Prince Charles skipped out on a post-9/11 visit to NYC to go to a shooting party

In 2013, Prince Charles accepted a $1.2 million “donation” from Osama bin Laden’s half-brothers. In the initial reporting over the weekend, sources claimed that Charles insisted that his charities accept the money because it would be “rude” to give it back. Sources also claimed that there was a lot of protestation within Charles’s camp and charities. Clarence House’s version of events was that Charles has nothing to do with his charitable foundations and it was their call alone to accept the money. For real, that’s their cover story: “Charles didn’t know, we swear!” Nevermind that he apparently met with the Bin Ladens personally (to broker the payment!) and nevermind that the Windsors have always been exceptionally close to the House of Saud and all of the wealthiest and most powerful people within the Kingdom. The charitable commission and British authorities have already shrugged off this donation too.

So what’s new with this ongoing saga? New Yorkers and 9/11 families are really mad at Charles. The New York Post had a story where various 9/11 families are quoted as saying stuff like “I don’t think he should be king of anything. He is an incompetent. A regular person would see what they did … yet he turns around and takes their money.” That dude is not wrong! In addition to that, an old story about Charles brushing off 9/11 families too:

The late Sir Christopher Meyer let slip a royal indiscretion in his memoirs DC Confidential, writing that Prince Charles was expected in New York weeks after the 9/11 atrocities as patron of ‘UK in New York’. ‘Prince Charles was unable to come… much to the chagrin of the organisers,’ recalls the ex-ambassador. ‘I was told by a deep throat not a million miles from the Prince’s household that shooting at Balmoral had taken precedence. Prince Andrew stepped into the breach.’

[From The Daily Mail]

I have a distinct memory of Prince Charles visiting Ground Zero in late 2001, but it’s also possible that he brushed off another visit so he could go to a shooting party instead. Plus, I’m sure Jeffrey Epstein was very welcoming to Prince Andrew on that trip.

And finally, Clarence House is making vague promises about Charles dialing down the fundraising… eventually. When he’s king.

Prince Charles is to cut his charity fundraising and focus increasingly on supporting the Queen after a series of scandals over historic donations. The heir to the throne, who was facing fresh controversy after it emerged that he received £1 million from the family of Osama Bin Laden in 2013, has reduced the amount of time he spends on his charities since 2018 and intends a further cutback as he increasingly concentrates on standing in for his mother in her head of state duties.

Charles, regularly hailed by his aides as one of Britain’s most successful philanthropists, is expected to formally sever or at least further loosen his ties with his remaining charities when he becomes King, the Daily Express understands. A review of his charities in 2018 streamlined their operations and lowered fundraising expectations.

[From The Daily Express]

Charles has already begun to put people in place at all of his charities and foundations, people who operate and manage everything on a daily basis. But Charles is the key person for all the fundraising because that’s how all of these quid pro quo schemes work. People are donating huge gobs of cash because they know that’s how to get face time with Charles. He’s set his price – for $3 million or so, you get multiple meetings with Charles, plus a knighthood and an eased path to citizenship.

Photos courtesy of Instar.

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30 Responses to “Prince Charles skipped out on a post-9/11 visit to NYC to go to a shooting party”

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  1. ThatsNotOkay says:

    Is that..is that really the answer? I’m crooked at fundraising for good causes, so I’m just gonna no longer support good causes because I don’t know how to do it uncrookedly. What a POS.

    • SophieJara says:

      I also don’t understand why maintaining and upgrading his own properties is considered charity. I mean, yes I understand historic landmarks and many have public access, etc., but as an outsider (American) it just seems like a grift. But then again I think all their land should be owned by the public, so maybe that’s just my bias.

    • Christine says:

      Well said, ThatsNotOkay. This is hilariously stupid.

  2. Sunday says:

    Charles is awful and deserves to be exposed for all his misdeeds, but to me the more interesting story is why are all these scandals coming out now? The 1-2 punch of “he accepted Bin Laden money, and oh by the way he didn’t even want to visit post 9/11 NY, he sent the pedo instead and went shooting” is obviously trying to torpedo his reputation in the US (not that that’s hard).

    • Sinéad says:

      Yeah, it’s like KP have gone into overdrive! Do they blame Clarence House for the hashtag or something?!? Is CH responsible for that hashtag? …Will all these Charles scandals make W&K look better in the US in 6mts time for earthshwhatever?

      • Sunday says:

        IMO the smear campaign against the Sussexes shows that William’s preferred tactic is cutting his rivals off at the knees to make himself look taller, so throwing his dad under the bus to elevate his own reputation by comparison does seem consistent.

        But if that’s the case, then he must have well-placed co-conspirators because I don’t see how he would have access to this kind of information otherwise. He alone wouldn’t be privy to Clarence House’s financial information (unless he has a spy or a mole), and he would’ve been around 19 at the time of this particular story.

        I thought maybe it could be Michael Fawcett angry at being made Charles’ scapegoat and dismissed after decades of service, but the whole reason he had to resign was because one of these financial stories broke, so it doesn’t make sense that he’d expose himself.

    • Green girl says:

      This has come up before but I really think it’s a disgruntled former employee of PC.

      Although it does say something that a few other people could be behind the leaks too! They really are an odd bunch and that’s putting it mildly.

      • Sinéad says:

        My thinking was that the royal rota has all these stories going back years and years and they all share them amongst each other so KP need only say ‘pull the trigger on that story’ for example. So it’s not necessarily current employees leaking right now you know?

    • MeganC says:

      Whoever he was shooting with must have shown up with a big bag of money.

    • LUCKSTER says:

      I’m wondering if they are trying to do a purge before Charles becomes King.

    • Agreatreckoning says:

      Agree @Sunday. These recent stories seem to want to encourage anti-Charles sentiment in the US. So William might be more welcomed in December? Has Charles been involved in financial shenanigans. Most likely. There was probably some quid pro quo involved with Bakr bin Laden’s donation. Maybe not. Jimmy Carter accepted a $200k donation from him in 2000 (Osama was definitely on the high watch list then). Bakr was vetted/given the clear for Carter to accept the donation.

      The Daily Mail is leaving out some pertinent details regarding the 2001 story & CM’s passage in DC Confidential. Charles wasn’t brushing aside a charity visit he was patron of or a planned remembrance of 9/11 victims. Charles was the patron of an event called UK in New York-changed to UK with New York. An event planned way before 9/11. UK with NY was/is? a 2 week festival-back then it ran from Oct. 14-Oct.28, 2001 highlighting UK businesses, designers, arts and so on in NY/NYC?. Courtiers were disappointed supposedly, because they wanted to enhance Charles’ rep in America after Diana. Good Luck Chuck! And William now.

      I could totally see Pedo telling Charles, “it’s not safe for you to go..let me………”. My bff Epstein lives there, I personally need to check on him. I remember the story of Fergie being in town at the time(9/11) and supposedly, narrowly missing death because she was to have been in a meeting in the North Tower but, for reasons wasn’t. Then a story of Pedo flying to New York right away(to check on her) but his plane was turned around.

      As heir to the throne, Charles may have been sidelined from flying to America in the aftermath of 9/11.. Pedo arrived on Oct. 13 and left Oct. 17. He attended a luncheon with the board of UK with NY, ground zero and other events. Met with Giuliani a couple of times. The CC doesn’t say if hung out with Epstein or Maxwell.

      It’s an odd story because after retiring from the Royal Navy in July 2001-it was essentially Andrew’s job to be the UK envoy promoting businesses abroad which is what the UK with NY event was about. Charles being patron of the event doesn’t make sense.

      As an American that admires the Sussexes, I think Charles being the patron of The Goon Show Preservation Society is perfect. (yes, I understand that it has to do with a comedy show-the BRF is often the best comedy show) imo Will & Kate need to be made co-patrons stat.

  3. Jaded says:

    Soooo….I can envision Jason Knauf rubbing his sticky little hands with glee at this. He’ll find a way to weasel onto the boards of some of these charities. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and via Bulliam he’ll have easy access to the next monarch.

    • Lizzie Bathory says:

      I think the plan all along was to pass the skeevy suitcases full of cash “fundraising” scheme to William when Charles became king. If William wasn’t competent enough to do that, they’d rely on Harry, but he noped out of that “business model.” Knauf is a good bet to continue this grift.

      It’ll be interesting to see if these leaks continue when this is handed off to William.

  4. usavgjoe says:

    What can we say, but… glad H&M got the hell outta Dodge!

  5. amyb says:

    Remember when they went after Meghan for wearing “blood diamonds” just before the Oprah interview? This has KP hands all over it too

  6. K8erade says:

    Charles is such a weasely man. The only one in that family that might (MIGHT) be fit for king is Edward and he’s just a lesser weasel.

    • Smart&Messy says:

      Edward is not really in on the shady stuff, because he is said to be kinda dumb. Even more than Andrew. Didn’t Sophie try her hand in it once, and failed spectacularly? She had some oil money related scandal years ago.

  7. Seraphina says:

    Keeping it classy, that’s the FK of England.

  8. Amy Bee says:

    I keep seeing people saying that this is the work of KP, I don’t believe this. I think it’s either CH themselves or those at BP who fear that there job is jeopardy when Charles take over. Charles is as much a criminal as Andrew. Is anybody really shocked by this?

  9. Nic919 says:

    Not showing up to a charity event in NY isn’t really a serious thing. The other charity stuff is more of a story, but if we are going to criticize royals skipping out on engagements there is plenty we can list about the Cambridges, including the time they skipped the Paralympics and lied pretending they were prepping for an upcoming tour. And they would have gotten away with it had the topless photo situation not happened.

    • LilacMaven says:

      67 British citizens were murdered on 9/11.

      I do think it speaks very poorly of him that he didn’t bother to honor those victims by attending the event, because he wanted to shoot birds, instead.

    • Saucy&Sassy says:

      Nic919, I agree. It’s interesting that the Shambridges are known for doing as little as possible, but Chuck is getting the press about this. I haven’t kept up with what he does, but I suspect he’s got a pretty good track record of doing the things he’s supposed to do. I think someone has really got it in for PC. I once thought he might be behind it, because you might as well get the dirty laundry aired before you take the throne. Now, I’m not so sure. I do know that whoever is doing this should be prepared for Chuck to throw Willi under the bus. We all know that’s what will happen.

      This seems to be a campaign to get Chuck out of there so that Willi can move up to King. It shows you how easy it must be for the gray men to manipulate PW that that’s who they want on the throne. It appears that the Mids are getting help. This could get really fascinating.

  10. Eurydice says:

    Maybe Charles is loosening his official ties, but he’ll be worth a whole lot more when he becomes King. So, he’ll have others grifting for the charities and promising an audience with the King.

  11. Call_Me_Al says:

    Andrew Andrew Andrew. “Let me back in or the stories will keep coming.”

  12. Tiffany:) says:

    “regularly hailed by his aides as one of Britain’s most successful philanthropists”

    Ummm, isn’t that kind of his job? Isn’t the royal “work” going to events for charities? Of course he should be successful at it, it is his only purpose.

    • SomeChick says:

      also, is it not the job of his aides to “regularly hail” him?

      I mean, if they can’t get a positive spin statement from his aides, who can they turn to?

  13. jferber says:

    What a heartless bitch he is. Not to just his own family, but to the whole world.