Remember that very strange Eden Confidential story months ago about the then-CEO of BAFTA, Amanda Berry? This was in January, and reportedly, Berry left her position with BAFTA and it had something to do with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. William is president of BAFTA, an honorary position he cares little about. He didn’t even bother to come to this year’s BAFTAs, nor did he bother to come up with any kind of legitimate excuse for why he was skipping. He’s only shown up to the BAFTAs half the time he’s had the presidency. Well, the Daily Mail claimed that Amanda Berry resigned mysteriously ahead of being pushed out, and one source claimed: “She’s been allowed to leave gracefully. Berry has rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way over the years and became far too familiar with the royals. She liked to give the impression that William and Kate were her friends.” Interesting, right? Now Amanda Berry has been named the new CEO of William and Kate’s Royal Foundation:
Prince William and Duchess Kate have appointed former BAFTA executive Amanda Berry as the new CEO of The Royal Foundation. In her previous role, Berry served as the arts charity’s chief executive for 23 years and led the successful repositioning of their annual film awards. pic.twitter.com/zBR7dnXsE2
— Omid Scobie (@scobie) March 31, 2022
Berry is taking the position which Jason Knauf left at the end of last year. Knauf worked his way up from sycophantic comms dude to CEO of the massive grift that is the Royal Foundation. Berry will have her work cut out for her, keeping up with all of the schemes and keenery and busy work. This does answer some questions about the original reporting back in January too, because they made it sound like Amanda didn’t “know her place” and that perhaps William and Kate were mad at her? When it turns out that BAFTA professionals were actually upset that she was much too cozy to the lazy Keens.
Also interesting: yesterday, the BAFTA TV nominations came out and “The Earthshot Prize 2021” was nominated in the “Live Event” programming category. I understand that there’s probably a good conspiracy that Berry’s hiring was quid pro quo for the BAFTA nomination, but… did Berry already leave the BAFTA organization in January? What’s more interesting, to me, is that Berry was CEO during a period where the BAFTAs were exceedingly racist.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Instar, Avalon Red and WENN.
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- Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Kate, Duchess of Cambridge attends the 2020 EE British Academy Film Awards on Sunday 2 February 2020 at Royal Albert Hall, London. . /LFI/Avalon. All usages must be credited Julie Edwards/LFI/Avalon.,Image: 563239294, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Avalon.red – sales@avalon.red London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 (310) 822 0419 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251, Model Release: no, Credit line: Julie Edwards / Avalon
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- Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Kate, Duchess of Cambridge attends the 2020 EE British Academy Film Awards on Sunday 2 February 2020 at Royal Albert Hall, London. . /LFI/Avalon. All usages must be credited Julie Edwards/LFI/Avalon.,Image: 563239325, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Avalon.red – sales@avalon.red London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 (310) 822 0419 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251, Model Release: no, Credit line: Julie Edwards / Avalon
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- Sunday 2nd February 2020. Royal Albert Hall , London, UK The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge attend the EE British Academy Film Awards ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall. The Duke, President of the British Film Academy Award of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) and The Duchess will meet BAFTA representatives and watch the ceremony. The Duke?Äôs tenth year as President of BAFTA.,Image: 563239484, 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 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251, Model Release: no, Credit line: PA ROTA / Avalon
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- Sunday 2nd February 2020. Royal Albert Hall , London, UK The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge attend the EE British Academy Film Awards ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall. The Duke, President of the British Film Academy Award of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) and The Duchess will meet BAFTA representatives and watch the ceremony. The Duke?Äôs tenth year as President of BAFTA.,Image: 563239601, 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 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251, Model Release: no, Credit line: PA ROTA / Avalon
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- Sunday 2nd February 2020. Royal Albert Hall , London, UK The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge attend the EE British Academy Film Awards ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall. The Duke, President of the British Film Academy Award of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) and The Duchess meet BAFTA winners including Renee Zellweger after watching the ceremony. The Duke?Äôs tenth year as President of BAFTA.,Image: 563240391, 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 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251, Model Release: no, Credit line: PA ROTA / Avalon
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- HRH PRINCE WILLIAM TODAY VISITED THE NEWLY REOPENED BAFTA HQ WHERE HE MET PARTICIPIANTS OFTHE BURSARY AND SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAMMES AND TO MEET PARTICIPIANTS IN THE MENTORING PROGRAMME,Image: 656914822, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: PAUL GROVER / Avalon
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- Sunday 2nd February 2020. Royal Albert Hall , London, UK The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge attend the EE British Academy Film Awards ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall. The Duke, President of the British Film Academy Award of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) and The Duchess will meet BAFTA representatives and watch the ceremony. The Duke’s tenth year as President of BAFTA. Where: London, United Kingdom When: 02 Feb 2020 Credit: WENN/Avalon **WENN/Avalon**
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- Britain’s Prince William and Kate, Duchess of Cambridge arrive for the BAFTA 2019 Awards at The Royal Albert Hall in London, Sunday Feb. 10, 2019.
She was angling and kissing up to them and it sounds like the other employees if the organization couldn’t understand why given that they did so little for BAFTA. This is a good example of how the claims they have no real power, no government power, ignore all the ways their presence, money and titles corrupt British institutions.
They do not have any real power even in the royal family. Harry has said the real power is in the hands of the coutiers. The royals are the figureheads. This is just a classic you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours or a Good old boy network. They still wish they could get into California global influence but as this recent tour showed. They lack the wisdom and thinking and work ethic
Quid Pro Quo in action.
So another person from their bubble who will just suck up to them-sounds like a perfect match.
Lololol….That family and all of their allies are straight trash.
I have a feeling (based only on what I’ve read here) that this will not end well. Something about the whole thing just seems shady.
I guess we’ll see how long she lasts considering how much turnover has happened in house Cambridge the last few years.
Okay, so in the previous post about her that Kaiser linked, my comment was #3 and I mentioned that I thought it was one of two options – either she was too cozy with the Cambridges and the BAFTA as an organization didn’t like that, or she wasn’t deferential enough to the Cambs and pushed back on them somewhat etc.
So this tells me that the first option is more likely, she was too cozy with the Cambs and was pushed out in part bc of that and the Cambs gave her a nice soft spot to land.
Went back and read your comment. You really called it on the first option.
In hindsight, it was such a Rorschach test of a story back in December. We could impose whatever motives we wanted on it. So many commenters here thought, wishfully, that the bafta lady was made of stern stuff, and paid the price for holding her ground against W. Sadly, just another flunky after all.
I am SO HERE FOR the Cambridges messy operation.
They’re confused strategy wise they want to do “work” that attract a young, diverse crowd basically the woke crowd and at the same time lean all the way into the colonialism nostalgia.
this seems so messy.
It’s appalling that the Cambridges let Berry get smeared in the press when they knew she was leaving BAFTA to work for them.
Letting people get smeared in the press is the way they roll. Lots of experience.
That’s true.
Do they have one poc working for them?
They probably all sit around and drink crack babies together. Diversity, what’s diversity? They ask as they sip another crack baby.
Jason Knauf was a crisis manager for Bank of Scotland and Amanda Berry comes from heading up the BAFTAs, Wonder what she will bring to the role.
So they hired a new H&M basher.. nothing is going to change with these two.
She’s a replacement for Catherine Quinn. You can’t leave these two monkeys to run anything. They’ve lost so much respect when left to their own devices, as evidence by the flop tour