We have two interesting/funny royal stories today. I’m so excited, I don’t know which one to discuss first! Let’s do the sexy one first. And by “sexy,” I mean people are having sex with randoms in Buckingham Palace. The Queen is on Grindr?!!? NO. I can say definitively that the Queen is not picking up young men for corgi cosplay with the Queen’s jewels covering up all of the naughty bits. But… some of the Queen’s live-in staffers are picking up strangers and then the strangers come back to royal quarters for saucy romps on the Queen’s furniture! Yes, I would be pissed about that too.
Buckingham Palace staff have sparked internal security fears by bringing casual partners met over dating apps back to their living quarters. Police guarding the royal residences are said to be ‘deeply concerned’ at the number of unvetted overnight guests, many of whom appear to be casual acquaintances met online. Apps such as Tinder and Grindr allow smartphone users to find potential love matches nearby using GPS locators. And according to well-placed sources, a number of the Queen’s 800-plus staff are said to use such online dating tools.
While most live-in servants –including butlers, maids and kitchen staff – are not allowed to bring guests into Buckingham Palace itself, they are permitted to sign in visitors to their living quarters at St James’s Palace and the Royal Mews. This situation is not new, but the rise of dating apps has sparked concerns among the Metropolitan Police that servants are bringing back guests whom they know nothing about.
The source said: ‘There are real and serious security concerns at Buckingham Palace about members of staff use of dating apps such as Tinder, which can be rather sleazy. The palace police are particularly unhappy about the number of guests of servants staying overnight, especially when they may have only just met on Tinder. They know nothing of the guests’ background and say they could be anyone. It is a security nightmare, especially in the current climate. The guests are allowed to stay at St James’s Palace but some have complained that when they leave they get asked “a million questions” by officers. But police say they are only doing their job.’
The security sources stress that strangers aren’t coming back to Buckingham Palace for hot hookups with royal staffers, but security personnel say it’s happening in Kensington Palace, St. James Palace and the Royal Mews (the nicer staff apartments). Yeah… ten bucks says it’s happening in BP too.
Second story: Prince Charles’ royal press office is in shambles after trying to unify Buckingham Palace, Clarence House and Kensington Palace press offices all in one unified PR structure.
Being ‘spin doctor’ to the heir to the throne should be one of the most appealing and prestigious roles in the media, but it would appear to be the job that no one wants. Prince Charles’s senior aide Kristina Kyriacou announced last week that she was quitting, leaving him to search for his fourth Communications Secretary in two years. Now the candidate who might be expected to succeed her, Charles’s veteran press secretary Patrick Harrison, has declared that he not only doesn’t wish to be considered for the highly paid post, but that he is leaving Clarence House altogether.
‘This is a further blow to the Prince,’ says one of Harrison’s friends. ‘Patrick handed in his notice a year ago, but Charles personally persuaded him to stay on because of the difficulties that his press operation was going through.’
The departures herald the end of the Queen’s attempts to merge her media operation with that of her son, who turns 66 next month. Her Private Secretary, Sir Christopher Geidt, tried last year to create a unified ‘Royal Communications’ team at Buckingham Palace, ‘speaking with one voice’ for every member of the Royal Family from the Queen down. At the time, courtiers described the move as ‘just plain common sense’. However, Charles’s entire press team has now returned to Clarence House.
His PR chief, Paddy Harverson, who was credited with reinventing the Prince’s public image, left in 2012 after nine years amid claims that Charles (left) was frustrated that his charities did not ‘get the public attention they deserve’. Matters are said to have come to a head after Kate Middleton married Prince William, with media attention on the Royal Family then concentrating on the Duchess of Cambridge’s every move.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Charles is upset that Kate’s every hair toss and bum-flash garner more attention than his decades of charity work. But I also think there’s something more insidious going on here: the royals aren’t really at war, but they’re being very passive-aggressive towards each other. Think of the way William throws Harry under the bus whenever he (William) gets criticized. Think of the sketchy conspiracies involving William and Kate’s press coverage. I’m just saying… those press offices seem like hot-beds of royal drama and I wouldn’t blame anyone for jumping from the sinking ship.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.
Good help is so hard to find.
You win.
Hard help is good to find. 😉
This reminds me of a story I read about the Queen Mother. Many of the men on the Royal household staff are gay. One day the Queen Mother got frustrated with waiting for her drink, she is supposed to have called down and said” when you guys are finished playing around, there is a Old Queen up here who wants her gin and tonic!” I don’t know whether it is true or not but it always makes me laugh
+1
I think you are referring to a Vanity Fair article and I think the quote was “One of you old queen needs to bring this old Queen a gin and tonic!”
It was the 1st thing I thought of too!
Hahaha! That laugh was much appreciated!
O.M.G You just made my day with this story!!! I loved the Queen Mum. My mother met her in the 50s.
It ain’t easy being Queen.
Do they really call the staff members “servants?”
I heard the queen was once asked how many servants she has and replied “I have a staff of 300 and not a servant in the bunch.” (I have no idea the real number here)
My, my…the Queen seems to have missed a button in that fancy lime popsicle get-up. “Um…Mom, your royal ladies are about to pop out…”
“Royal ladies” haha!
But they´re nicely tucked in, by the way.
Meh. The DM is so sleazy I assume both stories have been exaggerated in the extreme.
I’m no royal apologist but come on, if people were bringing random strangers over to your house to get freaky on your bed / dresser / couch / whatever, you’d be pissed too. Heck, I’d be ready to release the hounds, lol. It’s just disrespectful.
Or at least release the Corgi’s, shorter, nastier and far faster at clearing up the mess 😀
Sic the dogs on them!!!!!
Unleash the hounds!!!
“Staff Quarters” are soooo outdated. Life is at home …
When did William throw Harry under the bus?
When has he not! The first example that comes to mind is he told Harry to wear the nazi uniform. True Harry should have been smart enough to not actually do it-but still. William egged him on.
William is bad news and kate and her family are worse. Harry works very hard and is received quite positively because he doesn’t have williams attitude. When William was in Australia and NZ the pictures taken of him made him look dis-peptic. Kate just looked clueless as usual.
News – William caught hunting with Jecca.
Bigger news – Photo of Harry posing with his kill from years and years ago resurfaces to be critical of Harry.
The Nazi uniform also.
It may not be William publicly coming out and saying “I did blank, but Harry did blank and i’m the lesser of 2 evils.”
I actually find the second story more juicy. Charles has always had the same need to be the center of attention for decades but let’s face it he’s boring. Not likable and upstanding as the Queen, not as fluffy blandly pretty as Kate, and none of Harry’s charisma.
So boring. So spoiled and entitled. Ick.
Isn’t Prince George outshining everybody, except the Queen and Prince Harry, now? He seems more popular than Kate. I don’t buy Charles being jealous of anybody, simply because there are too many people to be jealous of and the baby is trumping all of those other people.
I do that was his main problem with Di that she outshone him and it keeps happening again.
Oh, Charles all but admitted to a great deal of jealousy and angst about his status vis-a-vis the rest of the Royal Family back in the 1990s. Honestly, he had such a miserable childhood that it’s not surprising. (And it goes to show how people can be good parents to one child, and not to another, because Anne has spoken out to say that she thought her childhood was marvelous.)
Camilla has certainly done a marvelous job settling him down, but I think there is no question at all that Charles worries about the attention paid to William & Kate — and really, who can blame him. He’s caught in the middle between HM and the allure of youth; it’s hard to get excited about the guy you’ve been watching for 65 years.
@Luca26 – that’s the first thing I thought! History doth repeat itself.
PS why are Charles’ hands so swollen?
I can believe Charles being jealous of Diana because her popularity was always fairly stable and her fame was at the level of being an icon. But Kate and William don’t seem as well-liked. On the tour, everyone seemed to be paying more attention to what George was doing. So that’s where I have trouble believing that he could be jealous of William and Kate. Now everyone is finding a 1 year old more commendable than William himself. I don’t think his popularity is what it was when he was 20 and now everyone seems to be waiting in anticipation for George to take over, even though that could take decades, barring catastrophe. Also, shouldn’t Charles be jealous of Harry since he’s the most popular one? But we never seem to hear anything about that.
In his childhood, I could see Charles being jealous of his siblings because they could have been treated differently depending on their roles. But not now. I can’t fathom anyone being jealous of Andrew in his current state. And then there’s Edward, who makes Camilla seem interesting.
I’ve followed the royal family for ages, and Charles always seems to be sniveling about who is more popular than whom.
I agree with all these comments. I also think the aging Prince is a lout. I haven’t forgotten how he misled Diana into marriage all the while knowing he had no intention of giving it a real go because of his ties to Camilla. His actions really revealed his lack of character. He will never change…not for his children 20 years ago and certainly not to save the British tax payers money now.
I think a lot of charles issues were due to the pressure by the queen. I don’t hold him harmless but I think he was getting a lot of pressure to marry and it head to be a virgin which obviously went out the window with kate.
But what does that have to do with being King? He goes to sites of tragic events (Scotland) and whether you like him her not you can keep Waity and Billy. Prince Charles actually WORKS. And whether you like his charities or not, he VISITS them. That alone makes him more impressive than the dynamic duo
The Queen needs to know when to call it quits. She allows the dynamic duo to get away with murder and goes after every other member. Not cool. Harry gets nothing but criticism from her.
But what does that have to do with being King? He goes to sites of tragic events (Scotland) and whether you like him her not you can keep Waity and Billy. Prince Charles actually WORKS. And whether you like his charities or not, he VISITS them. That alone makes him more impressive than the dynamic duo
The Queen needs to know when to call it quits. She allows the dynamic duo to get away with murder and goes after every other member. Not cool. Harry gets nothing but criticism from her.
WAT?!
Big deal, ‘The Palace’ has always been a place for hookups of all ranks and stations.
Blah blah blah. Monarchy. Blah.
Corgi cosplay ! ROFL
I guessed this was from The Daily Mail before even clicking. Whatever. I miss The Weekly World News. At least their fiction was entertaining.
In the early days of their marriage, when Diana was still learning the ropes, the palace would schedule both Charles and Diana to do the walkabouts together. Charles would start down one side and Diana would take the other.
There was a TV documentary that showed footage of the crowds trying to rush over to the Diana side. Her side always had notably more people and Diana being Diana, she would linger longer to receive bouquets and kneel down to talk to young children.
On Charles side, the crowd would be either trying to look around him to get a glimpse of Diana or be asking him about her. He would finish his side much sooner than her and have to spend minutes waiting for her by the royal vehicle, all the while watching people gush over her. The documentary talked about Charles’ jealousy and the strain this put on their marriage.
I’m sure as Prince of Wales, that must have bruised his ego. Also, I am SURE he saw himself as her intellectual superior and perhaps her superior all round, so he must have fumed at the way her popularity eclipsed his.
I think the fact that the Queen has done very little to reign in the lazy duo and allows them to get away with temper tantrums and not pulling their share of the load has stirred up thd PR controversy. Prince Charles is right. If you only focus on the diva twirling her hair or not wearing underware or thong and her dresses flying up, those members of the RF who do work hard are going to get pissed. You read nothing about Anne, Sophie, Edward, sir Tim, and when you read about Harry, he always has the diva and billy tagging along. Those 2 haven’t done anything unique that doesn’t involve some glitzy event in the time they have been married. Prince Charles and Camilla (whether you like her or not ) work hard and deserve attention.
I would not want William and Kate ruling me to save my life. It would be great if it was Charles and then Harry since it can’t be Anne. But all of this is the Queens fault. If you don’t want to abdicate then you need to do ypur job. And if you can’t get your family to behave how do you expect tintype a country