Angela Kelly was Queen Elizabeth’s dresser, gatekeeper and confidante. Kelly overstepped boundaries constantly when QEII was alive, and days after QEII’s death, King Charles kicked her out of her grace-and-favor home and ripped up all of the agreements his mother had signed. Since then, Kelly has lived somewhat quietly in a retirement cottage purchased by the king and she only pops up every now and then as an unnamed source in certain royal books and articles. Then, last month, there were reports that Kelly was suddenly making some new deals. She’s apparently shopping a new book and making a documentary too. Guess that retirement cottage wasn’t so quiet after all. Well, there’s something new: now a feature-length film will be made about Kelly and QEII. But… but… Netflix??
On the latest episode of the Daily Mail’s Palace Confidential, a panel of royal experts discuss news that a film chronicling the friendship between the late Queen and her trusted dresser Angela Kelly is in development. The scoop comes from Diary Editor Richard Eden, who claimed writer Jeremy Brock may be working on a script. Brock co-created the hospital drama Casualty and wrote A Very Royal Scandal, the Prime Video series about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s disastrous Newsnight interview.
It is not known whether Kelly, 68, is collaborating on the film, which is being made by Fox Searchlight. However, the panel suggested that the decision to make a drama in the style of Netflix’s The Crown, rather than a documentary, could make it easier for her to take part.
Kelly is a significant figure in royal circles. Born to a working-class family in Liverpool, her talents as a dresser saw her rise through the ranks at Buckingham Palace, eventually becoming the Queen’s Personal Assistant and the official Curator of her wardrobe. She is also the figure Prince Harry blamed in his memoir Spare for the infamous Tiaragate row, claiming she delayed Meghan’s access to her wedding tiara ahead of a hair trial.
‘Angela Kelly is a fascinating figure,’ Eden told Palace Confidential. ‘The Queen described her as like a sister… but she was also very combative. She had the nickname among some courtiers of AK-47. AK for Angela Kelly, but a bit like the submachine gun. After the Queen died, she was moved out of her grace and favour home very quickly. It was said she wasn’t very happy about this. There are whispers that it’s going to be a very accurate portrayal. It’s a big deal… you might remember she had some really lively rows with Harry and Meghan, and Harry is particularly unpleasant about her in his book [Spare].’
In the controversial memoir, the Prince branded Kelly a ‘troublemaker’ who he did not appreciate having his grandmother’s ear. Fittingly, Eden said, the new film has the working title Trouble, perhaps a nod to Harry’s criticism of her.
Mail on Sunday Editor at Large Charlotte Griffiths said Harry should be ‘quaking in his boots’ over news of the film. ‘Speaking of Spare, the stuff Angela saw during Tiaragate. Apparently there’s another incident from around that time that they are praying does not come out in this drama.’
Daily Mail Royal Editor Rebecca English said some in the Royal household ‘resented’ how much influence Kelly had over the Queen. She added that Kelly was ‘very hurt’ by the speed at which she was ushered out after the Queen’s death at 96.
‘The Queen trusted her implicitly,’ she said. ‘She really transformed her style over the years… she would massage [the Queen’s] feet at the end of a long day. She was controversial, she was forthright, like a lot of people who work within the palaces. They become quite possessive of their fiefdom and they guard it quite jealously. I had a story at the time [of the Queen’s death] that they effectively changed the locks so she couldn’t get back in. They ushered her out pretty blooming quickly. She was so intrinsic in the household, they wanted her out basically.’
It’s always clear when the royal reporters are trying to talk objectively about someone they’ve used as a source for years. Angela Kelly clearly had several of these Mail people on speed-dial and she was regularly giving or selling gossip to them. And this is still all they’ve got – a wedding tiara smear which Angela has never been able to keep straight, and pity-poor-Angela, she was tossed out like the lying old trash she is. “Speaking of Spare, the stuff Angela saw during Tiaragate. Apparently there’s another incident from around that time that they are praying does not come out in this drama.” A story no one has heard and no one has spoken about in eight-plus years? Sounds like Angela Kelly had to sweeten the pot with some brand new lie about how Meghan “demanded” something or other. It also sounds like Angela and QEII’s decades-long friendship is somehow going to be defined, in film form, by the Sussex wedding. Weird.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- Angela Kelly At the State Funeral of Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II,Image: 724230159, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Camera Press Rota, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no , Credit line: Mark Stewart/Avalon
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- Queen Elizabeth II sits with Anna Wintour (second right) and Caroline Rush (left), chief executive of the British Fashion Council (BFC) and royal dressmaker Angela Kelly (right), as they view Richard Quinn’s runway show before presenting him with the inaugural Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design as she visits London Fashion Week’s BFC Show Space in central London.,Image: 534630575, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NO UK USE FOR SEVEN DAYS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Avalon.red – sales@avalon.red London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 (310) 822 0419 Madrid: +34 91 533 4289, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no , Credit line: /Avalon
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- Miss Angela Kelly received the Royal Victoria Order Investitures at Buckingham Palace, London, Britain – 16 Nov 2012,Image: 544105715, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NO UK USE FOR 48 HOURS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Photoshot sales@photoshot.com London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 917 704 9816 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251, Model Release: no, Credit line: – / Avalon
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- Miss Angela Kelly received the Royal Victoria Order Investitures at Buckingham Palace, London, Britain – 16 Nov 2012,Image: 544105732, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NO UK USE FOR 48 HOURS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Photoshot sales@photoshot.com London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 917 704 9816 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251, Model Release: no, Credit line: – / Avalon
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- Angela Kelly (PA to the Queen) at The State Funeral of Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II,Image: 724231647, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Camera Press Rota, Model Release: no, Credit line: Mark Stewart / Avalon
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- Angela Kelly at The State Funeral of Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II,Image: 724232499, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Camera Press Rota, Model Release: no, Credit line: Mark Stewart / Avalon
All I will say about Kelly is that they changed the locks and kicked her out of her grace and favour home for a reason – based on what was said she was controlling who had access to QE2 during the last few years of her life and clearly lined her own pockets on the way out of the door. By pretty much all accounts she was not well liked by both the family and rest of the household and stayed in her position because of her influence over QE2 – lets not forget the story that she got into an actual fist fight with a colleague over her affair with the colleagues husband (IIRC the colleagues asked her to stay away from her husband).
Angela would have been a perfect soft dove, they would have changed those locks and kicked her out just asfast anyway. The king has waited to so long to be on the top chair, there was no way he was going to keep any of QE staff to keep their influence around and go around his back to organize things among each other. he needed to make sure the loyalty of his court lay with him and not with the ex-queen.
Same thing Willy is going to do as well
And yet he kept on tall Paul ( Paul whybrew) her senior page who had been there since the early eighties. What’s more he gave Paul the responsibility for archiving her papers and correspondence.
He also retained Matthew Magee? The very tall assistant private secretary.
It was the then prince of wales’ household who received notice that their contracts would be under review when he became king, not the household of the late Queen.
While there were changes not all of the late queens closest staff were sent packing.
I think she’s being paid to abuse Harry and Meghan and will go soft in the rest of that royal mafia.
So will they reenact the time she punched out a coworker because AK suspected the woman was having an affair with a married coworker that AK was also shagging?
omg where’s the story? lol
🙂 I want to know too.
Let me get this straight. She was a longtime confidant of the Queen for years and years, and no doubt knows tons of things about the entire family that they’d rather not be made public.
Meghan didn’t have any contact with her until 2018 – and even then it was extremely limited- but this movie is going to revolve solely around the Sussexes and their (allegedly) poor behavior?
Got it.
Why can’t more people see through this obvious BS? It’s total propaganda.
Machine Gun would still rather cover up for the man who had the locks changed on her home days after the Queen’s death? No, Meghan was worse? I can’t.
IIRC it was a full on rolling around the floor fight and neither women were fired even thou AK is the one that started the fight in the first place.
Angela Kelly is the woman who physically assaulted another member of staff — another woman — at the Palace, on account of the fact that she was having an extramarital affair with that woman’s husband, and the woman whom she subsequently assaulted just wouldn’t get out of the way? ….sounds like a Camilla protégée. This is the moral actor claiming the high ground of purest principle, when stooping to trawl through gossip that is now…. 8 years old??? For money? …I swear, the royalist groupies are worse than MAGA “Christians.” JFC and LOL.
From everything I’ve read about AK she is a horrible human being so whatever she says or writes will be tainted. It also sounds like she thought she was the actual queen when Meghan was unfortunate enough to be in her proximity.
I agree with everything you said, but facts and logic will never enter into it.
The BM and the royalists will totally whitewash and rehabilitate this b!tch’s reputation, and all of a sudden she’ll be considered an impeccable source. It’s infuriating.
Yeah, I doubt Kelly has been holding on to any gossip about the Sussexes over the years. What we’ve heard already makes her look bad enough – controlling, possessive, and yes, racist.
The rota are all but stating that she’s just going to make stuff up: “mak[ing] a drama in the style of Netflix’s The Crown, rather than a documentary, could make it easier for her to take part.”
We all know if AK ever mentioned the Sussexes in any context she’d be lying.
Why doesn’t she tell the world why she let QEII appear in front of cameras with that lopsided coat where the buttons were not fastened correctly?
Yesss! I waited for that comment! I vividly remember Liz standing in front of Windsor Castle, an elder lady in a dark lopsided coat, hair unkempt, looking neglected and certainly not one of the richest women in the world, she then was. I’m not into royalty, never was, but I felt for her. Sad!
Also? Can I just say — normally I avoid denigrating personal remarks about other women but hey, it’s Angela — she looks *awful* in those photos. Like, if you had a relative who turned up like this to a state occasion, you’d initiate a health check. A wellness assessment. Like, clothes that are ill-fitting and unpressed. Garish fuschia lipstick, neon blue eyeliner like some teenager in an ‘80s movie, overdone and cartoonish blend of little girl and little old lady, like, whatever happened to baby Jane, if she were British and stashed in a palace. Jewellery obviously cheap and fake, ill suited and unmatched, like she just grabbed a handful of metal trinkets and draped them on her wrists and neck. And NO GLOVES. To hold her own decoration. Also? No manicure. Bitch, choose one or the other. If you can’t get to the salon, put some gloves on. Egads. End rant.
As this is Cele*BITCHY* lol: first thing I noticed in the pic (after the neon colors of her clothes, lipstick, & eyeshadow) was the fact that her hands, neck, and face are ALL DIFFERENT shades. And yes, no gloves; thought that was part of the “dress code”, like a hat ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
She has a manicure.
As someone who wears bright lipstick and bright colours daily and – i loathe this new trend that women MUST wear those garish fake nails – i guess id need that wellness check. I do nothing to my nails other than clean them and the odd trim. They’re decidedly unmanicured. The bacteria under those fake ones is enough to turn my stomach every time I see them.
The suit colour is lovely but it’s ill fitting for sure. It looks like a silk which naturally creases. The hat doesn’t really go. With bright lipstick, neutral eye makeup is key, I think. Especially given the suit.
I’ve never had a gel manicure, but I doubt very much that they carry any more bacteria than nails that are organic, @Chiron. But Angela’s nails are the least objectionable aspect of her sour and self-serving character. She’s conducted a campaign against Meghan that was based on what we now know were several compounded and deliberate lies — why??? First she claimed that Meghan demanded a kokoshnik tiara that was reserved for Eugenie. We know that wasn’t true because the Spencers had already offered her their tiara, so she wasn’t touring royal vaults in search of alternatives. We know from Spare that when the late Queen got wind of the Spencer tiara plan, for which Meghan’s veil was specially designed, to echo the scallop pattern, months in advance, it was too late to change the veil, so it was last-minute. We know that Meghan was presented with a selection of tiaras to choose from — which, again, vitiates the theory that she was “demanding” a different one, as that one would naturally never have been included in the selection she was shown if it had been earmarked for Eugenie’s wedding. More proof Angela’s story is pure seething BS. We know that as it was so last-minute, when Meghan selected a tiara the late Queen had offered her, she urgently needed to do a trial with her hairstylist who was in town for a limited time. We know from Spare that Harry took the lead on coordinating the loan of the tiara for the hair trial. We know that he was the one to speak to Angela, who was deliberately bitchy and obstructive. We know what she did, after Harry told her off, which was to invent a vile smear about his new wife. What a cow.
I can see what’s going on with my nails. They do carry more bacteria which is why certain professions can’t wear them.
Of course she’s objectionable. But your previous post was specifically about her outfit not personality.
I know who ak47 is.
If she reveals “something else,” Sussex comms need to hit back or they should be fired. I understand not fighting back against every little rumor, but this I feel is different.
I believe, from what I know (which I know is only what they want us to see) that whatever so called happened didn’t. Pretty much right off the bat.
@Heather, I could not agree more. Enough is enough.
I know we are thinking about why this “other” incident (or any other stories) haven’t come out yet from her. My conclusion is that despite journalists on speed dial, AK knew she would be kicked out (eventually, not right away, which I do believe shocked her) and was conniving enough to hold back some stories — made up or true — about the royal family as back up, for moments or a project just like this.
Alas, we all know she is going to **** all over Harry and Meghan. Curious who else she is going to “expose.”
Honestly, when I read all of the Daily Mail, etc., vitriolic posts about Harry and Meghan, I want to ask, “What is your end game?” I know the immediate are clicks and resulting $, but do they really want to see harm to them and their kids? I mean how could you live with yourselves? Karma is a bitch; some of these journalists will get hit hard with soon or in the after life.
Harry is a “prince of the realm,” aka public property. Meghan is a WOC and American, therefore she isn’t really a person. There are some rota that honestly believe the Sussex kids don’t exist, are actors, etc. So it’s easy for them to sleep.
The fact that she has only repeated one story (a story which has had more variants than COVID) from 8 years ago proves to me she has absolutely nothing more.
And if she did, she would have said it years ago. Someone like her wouldn’t wait for the perfect moment or payday.
Another withered old hag trying to pad out her estate by writing about the monarchy and using Meghan as the forever hook.
You know these folks have nothing interesting to say when all they can do to sell their books is include some likely made up or misrepresented BS story about Meghan.
What a piece of trash. She even looks like a scrunched up, grease-stained page of the Sun.
All I’m getting from this is the Queen lacked discernment and was a person who was easily manipulated. I hope they include the scene where Angela sends out the Queen with her coat buttoned incorrectly.
Harry and Meghan do not have to say a word about the tiara.
All Meghan has to do is post a beautiful, never before seen image from her wedding day with the tiara firmly on her head in the full light of day.
That is the perfect response.
So Becky English says these palace employees “become quite possessive of their fiefdom and they guard it quite jealously” and that’s supposed to make us believe Angela Kelly’s versions of events??
She just told us why AK-47 and other palace insiders trashing Meghan and Harry shouldn’t be trusted — because they’re bitter and jealous and territorial and will make up crap to cling to their fiefdoms.
Did Becky mean this statement as a compliment? Because I recoiled just reading it. How creepy and wrong.
This will be another Fox production that I won’t watch.
They can’t make a single move without that “insignificant” Meghan. A book about the Prince of Wales is almost entirely about Harry and Meghan; a book about anyone else is mostly devoted to H&M and marketed entirely through them. That is the only reason anyone mentions it at all.
William lives with H&M constantly on his mind, 24/7; Middleton spends just as much time tracking every institution, person, event, or company linked to Meghan, constantly plotting and scheming.
It’s wonderful to watch in real time how a small, petite American woman has shaken a centuries-old institution to its very foundations… I love it. 👍😍
The queen had some… interesting preferences in people, didn’t she. Angela Kelly her servant/bestie/sister and Andrew her favorite child.
AK is an old, evil biddy who is taking her last grasp at relevancy. Funny how she has to dangle new *tea* about the Sussexes to generate any interest. The woman is straight trash!
Angela Kelly tried to ruin Meghan’s wedding. What kind of a woman does that??
“[H]er talents as a dresser saw her rise through the ranks at Buckingham Palace, eventually becoming the Queen’s Personal Assistant and the official Curator of her wardrobe.“
— Pretty sure it wasn’t her talents as a dresser.