Back in May of last year, Carole and Michael Middleton sold Party Pieces lock stock and barrel for £180K. They sold their business through an intermediary insolvency firm, which is basically the posh version of a total bankruptcy. The whole picture soon became clear – Party Pieces was mismanaged and overextended, and at the time of its sale, they owed millions to banks, creditors, small vendors and more, and all of the Middletons’ creditors just had to eat those losses. The small businesses who extended credit to the Middletons were left astonished by the scope of the Middletons’ now-collapsed house of cards, especially since many of them were given personal assurances from Carole Middleton. The guy who purchased PP, James Sinclair, later revealed that the Middletons have nowhere near the kind of money they always pretended to have. Well, here’s yet another tragic postscript: the intermediary firm which handled Party Pieces’ bankruptcy and sale isn’t going to get paid either. This is a new level of broke-ass.
The City firm handling the insolvency of the business run by the Princess of Wales’s parents will be unable to collect the total fees due for the project after incurring costs of more than £260,000. Interpath Advisory was appointed to manage the collapse of Carole and Michael Middleton’s Party Pieces business last year after it fell into administration owing creditors £2.6 million.
The firm found that the realisation of Party Pieces’ assets was insufficient to cover the advisers’ time costs of £268,928. Interpath’s team was unable, therefore, to recoup the total fees for the work by its restructuring professionals, who have charged an average hourly rate of £566.
The firm discovered that Party Piece’s insolvency involved longer hours than expected to meet statutory requirements and queries from creditors. Interpath has received fees of £51,437 and, while it is expected to recoup more over time, it has determined that it will not be able to recoup the total bill.
Carole and Michael Middleton launched Party Pieces in 1987 as a business organising children’s parties. Later it branched out into selling decorations and gifts. The company suffered a drop in sales during the pandemic and while the Middletons had been willing to provide a dowry to secure a solvent sale of the business, ultimately it fell into administration.
Party Pieces was sold through a pre-pack administration to James Sinclair, 38, an entrepreneur, for £180,000. Interpath thus had limited funds to draw upon to satisfy creditors, including trade suppliers and HM Revenue & Customs.
Julie Palmer, a partner at Begbies Traynor, a management consulting company, said: “It’s been one of the toughest few years on record for consumer-facing businesses. Many of those that survived the pandemic have taken support loans or depleted their reserves, only to be catapulted into a perfect storm of high cost inflation and supply chain volatility, combined with dwindling consumer discretionary spending as higher interest rates and the cost of living crisis hit hard. Even the best-known brands are not immune to the current malaise and, with many now needing to repay support loans, we expect to see further high-profile casualties succumbing to these pressures, unless the economic environment improves significantly and quickly.”
In previous reporting, this was always fudged: “Interpath Advisory was appointed to manage the collapse…” As in, the sale of Party Pieces was court-ordered (or whatever the British equivalent is) because Party Pieces was so far in debt, the only thing that could be done is appoint Interpath to clean up the Middletons’ mess and arrange for the fire sale of PP’s stock and name. And now the Middletons are too broke to cover Interpath’s incurred costs. Like, I keep going back to that – just how broke are the Middletons and did they really think they could keep up the charade forever?
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- Carole Middleton Royal Ascot at Ascot Racecourse – Ladies Day, Day 3 Berkshire, England – 21.06.12,Image: 308735318, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: – / Wenn / Avalon
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- Michael and Carole Middleton arriving for the christening of Prince Louis, the youngest son of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge at the Chapel Royal, St James’s Palace, London.,Image: 515593258, 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 Madrid: +34 91 533 4289, Model Release: no, Credit line: – / Avalon
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- 62362, LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – Tuesday June 7 2011. Matching Middletons! Pippa Middleton and Carole Middleton step out in matching nude shoes! The mother daughter duo were out with Pippa’s father Michael Middleton at Harry’s Bar in Mayfair. ***NORTH AMERICAN USE ONLY*** Photograph: ©Optic Photos, PacificCoastNews.com **FEE MUST BE AGREED PRIOR TO USAGE** **E-TABLET/IPAD & MOBILE PHONE APP PUBLISHING REQUIRES ADDITIONAL FEES** UK OFFICE:+44 131 557 7760/7761 US OFFICE:1 310 261 9676,Image: 525175204, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS, DIRECT SALES ONLY UNLESS STATED OTHERWISE IN CAPTION – 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 Madrid: +34 91 533 4289, Model Release: no, Credit line: Optic Photos / Avalon
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- 160660, Carole and Michael Middleton leave the Sunday church service at The Church of St. Mary Magdalene on the Queens Sandringham estate. London, United Kingdom – Sunday, January 8, 2017. UK, FRANCE, AUS, NZ, CHINA, HONG KONG, TAIWAN, SPAIN & ITALY OUT Photograph: © i-Images, PacificCoastNews. Los Angeles Office (PCN): +1 310.822.0419 UK Office (Photoshot): +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 sales@pacificcoastnews.com FEE MUST BE AGREED PRIOR TO USAGE,Image: 532796854, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS, DIRECT SALES ONLY UNLESS STATED OTHERWISE IN CAPTION – 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 Madrid: +34 91 533 4289, Model Release: no, Credit line: i-Images, PacificCoastNews / Avalon
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- Carole Middleton The State Funeral of Her Majesty The Queen, Service, West Door, Westminster Abbey, London, UK – 19 Sep 2022,Image: 724158170, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: James Veysey/Shutterstock / Avalon
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- Carole and Michael Middleton arriving for the ‘Together at Christmas’ Carol Service at Westminster Abbey in London. The service will be broadcast on ITV1 on Christmas Eve as part of a Royal Carols: Together At Christmas programme, narrated by Catherine Zeta Jones and featuring an introduction by Kate and tributes to Queen Elizabeth II.,Image: 744946541, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Kirsty O’Connor / Avalon
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- Carole Middleton arriving at Westminster Abbey, central London, ahead of the coronation ceremony of King Charles III and Queen Camilla.,Image: 774175184, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: -, Model Release: no, Credit line: Andrew Milligan / Avalon
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- Carole Middleton, Michael Middleton, Pippa Middleton and James Middleton at the Coronation of King Charles III at Westminster Abbey in London, United Kingdom, on 06 May 2023.,Image: 774203418, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: James Veysey/Shutterstock / Avalon
This was a business whose time had passed and then the pandemic killed it. Not surprising. What’s surprising is that William just let them twist in the wind considering all of this negative PR.
Agreed- I’m not at all surprised a party supply company didn’t survive the pandemic. Maybe the royals didn’t want to be seen helping one persons company and not all the others in the country? Or he just didn’t care.
What about Uncle Gary whose worth £30 million, allegedly, supposedly? But he seems like the Trump kind of rich man who is supposed to be filthy rich but won’t pay even the smallest contractor. Or he’s a total con artist like his dear sister.
Then what the heck was Carole even thinking of trying to expand into the US market in late 2022? She must’ve known by then things were in dire straights? Who expands when money is tight?
I really think this HAS to be about controlling her through the divorce. My guess is that the Mids acted up in some way and William let them know he wasn’t playing. The message to the Mids is probably that it can still get much, much worse if they don’t cooperate. Maybe even some jail time for fraud (or Marijuana ;)) could be arranged with William’s Tory buddies if they insist on being inconvenient.
The expansion to America was probably a fake good faith effort to make it seem like a going concern so when they finally declared bankruptcy the creditors would not try to claim that the Middletona converted it to an LLC to escape personal liability and it was a fraud.
This.
I thought the collapse of the family business so soon after the death of the Queen indicated some financial support from Her Majesty’s offices. Or from her own personal sources.
Her Majesty the Queen dies, that help is ended, six months later the entire business is in bankruptcy.
I don’t think that we can assume all that much from the bankruptcy. They have the right to walk away from the business debts. It’s immoral, if they could personally pay them, but it’s perfectly legal. It’s a PR problem but it doesn’t necessarily indicate a financial problem. Everyone involved may have decided that they’d rather keep that money for themselves instead of “giving it away” to lesser people.
Rich people don’t get and stay rich by spending money they don’t have to. The Middletons are bourgeoisie and the Windsors are land owners. Neither group really grasps how the proletariat views the situation, so this PR problem may be yet another case of incompetence rather than deliberate decisions.
Rnot, what’s the most interesting thing about this to me is the fact that non of these have been paid. Isn’t Pippa’s husband ‘moderately wealthy’ and he would be able to pay this? I find the fact they didn’t pay the entity responsible for getting the business sold, really worthy of thought. Why did they hire someone if they didn’t have the money to pay them? Did the Mids tell them they wouldn’t be paying them, too?
Not true. They blame the pandamic for the downfall of PP, but that’s not the story.
This is the backstory:
Company House fylings have proved that PP had been in debt for more than seven years and was not making any profit whatsoever. That’s exactly the moment when they brought in investors, who actually never got a good return on their investments.
Before that, for about 30 years – that is to say from the beginning – PP was registered as a ”Sole Trader” (Sole Proprietorship), owned by the 2 Middletons, Carole and her husband, which is crazy (not smart/fishy?) to have stayed registered as such for so long, if the business was really growing and making ”millions”, as they claimed it did. Anyway, this means that for about 30 years the Middletons did not have to report PP’s annual reports publicly/to CH, but only to the tax authorities.
Their friends in the British tabloid press and the Middletons themselves may want to keep up appearances as much as they like, but in fact the Midds companies (Pippa clossed down hers and James went bankrupt a few times too) were always mismanaged.
Anyone in bussiness knows PP was a front. Maybe it didn’t start that way but it sure did turn into one over a decade ago.
If the Midds cared they would have said or done something. Not a word. They are still living a wealthy life in their mansion,luxury holidays, designer fashion. Commoners believing and behaving as though they are untouchable because their stalker daughter married into the BRF.
It is wild to me that Will or James will not help out the Middletons. Both are multi millionaires/billionaires and they will not throw a couple hundred thousand to settle the debt?
Pippa too, her husband is terribly moderately wealthy & could have helped.
Heck, they could have split the debt 3 ways, all 3 siblings helping.
I think the opposite. Everybody knows they are broke? Why act like they have money? They’re looking for a paycheck. ultimately, the people who look bad are the royals. Having the future Queen’s family’s broke? They could leak this themselves to get some money and milk the fact that kate has cancer and is “untouchable” now and willie wanker is stuck there
I have a feeling that William is rather tight fisted, I still dont believe he has ever helped them financially. As far as Pippas hubby,I think his family probably warmed him to not help anymore after the James business failures.
He helped them buy middleton Manor.
I am not sure its as simple as getting the 2 wealthy sons-in-law to throw some money at the Middletons and thereby helping to clear any of these embarrassing debts. If it were that simple then it wd mean that any of the creditors could hv demanded by now that a lien be placed on the middleton’s personal assets. But Party Pieces is an LLC so none of the middletons’ personal assets can be called on including any money they might receive from their wealthy sons-in-law.
Even if bully or james throws a couple millions at the middletons for party pieces’ debts, that money would, first of all, need to be classified:…..is it revenue? but based on what? bcos the company has no more stock for sale; is it a loan? is it a grant? There are commercial laws for dealing with the different types of monies that a company intakes, especially a company that has been declared bankrupt.
In any event, any fresh funds entering Party Pieces right now would have first call on it by the administrators themselves, who we’re learning now, might not be paid a balance of over 150K Pounds that theyre owed. Then theres payment to creditors based on a priority list which i’m sure the administrators have already compiled.
I was thinking about this too, any money from the family into the company would either be a loan or investing for a part of the company. Either way its a liability on the books for the company.
I think Will must be very, very pissed off with the Middletons. I don’t think this is him just being cold and indifferent or tightfisted.
Pippa’s hubby, I have no explanation for.
It depends on how his family has structured their wealth. My understanding is that it was his parents/grandparents who were wealthy – he didn’t do it himself. It’s likely that the family assets are well protected from encroachment by anyone’s in-laws. A responsible trustee of a family trust will not sign off on payment of any non-family member’s debts. They will sign off on a child’s nanny’s salary or a month long vacation in the Caribbean without a second thought. Paying the housekeeper’s credit card bill for the family’s regular expenses (like groceries) is standard. They will probably even sign off on paying for the Midds joining the family on vacation as the children’s grandparents, but the trustees will not sign off on paying the Middleton debts.
Maybe after playing second fiddle to her sister for years (the one who snared the Prince clearly the fave) she doesn’t feel like helping Mommie dearest out. Especially when Carole is all about Kate’s children and is never seen with Pippa’s.
This whole thing reminds me of my own family: my mom always acted so much richer than she was, because my aunt always bailed her out. And at one point, she stopped, because she’d had enough of my mom being so irresponsible and selfish. My mom constantly asks me too, but when I ask her for bills (so I could pay them directly) or a budget of some kind, all I get is “oh it’s so complicated, you won’t understand.” For me, that’s a giant red flag and a hell no (we have other issues too, but that’s for another day.)
When it comes to Will and/or James, we don’t know how much they’ve already given, or if Carole is actually just really irresponsible/ bad with money, constantly expecting others to support her lifestyle. We shouldn’t expect rich relatives to pay for other people’s screw ups. I’m team in-laws on this one. Will and James shouldn’t have to put their own families at risk because their in-laws are irresponsible and clout-chasing.
I completely agree with you until we get to the part where Kate is the wife of the next king. These people are all about appearances, and he doesn’t care if he lets his wife’s family sink anymore.
If we were talking about anyone else, I would say that it would be enabling to step in to help the in-laws, but this is an entire system built on enabling. They just don’t care about protecting a branch of the system anymore, which is the fascinating part of all of this, to me.
… but I thought they wanted to provide some kind of financial incentive, like a dowry, for the potential buyer?
Where would that kind of money have come from?
In other news, they’re totally play-acting at being aristos: rich in assets (courtesy of Bulliam the Incandescent), cash poor.
So good to see they’re back in the news, hopefully they will be dragged a bit more.
“play-acting at being aristos”? I’d say they’ve finally made it! Aristos are famous for being “asset rich, cash poor”.
Yeah, but that’s after having come from money, not from being a working class commoner.
Interesting that the BM is now reporting about the Middletons after radio silence for months (aside from the Sicko Uncle stories). Sounds like they may be treating William and Kate with kid gloves but the rest of her family is fair game again.
Reminding the Mids to keep their yaps shut about whatever they know.
Perhaps the Middletons had counted on their son-in-law bailing them out. Imagine their surprise when that didn’t happen. It must have been a sharp wake up call for Carole who probably saw this as the first moves toward a divorce between Pegs and KKKhate.
Perhaps the same reason Sr. Markle declared bankruptcy (for a third time) over a sum less than $4K the day Meghan became engaged to Harry. That family thought they had it made. Instead they had to tell lies about her to the BM to get paid anything.
I think that they thought as long as they had Peg in their corner that this would never come to light but they lost Peg and it all went south for them. I believe they lost Peg because he wants out of this marriage. I wouldn’t put it past Peg to get this out there so he could say they lied to me about their worth and use it as a tool to get out of the marriage.
More fodder to distract, because Willy could end this last year & chose not to.
Whatever is happening now has been happening behind the scenes for a long time.
Probably since he cheated.
Clear message here: Kate is out. She has none of her own money, & the Willy bank is closed.
How’s she enjoying that crown now.
Could also explain a lot of the PR stunts from her and Ma – they are pushing hard for a big payout, a payout big enough to keep Ma in same lifestyle as Kate enjoyed. We know William gave them the money to buy Middleton Manor – I think they expected him to dole out the Duchy money and when he didn’t they panicked. I would not surprise me that Carole is trying to negotiate for the RF to pay off her debts as part of any divorce settlement.
If they can’t pay the insolvency firm that means they can’t and haven’t paid their creditors. They could sell their big house and down size but they won’t – Adelaide Cottage isn’t big enough for Ma and there is no way Kate is getting any rooms in the big castle.
Do they get to keep their big-ass house? Will the royal kids be allowed to stay at the house of their broke-ass grandparents?
The royals could pay this from chump change under the sofa. So could Terribly Moderately Wealthy son in law.
Really? They don’t have 300,000 dollars? Heck, I’m a teacher and I have way the hell more than that in my retirement funds!
So what about that missing Nizam necklace? Would it be possible to sell such a thing for money, or is it so famous that no jeweler would touch it? Has anyone looked for it at Middleton Manor?
This is really bad news for Kate too. She doesn’t have 300,000 dollars of her own money to pay her parents debts? So she really has nothing other than what the royals give her. That’s a shitty, shitty situation for any stay at home mom to be in. She’s completely dependent on the royals, which means she’s completely at their mercy.
Rich people stay rich because they don’t pay for anything if they are not legally forced to. Sure, they are a little embarrassed, but there is no way they are gonna sell their house to pay for their own debt.
They get to keep everything. Party Pieces was a limited company. Once the company assets are gone, the creditors are out of luck.
The Middletons themselves may be broke but equally they may be sitting on millions.
This. The BUSINESS doesn’t have the money to pay the insolvency firm, they could have all sorts of funds tucked away but those are personal and not linked to the business.
I imagine the manor is heavily mortgaged – perhaps not, but wouldn’t be surprised.
There’s every chance it has no mortgage at all. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Middletons are sitting on plenty of money. They pretty clearly structured their financial lives so that any issues with Party Pieces wouldn’t touch them in any way.
There would have been no need for them to do that without assets to protect.
In this whole Kate saga the Middletons have been overly quiet, this bankruptcy probably has something to do with it…
I guess the Middletons will have to wait & hope George pays their debts when he comes of age. They miscalculated if they thought Peg would help them out.
The Middletons have no reason to care about the debts. They don’t affect them in any way except possibly by way of public criticism and I’m pretty sure they just intend to keep their heads down and outlast the gossip.
I think they see it as being at ‘Sophie being indiscreet to an undercover reporter’ level not Prince Andrew level. Whether they are right or not may depend on what is going on behind the scenes. If the Palace go back to shutting down adverse reporting, I suspect this will all be forgotten.
These debts don’t affect them. It’s all linked to the business, not them personally.
They are still blaming pandemic for the failure, but I remember reading they received the pandemic funds from the government. So, how come did a successful company before the pandemic fail so hard? They analyze every little info about H&M’s businesses, they don’t spend a minute to discover what was wrong with future queen’s family business. And they still talk about how Meghan should have been more patient about the media abuse.
People were wondering how a mail order company could do any real business in the Amazon world, and the answer was the third party customer lists, at least until the GDPR prevented that from happening in 2017 or 2018. That is when their business started to have issues. Amazon was still delivering things during the pandemic and it’s not like party pieces ever had a storefront where the lockdown would have prevented customer access. Their business was always online and by mail, which could have continued, had it been a viable business pre pandemic. It wasn’t by 2018 though.
They charge an “average hourly rate of £566?” That company is doing fine.
Pretty stupid of the insolvency firm not to collect weekly for their work while there were still funds. It doesn’t make sense that they wouldn’t pay themselves first as the nature of the business is working with companies with dwindling assets or too much debt.
I’m a nobody but am currently involved in a legal issue. My lawyers bill monthly, even if there’s been no action (i.e., the total is $0.00). It is odd that these folks didn’t.
That is the part of this article that I find the most surprising!
The overhead for the whole company, rent, electricity, support staff, etc. is built into those hourly fees. The actual salary of the person whose work is being billed is often a small portion of the billed amount.
What strikes me is that a normal business would have tried to pivot to something else as it became clear Amazon was eating everyone’s lunch. But the Middletons had drained all the cash out of the business and basically got lucky the first go round, so they had no room to maneuver.
Another data point for the Windsor’s famous frugality biting them in the ass. Will could and should help them out, but he won’t.
I think the recent business problems made Willnot finally realize how much he was played by the Middletons – them claiming to be such successful private business owners, the fake “welcoming” him onto a “tight family unit” so unlike his own; and all in order to seduce him into settling for the perfect “English Rose” daughter who let him treat her like a call girl, while he looked for someone more connected/ aristocratic. Unfortunately, Carole got too complacent describing herself was “the mother he never had” with all the feeding him cheese toast and “resting his head in her lap”and Kate as the “lynchpin” of the Monarchy. The business collapse was inevitable as they used it to borrow money in order to live beyond their means. Until they couldn’t anymore.
The insolvency company would have known of the limited funds so I think this story was written because of the “more complicated than they expected” comment relating to unwinding Party Pieces.
I know I sound like a broken record-but I’ve said from the moment Kate came on the scene, there is ZERO chance her parents had the money to have that aristo lifestyle they were fronting. From the cars to the big house to the London flat, the shares in a racehorse (!), clothes, trips-my guess is they have had MASSIVE debt forever. I think the press was ordered not to poke around and now the mitts are off.
^^ This.
I suspect the humiliation of the Middleton’s is also now a Billy bargaining chip.
We’re not seeing Kate ever again or at least until the deal has been struck and those separation papers have been signed.
Anyone else remember that barn full of cannabis plants in Bucklebury? Like a spin-off of The Gentlemen spin-off? There’s no way a bunch of crappy paper plates you can buy at the dollar/pound store was ever a going concern. There are so many weird sub-plots to The Crown, it’s nuts.
Doesn’t this company have a plan to get paid when they handle bankruptcies? Like they get paid off the top?
I posted the same above @Lulu. Does Interpath Advisory make a habit of announcing when their fees don’t get paid? Or is there actually a real live working journalist left at The Times who followed up with sources, which resulted in this tidbit of news that was very widely reported?
I really doubt they hit the media. Companies that deal with insolvency are more than aware of the limited funds of their clients.
This does suggest someone is keeping an eye on Party pieces and its dissolution.
I would like someone to do a deep dive into this whole mess (whole mess – Middleton finances). Were they EVER as rich as they pretended to be? have their whole lives been based on credit, Uncle Gary, the hope that their rich son in law would help them out?
Very notable that the royal family has not stepped in to help with these debts, not that Charles has to of course – but these are bad headlines for the family of the future queen and you would think the Firm would want to prevent those. But apparently not.
This doesn’t sound right. Insolvency practitioners wouldn’t take on a case unless the money is already there to pay them. And they have to have an initial contract for the job with their fees spelled out, so how did they misjudge the amount of time it would take to resolve the case?
Assets and the book value may have been inflated.
I suspect the firm did not question it because it was the Midds.
Inflated values would be fraud, wouldn’t it? And I think insolvency practitioners are licensed and appoint by the court. – they wouldn’t just say “oh, well – it’s the Midds, William will cover it” – because why would he cover bankruptcy costs when he didn’t lift a finger to prevent the bankruptcy in the first place?
@Eurydice you;d have to show intent for the fraud – seen this so many times.
This will be written down to negligence as some previous accountant somewhere will be blamed.
I think the Middleton’s pulled a Trump and used their royal connections to get the firm to take PP on. The whole thing was a setup so that they could save face.
I don’t believe the Middletons were ever multimillionaires and they lived above their means to keep up with the aristos.
It sounds like some kind of in-house Ponzi scheme. As soon as money came in, it had to go right out to keep up appearances. No wonder the employees said Carole was such a slave driver boss, she need to watch every penny.
This story going public has always been a glaring red flag. Catch and K*ll is a known tactic for any VIP, let alone one with an entire rota to rely on for cover. I mean, a poster campaign?!? That was intentional public humiliation of Kate’s mother.
I think Will/KP was in the beginning stages of a Kate takedown when the whereskate chaos followed by tragic cancer video sidelined his efforts (temporarily).
The frankenphoto was completely unnecessary from a technical perspective. It’s like planting fingerprints at the scene of a crime, ‘trying’ to pass off a ridiculous fraud as official media. And then to immediately have “kate” take responsibility for the editing personally, instead of blaming it on some nameless staffer, and THEN to have additional photos implicated which would be even worse because they were historic images of QEII of events that we know now did not happen – that’s a smear campaign.
And now the cancer video, initially heralded as above reproach mostly because people (rightly, perhaps intentionally) were aghast at questioning the story of a cancer patient, has had credible flaws revealed, and as experts start questioning the unquestionable, all the supposed explanations have these weird clarifications and asterisks or are otherwise shaky themselves.
And so this crops up again. I wonder if Kate’s video beginning to get questioned gave Will the opening he’s needed to restart his attack?
The Rota could bury this story if they want, but highlighting tells us there are tensions between KP and the Rota.
The Rota speak through coded language to the great unwashed and this weeks messages are
– deliver the goods or we’ll throw Ma under the bus
– deliver us the scoop on access to Archie and Lili
These people that the Middletons owe need to get the courts to seize the cars and the house and sell them and pay off what Carole and Mike owe them . It’s ridiculous that they continue to live in the lap of luxury when they owe so many people.
Legally the Middletons don’t owe a penny. The *company* owes the money and when it’s gone, it’s gone.
I have no idea if the Middletons are broke or not (it wouldn’t surprise me if they are) but legally they could be sitting on untouchable millions.
The same goes for the insolvency company. The Middletons don’t owe them anything, Party Pieces does.
Morally it’s a different matter of course.
When you consider the fact that the middletons debts wouldn’t even make a dent in Williams annual interest on his many, many, many millions you realise just how bad things are between Billy and bone. Quick question, WHERE IS BONES DAD? +? += mummy has been seen, the siblings have been seen, gross uncle hookers and blow has been seen, but WHERE IS HE
There have been consistent rumours for years that the Midds are separated.
Apparently Mike Midd’s new partner is an event planner, a woman that has been photographed with them at events.
Remember that Christmas event at the WAbbey when Mike Midd was the only one masking among the whole family? That’s when it became glaringly obvious to everyone watching the royals and their adjacents. Minus the rotten rats, who are not only rats, but also monkeys – blind, dumb, deaf and curiously incurious, unless it’s about H&M&A&L.
Yes, I remember reading years ago that Kate’s parents had split but then the story just died. If it gets resurrected again, then we’ll really know that Kate is on her way out the door.
Blimey Mary P – has Mike gone missing too?? 🥹
My take on this is a bit different than a lot of yours. I don’t think Pippa, James, or William have a problem helping out the Middletons, I just think they’re all entitled enough not to care about the people who are owed money. None of them have a moral objection to those people being stiffed.
I agree, it wouldn’t surprise me if all three of them are financially supporting the senior Middletons so they can continue to enjoy their aristocratic lifestyle. No one stepping in to pay off debts doesn’t have to mean they aren’t putting their hands in their pockets in other ways.
Of course not, but you’d think that at least William would care his wife’s parents being involved in this. And considering how he’s able to keep the press away from certain stories that he hasn’t done that for this one says something.
True, grifters do not care about the people they con.
I think this is the correct take. One of the main reasons people set up limited companies in the UK is to shield their personal assets in case of lawsuits, insolvency, etc. on the part of the business. The Midds are probably doing just fine, unless they personally guaranteed some of those debts, which I think is very unlikely for a business that had been a going concern for over 35 years. And as someone mentioned above, accounting for a loan from wealthy family members directly to the business would have been messy — probably instead there would have been a personal loan to the Midds, who then would have put more capital into the business. I think they decided it would just be too hard to make it profitable again in the current climate, and washed their hands of it. They’re certainly not about to dip into their personal wealth to pay off small vendors, they’re just upset they’ve been getting named and shamed in their hometown.
It just seems odd to me that William had no problems shielding Rose Hanbury from gossip but won’t do the same for his own wife’s family.
Totally agree with this, Steph.
This is how rich people, and people who aspire to be rich, handle things. They take care of their own, and screw everyone else.
Steph, well, that will work with what the aristos think, but what about the rest of the UK population? I would think they will identify with the small shop owners who are not getting paid and it seriously impacts them. This is bad PR for the future Queen-Consort. I’m sure there are people who will take a lackadaisical attitude about that debt, but there will be more who will not.
Also why didn’t millionaire GG help out little sister? Why if he shilling a living on reality TV? Is he broke too?
He may well have done. It’s just that if the money went to the Middletons, they have no legal obligation to use it to pay the creditors of Party Pieces.
Party Pieces may be bankrupt while the Middletons sit on millions. There is no way to tell as their personal assets are not considered.
Something to bear in mind is that all these stories relate to how much money Party Pieces has (or hasn’t) got, *not* the Middletons themselves. They may be broke but they may be sitting on untouchable millions (plus if their lifestyle is being funded by relatives, that’s untouchable too).
In their circles people are probably applauding them for having gotten out from their personal liability and they had probably been advised for years to convert it to an LLC. But they wanted the profits for themselves.
1. Is their name on the deed for Middleton Manor? Wasn’t the gossip years ago that Will-not used his inheritance from Diana to buy it for them? Will-not has big time leverage if he owns their home. 2. This story is retaliation for a few recent “embiggening” Carole stories. William has complete control of the narrative. He just isn’t good at PR. 3. It is a good thing the kids have been totally kept out of the public eye, but William is a pure SOB. May he be a better father than son, brother, cousin, grandson or in-law.
Whilst absolutely it’s terrible that they left small businesses owing, and the impact on those businesses would likely have been heavily felt, I just can’t sneer or criticise them as some kind of losers, especially in comparison to the Monarchy, whose wealth is stupendous, built on colonialism, genocidal empire, partaking in and profiting from slave trade, extraction of natural resources, creating and emcouraging divides within communities. The long term political, social, environmental and social mpacts on the lands and people the pillaged by them is…. just astonishing. So they tried to make a business. So they tried to social climb. It seems an empty ideal, I wouldn’t try it. But the pandemic happened, times change, and now they eat thier hat. So many large businesses went the same way. What’s astonishing is that they are viewed as some kind of pathetic ( Middleton values are not my values) but the Monarchy on the whole os respected, upheld. Though it’s all ill gotten and likely cursed. I’m.not surprised Charles & Will & the whole lot seem devoid of true compassion- the history of thier family tells us its so.
The photo of Carole climbing out of the car. I love her dress.
It’s important to understand the ownership of Party Pieces to understand what went on here. Party Pieces was privately owned by Kate’s parents (and any other investors, like maybe Gary) as a privately owned solo proprietorship. That meant they didn’t have to file public records but it also meant they were individually liable if something happened to it. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, in about 2018, it became a limited liability company. Around the same time, limitations on the selling of people’s information went into effect. It’s likely that a bulk of the PP profits was from selling the information of its upper middle class yummy parents clientele. The Middleton converted it to an LLC knowing that revenue stream was failing, took on some investors to make it look like a good faith effort to keep it afloat, and then got to walk away unscathed. They knew the writing was on the wall and got out from under personal liability. They personally owe none of these debts and the debts will never be paid.
Yeah, I think people get that but the stories are that Carole used her status as mother of the future queen consort/ grandmother of the future king to convince people she was good to make payments. So she was inserting her persona into a business deal. It leaves a bitter taste for her to walk away from the whole thing. So a little mud on her and Mike’s reputations is a small price to pay.
It was shabby behaviour. Very shabby.
Weren’t there stories a few months before they went bust about Carol ringing round suppliers asking for extended 90 day credit?
One son in law is the first in line for be king and the other son in law is also a millionaire yet none of them are willing to help them save the humiliation that says something but the island rats only want to go after what they were promised which is the Sussexes.
They blame the pandamic for the downfall of PP, but that’s not true at all.
Let me give you the backstory:
Company House fylings have proved that PP had been in debt for more than seven years and was not making any profit whatsoever. That’s exactly the moment when they brought in investors, who actually never got a good return on their investments.
Before that, for about 30 years – that is to say from the beginning – PP was registered as a ”Sole Trader” (Sole Proprietorship), owned by the 2 Middletons, Carole and her husband, which is crazy (not smart/fishy?) to have stayed registered as such for so long, if the business was really growing and making ”millions”, as they claimed it did. Anyway, this means that for about 30 years the Middletons did not have to report PP’s annual reports publicly/to CH, but only to the tax authorities.
The British press and the Middletons may want to keep up appearances as much as they like, but in fact the Midds companies (Pipa’s shot her’s down and James went bankrupt a few times) were always mismanaged.
Now I’m wondering were Carol & Mike pulling a “Jen Shah” for 30 yrs? 🤔
Exposed for who they really are- con-artists. Maybe they’ll start selling bibles like Trump or begging for ANY donations 😀.
I wonder what/who financed Carole’s latest facial work …
Time to get uncle Gary out to scream about how rich they all are.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1333511/amp/Kate-Middletons-parents-sell-customers-personal-information-20k.html
Middletons were trading data for many years… DM reported on it repeatedly