a competition but he should have been doing what Harry was doing. He’s to busy chasing stardom and looking inauthentic. Harry really was out there showing how much he and his organization cares for the well being of veterans.
And also, William did not make it out for the special anniversary VJ Day this year. So yeah. The environment is a worthy cause but he is the one who scheduled it in line with Cop30 which caused it to overlap with Remembrance. It was foolish to assume Harry would not do something during this time.
So let us scream the quiet part out loud and show our “statesman” pretending to work on a private plane full of empty seats on the way to lecture the COP 30 conference that the earth is at a tipping point and we need to fix it for our kids.
What a fucking loser. What a terrible person. Brace yourselves UK, because you are about to experience (and pay out the nose for) the worst king you’ve ever had.
I bet he practiced his concentrating face in the airplane bathroom (first, furrow my brow …).
What has he even accomplished at 43? What has Kate accomplished? It’s so easy to see that H&M are both caring, hard working, intelligent people with natural charisma. The Royal reporters are forced to continue the charade about Will & Kate. If they truly were the shining example, they wouldn’t even give H&M a thought. But they keep going back to H&M because they cannot help themselves. If you wrote down all the accomplishments of both couples on paper without naming names, the truth is clearly seen. It would actually be embarrassing if it was all laid out in black & white like that. The stark difference. But go ahead and pretend it isn’t so.
Another comparison would be his mother. When she died, she was several years younger than William is now, and yet people still remember the causes she was associated with because she put in the work and had genuine impact. And that is nearly 30 years ago.
Neither William nor Kate have anything to show for their 40+ years, their legacy is non-existent.
I need people to realize that being “illiterate” is more than not being able to read the words, it’s also about comprehension and understanding of context and subtext. I am sure William can read the words, but I don’t think he gets the main idea. THAT is the problem.
These stiff photos have as much going for them as do cardboard cutouts.
They couldn’t look more posed and staged if they tried!
I’m from Brazil and it’s very interesting to see how differently he is perceived here. He has been nothing but polite, kind and very engaging. It seems like he felt very comfortable here, aside from the unfortunate situation about the vegan menu over typical food from Brazilian Amazon region.
That being said, Harry would be just as lovely and loved by locals, if not more!
Yes, William the future King can be polite and kind to strangers but not to his own brother. It’s the old story of Cain and Abel. Apparently, William hasn’t read that Bible story or learned its lesson about the destruction of jealousy.
Prince Harry and Invictus worked with the indigenous nations hand in glove for the Vancouver Games. Harry’s respect for them was reciprocated. I see William has been inspired by his brother’s actions, as he made sure there were a number of events involving the indigenous peoples of Brazil.
Does Will have Ozempic face?
Is it just me or does William look a lot like Henry VIII? https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/dec/01/henry-viii-portrait-copy-of-holbein-painting-expected-to-sell-for-1m
Wait, so he shouldn’t advocate for the unhoused? So … nobody who is wealthy should advocate for them? Because it seems like the wealthy are the ones who should be advocating for them the most. I’m confused. Can someone make it make sense for me? We NEED the wealthy and those with a platform to advocate and contribute.