A few months ago, the royal gossip world was rocked when royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith published some third-hand gossip from a dead woman. The dead woman in question was Lady Liza Anson, one of Queen Elizabeth II’s cousins. Liza and QEII were close, and according to Liza, QEII confided in her about all manner of things, mostly involving the Duke and Duchess of Susseex. As it turned out, Liza liked to gossip with many royal reporters, as they all eagerly lined up to admit that they used Liza as a source for many years before her passing in 2020. They also admit that Liza had a particular grudge against Harry and Meghan, because the Sussexes didn’t hire her to plan any part of their wedding. Thus, she spent years bad-mouthing H&M to anyone who would listen, and she clearly misrepresented QEII’s thoughts on the Sussexes consistently. Speaking of, Sally Bedell Smith has more to say about two dead women.
The Queen was ‘hurt’ by some of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s plans for their wedding at Windsor Castle and declared exasperatedly: ‘But it’s my house – and I’m paying for it’, a close friend of the monarch’s cousin has claimed. Her Majesty is said to have disapproved of their guestlist and the couple’s preference to invite ‘random’ celebrities over family members in May 2018.
‘That was just yet another irritation for the Queen’, seasoned royal expert Sally Bedell Smith, a celebrated biographer who was popular in royal circles, said today. Harry’s grandmother was more excited about Princess Eugenie’s wedding in October that year only for the Duchess of Sussex to announce she was pregnant on the day, it was also claimed today. Ms Bedell Smith, whose 2012 biography of the Queen won the Washington Irving Medal for Literary Excellence, has claimed the timing of the Sussexes’ happy news had been ‘rude’.
She had described her conversations with Her Majesty’s late cousin Lady Elizabeth Anson, who spoke to the Queen daily towards the end of her life. The monarch was ‘upset’ at not being fully involved in Harry and Meghan’s wedding plans in the months and weeks beforehand, Sally said in a new podcast. Her cousin Lady Elizabeth Anson tried to console her by telling her she could ‘look forward’ to Royal Ascot and Princess Eugenie’s wedding. However, the Queen replied: ‘But it’s my house. And I’m paying for it’.
The Royal Family paid for the wedding, including the service, music, flowers and reception. All 600 guests were invited to a lunchtime reception at St George’s Hall, hosted by the Queen followed by an evening bash for 200 VIPs at Frogmore House, hosted by Harry’s father. But Harry and Meghan had invited people that ‘barely knew’ knew them and the Royal Family, it was claimed today.
Sally Bedell Smith told American royal commentator Kinsey Schofield’s Unfiltered YouTube show: ‘Harry and Meghan just disinvited or didn’t invite a whole group of family and cousins. The children of the Prince and Princess Michael of Kent and of the Gloucesters. She [Meghan] and Harry just “exed” them out of the guest list and they added all these other random people who barely even knew the Royal Family. That was just yet another irritation for the Queen’.
‘So she was predisposed to be very fond of him, to love him, and I think it was a real shock for her when he began treating her discourteously after he and Meghan got together’, Sally said.
Lady Elizabeth comforted her in their daily phone calls by saying she could really look forward to Eugenie’s wedding. She told the Queen: “This is going to be your family wedding. And it was because Harry and Meghan had they invited people they barely knew’. She told the Queen: “Just concentrate on Royal Ascot and then concentrate on the real family wedding in October”.
First of all, a grandmother throwing tantrums about her grandson’s wedding guest list is asinine, but this is apparently how they want QEII to be remembered. As for the all of this… it brings up some things I kept thinking about as I read Prince Harry’s Spare. One, Harry’s family really knows how to wind him up and push his buttons, and I suspect that a lot of people in the British press know how to push his buttons as well. Two, Harry has always been completely unwilling to call his family’s bluff. If QEII really was carrying on this way – and who knows if this is even partly true – Harry and Meghan should have called the queen’s bluff and just shrugged and said, “Vegas it is, nevermind about the wedding in Windsor!” And really stick to it – if these people are really going to get THIS upset over a bride and groom inviting their friends to the wedding, then just call their bluff and cancel the wedding. I bet QEII would have changed her tune in a hurry. Besides which, I’m pretty sure that Charles was the one who paid for a big chunk of the wedding, right?
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
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- Meghan Markle in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle for her wedding to Prince Harry watched by (middle row from left) Queen Elizabeth II, Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Wessex, Viscount Severn, Countess of Wessex, Lady Louise Mountbatten-Windsor, Princess Royal, Sir Tim Laurence, (front row from left) Duke of Cambridge, Prince of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall Duchess of Cambridge, Duke of York. .,Image: 515241949, 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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- Prince Harry and Meghan Markle leave St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle after their wedding.,Image: 515242352, 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, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: /Avalon
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- Meghan Markle and Prince Harry ride in an Ascot Landau carriage at Windsor Castle after their wedding,Image: 515242488, 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, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: /Avalon
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- Prince Harry and Meghan Markle depart from St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle after their wedding.,Image: 515245001, 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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- NEWS EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NO COMMERCIAL USE. NO MERCHANDISING, ADVERTISING, SOUVENIRS, MEMORABILIA or COLOURABLY SIMILAR. NOT FOR USE AFTER 31 DECEMBER 2018 WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION FROM KENSINGTON PALACE. NO CROPPING. Publications are asked to credit the photograph to Alexi Lubomirski. The photograph must not be digitally enhanced, manipulated or modified in any manner or form and must include all of the individuals in the photograph when published. This official wedding photograph released by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex shows The Duke and Duchess in The Green Drawing Room, Windsor Castle, with (left-to-right): Back row: Master Jasper Dyer, the Duchess of Cornwall, the Prince of Wales, Ms. Doria Ragland, The Duke of Cambridge; middle row: Master Brian Mulroney, the Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Elizabeth II, the Duchess of Cambridge, Princess Charlotte, Prince George, Miss Rylan Litt, Master John Mulroney; Front row: Miss Ivy Mulroney, Miss Florence van Cutsem, Miss Zalie Warren, Miss Remi Litt.
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- Queen Elizabeth II looks on during the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle.
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- Prince Harry and Meghan Markle during their wedding service at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle.
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- (Left to right) The Duke of Cambridge, the Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall, the Duchess of Cambridge, the Duke of York and Princess Beatrice sitting in St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle during the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
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- Prince Harry and Meghan Markle leave St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle after their wedding.. Picture date: Saturday May 19, 2018.
My god the dead queen speaks more now than she did when she was alive!
Can’t shut her up atm! It’s a near daily briefing!
It’s great to read that they disinvited the Kents, weren’t they the racists ones? Weren’t she the one that wore the racism symbolic brooch to a dinner where m&h was going to attend?
Yup. They keep dragging her from the beyond to badger HM, this is getting ridiculous.
Dear God, give it a rest. Everyone has moved on. Nobody cares who was on the guest list including the Queen who has passed on – hopefully to a better place.
It sound like sour grapes from more distant relatives weren’t invited. The guest list is up to the bride and groom.
Exactly. The late queen’s reputation is tarnished and cheapened by the author and her own cousin. Why Charles is not taking action to protect the Queen’s character and reputation. They think they are damaging Meghan’s character but they actually sullied the Queen’s.
Probably in his jealous, petty little mind, if he tears down Liz (whom HE HIMSELF spoke derogatorily about), people will see HIM in a better light.
Asinine? Sure. Delusional? You betcha… but we all know his fragile personality/ego are.
Newsflash, royal reporters – most weddings have a lot of people who “barely know” one side of the family. I was a bridesmaid in one of my friend’s weddings who I’ve known since I was 9 and I haven’t met all her aunts and uncles.
Sounds like they’re just mad Meghan had her own guests?
The children of the Kents are closer in age to Charles than Harry, they are the contemporaries of Andrew and Edward not Harry. They’re Harry’s second cousins, not first. But William and Kate were told to tear up the guest list and start with their friends – lol.
Princess Michael is the one who likes to run around in racist jewelry, right? Can’t imagine why they wouldn’t want her there.
But didn’t BP tell Meghan that she couldn’t invite her niece because of all the press around Toxic Tom? And wouldn’t the Duke of Whatsits’ children be unknown to Meghan? In any case, I don’t believe for a minute that Elizabeth wanted to be fully involved in the planning – that’s what she had minions for.
At this point, it’s clear that Lady Liza desperately wanted to be involved in every detail and is projecting that onto the Queen. I can believe the Queen did not care that much if she was involved. I’m sure Liza bad-mouthed every decision that was being made and tried to wind up the Queen. And maybe the queen hummed and agreed idk? But I doubt she cared as much as this scorned Liza did.
And I think that Ashley was not invited bc Meghan didn’t want to invite her mom Samantha iirc and the palace thought that would look weird.
Yes about Ashleigh, thanks. But it was still the palace that “guided” that decision. And so weird about Meghan inviting people the RF “barely knew” – I’d say that Meghan didn’t know or “barely knew” 95% of the people invited to her wedding.
I wonder if it was the palace or specifically Jason that guided that decision.
Nothing like dragging dead people into nonsense because you’re too much of a gutless coward to try to swing on your own. From what we saw, Meghan and QE2 got along just fine. She had a burner phone so she could speak to them. This is just pathetic.
At this point Sally Bedell Smith is running on the fumes of a corpse from 2020. Before I gave any of these daily briefings from the dead any attention, I want proof of a seance to ensure the briefings have at least a whiff of confirmation from beyond.
LOL @kirk. Right! I’m needing a seance too. Previous reports were that Chuckie had a big hand in the guest list. Meghan & Harry would have been happy with a smaller wedding. Could say more, these “royal experts” with their unnamed sources are trash.
Happy Meghan appears to have had a fabulous birthday.
Every biddy contributing to this bizarre storyline is sketchy and unreliable, if I’m being kind. This especially includes Kinsey Schofield. Isn’t she the one who photoshopped her face/head over Meghan’s in that engagement portrait? I might have her confused with another unhinged Meghan hater. They’re practically interchangeable.
Anyway, the damage they’re doing to QEII is shameful.
If Charles wasn’t okay with how TQ is being portrayed in these articles, it would have been reined in a long time ago. If he thinks dissing her will somehow make him look better, think again. It just further erodes respect for the monarchy, which only continued in recent years because of appreciation for QEII’s long reign and the historical events she was party to. It’s sucking a lot of money out of the UK budget supporting a man primarily in the news for the negative actions towards his younger son, and now the previous monarch is being portrayed as a perpetually complaining grandma constantly bitching behind the scenes. Maybe think of a better use for the hundreds of millions the RF get each year?
That’s what I don’t get, and it appears to be a terminal defect in that family.” If you hate them, you’ll love me”.
That’s not how it works though. All they’re doing is making people think all of them suck. William and Kate have not gotten more popular because of their coming up on 10 year long campaign to other Meghan. Charles was getting eggs thrown at him, there’s protests at every event they do (if they let you know about it in advance period), and they literally just booed the Princess of Wales and her kids at Trooping the Colour.
They can’t let the bots fool them, people think they’re a waste of space. And making people despise the one person left that people give grumbling respect and admiration to isn’t going to help.
Wow a close friend of the queens cousin said it. Sally needs to retire. She gaslit Diana some years ago.
Every time they put words in the Queen’s mouth it is to make her look bad. Charlie’s revenge?
It was a comfort to the queen that Andrew would be front and center at Eugenie wedding.
Load of BS. Royal weddings, for diplomatic reasons, always have guests who don’t know the bride and groom. The RF were the ones who wanted the big wedding to attract attention, I doubt they moaned about celebrities coming. QE was the queen and had to approve the marriage, but not things like wedding guests? Maybe the cousins not invited were less close than those who were or maybe they declined for whatever reason (think one up and probably the obvious if it involved the Kents).
Perhaps the wedding should have been held in a bigger location, then. But that wasn’t on the cards because of the Royal Family’s grotesque treatment of Harry as the Spare and need to put him and Meghan in “their place”. The Middletons invited the staff of Basil’s Bar in Mustique, for crying out loud.
Did they really? Lol, I did not know that.
Yes. Also the local pub owner and the guy that runs their post office/7-11 the shop. And a smattering of friends of Carole’s whose ski chalets and Mustique homes were gifted for their use.
Why on earth would the Middletons have any say-so over Harry’s and Meghan’s wedding guest list?
Sally is seasoned all right in a bad way. An ardent royalist hoping for honors. She said Diana caused Charles cheating afyer all and is an out and out Sussex slammer
And who paid for Beatrice’s wedding? Some prince from UAE or something… ugh
What’s so stupid about all of this is that not only are they making QEII look bitter and petty, but they’re also making Harry and Meghan MORE sympathetic, whether they realize it or not. Because all these wedding stories that they try to frame as scandalous are actually just par for the course for virtually any wedding with more than like, a dozen or so guests. There’s always a parent who wants to invite some obscure relative or work associate the couple has never met, or a sibling who wants to bring along the guy/girl they’ve been on one date with. There’s always a grandma or elderly aunt who thinks the bride shouldn’t be wearing white, or that the cake is “too modern”, or the colors scheme is inappropriate to the season. I think most of us have either had that wedding ourselves, or attended it. And we know the nasty, judgmental relative is the villain.
No, no she was not fuming. I doubt she even cared that much to be honest. They’re doing their best to act like QEII actually hated H&M (wtf is that line about how she was “predisposed to love him” – her own grandson – like gee, what a compliment…..) now that the late queen can’t speak for herself. There’s a reason none of these stories came out while she was alive and its despicable how they are using her to attack H&M.
One thing we heard from William about his wedding was that QEII told him to “tear up the guest list” that he had been given from the palace and start with their friends, and then they’d go from there. And he’s the future head of state. So I doubt she cared that H&M invited friends. And many of those celebs seemed random but actually weren’t. Idris Elba was invited because of his connection to the Prince’s Trust. George Clooney has a relationship with Eugenie and Jack and its clear Meghan and Amal got along. Beckham was invited because he’s a royal hanger-on lmao. and so on. The press just tried to make it sound more random than it actually was.
And does anyone think QEII was mad bc she wasn’t picking out the flowers or whatever?
Finally – the line about Meghan announcing her pregnancy at Eugenie’s wedding – we know that wasn’t how it played out, and we also know that Eugenie is still close with the Sussexes, so she must not have been too bothered regardless.
Honestly, the life long indoctrination Harry lived in that place, i wonder if he would have been able to take his family and leave had he not had those 10 years in active duty in the army. Away from the toxic insanity relabeled as tradition.
Instead of surrendering, he did the work, he went to therapy, and when he saw they were going to kill his wife and son the exact way they killed his mother, he got the hell out.
But even with the high stakes, i can’t imagine any step of it was easy.
Even just before their security was pulled in March, he said, there is no way they would pull the security. And then they did it.
Love when we get to see glimpses of him loving his california life.
Didn’t Harry and Meghan say that there were a lot of people at the wedding that they didn’t know? William and Kate were married at Westminster Abbey, which holds considerably more people, so that they could invite the entire extended royal family.
Well Harry did call their bluff during the wedding. Remember that bit in Spare where he mentioned that Meghan was going to wear the Spencer tiara and then at then the Queen/ Angela conveniently offered Meghan a tiara.
It’s wild to me that they would prefer that the Queen looks like a miserable old biddy, because they hate Harry and Meghan. Just get over it. Seriously I don’t believe any of this is true about Elizabeth, but even if it was, any family that’s complaining about the guest list from a wedding almost 8 years ago? Toxic with a capital T.
Then to say, she told her to focus on the ” real” royal wedding, Eugenie’s? Gee, I wonder why Meghans wedding to the at the time sixth in line wasn’t a “real” royal wedding.
This! Every single time they bring up the Queen they are painting her as a bitter, controlling old lady with anger issues. Every single time. Don’t they even see what they are doing here? Whatever else she was or wasn’t, she was seen as a beloved figure who was the only Queen most of us had ever known. Now they seem to want to change the way we remember her, not as a benevolent motherly figure but as a bitch of the first water. Sheesh!
Eigenie literally had Robbie William’s daughter as one of her bridemaids
The Queen did not pay for that wedding, the taxpayers paid for it just as they have paid for everything the RF has. But if she was bitter about the expense, she could have considered herself repaid with the money Meghan spent on renovating Frogmore for her.
The usual defense for what the Monarchy costs is how much the pageantry, pomp and circumstance brings in. With regard to the wedding I don’t recall exactly but I do think the wedding made money for the Brits in terms of money spent by tourists etc who came for the occasion etc. The wedding was a lot more popular among us peasants than I think the RF has expected it to be.
I read that it made far more than it costed which is why I get annoyed when people complain about the cost, and from what Meghan said about the Archbishop we know that Meghan would have preferred a quiet wedding.
I’m really loving how the press, through dead people, continues to expose the royals as petty, jealous and extremely small minded. They’re really writing the late queen’s legacy for her, bwahahahaha!
Wow! They are really working overtime to paint QE2 as a grumpy, miserable, racist beeyotch who deep-down truly disliked her grandson Harry.
Double down, rats.
Eventually someone will believe your bile and your precious Betty will be forever painted into that tiny, ugly corner. As it is, I’m beginning to believe that she honestly was a bigot, based on how she silently watched her grandson and his wife be subjected to ongoing vicious racial harassment….and she never said a mumbling word. Not even after Archie arrived did she raise a hand to curtail the bullshit.
Actions speak louder than words.
It is possible that she wasn’t aware of the extent of the abuse, we know now that she was dying of a painful disease and the hate campaign hadn’t spread to the ‘quality’ press at that time.
Can any of us even imagine the Queen throwing a tantrum and saying “But it’s my house!” Please.
Sounds more like a tantrum Willy might have.
Right?! Whining “but it’s my house” is absolutely something I could see Will or even Charles crying about but not her. These people are so hateful that it’s blinding them to everything else.
Who exactly is this article for? Who cares about a wedding guest list 7 years later? What was sad was that Meghan couldn’t have her niece there because of her toxic half siblings. Those other people , not our problem. Look at who Sally is talking to. Kinsey Schofield, a whole clown obsessed with Harry. These people are still trying to micromanage and control the Sussexes, even through their memories. We do not care.
What? Who is this Kinsey Schofield and why did she superimpose her face over Meghan’s?
the late Queen was famous for being hands-off with her own family, her own children, let alone her grandchildren. She was famous for delegating to staff whom she trusted and smoothing things over with astute shows of diplomatic finesse and studiously avoided confrontation. I don’t believe she was quibbling about the menu, or the dress, or the guest list. She was born in 1926. This wedding was in 2018. She likely sighed and suspended all disbelief. Whatever she said to her meddling, presumptuous, lady in waiting, was likely designed to mollify her, so that she would not go running to the tabloids with precisely this type of dirty laundry. People who are gone have all kinds of opinions attributed to them. She kept her own counsel. She was like that Kipling poem, “If.” Everyone else was losing their heads. Agreed, she could have drawn a line and enforced a kind of consensus. But then the headlines would be equally demented, queen lays down the law before Bridezilla. She understood, you can’t win when you wade in. She confined herself to a rare, tersely issued nudge. I think one of the sub plots of the Sussex saga is just how radically the wheels come off when there is a vacuum of leadership in a family. Philip was always the enforcer. I do wonder how all this would have played out, had Christopher Geidt not been forced out of his job in 2017, IIRC. He was the next enforcer in line. After Philip and Geidt bowed out, there was a leadership vacuum.
Here we go again, Diary of a dead monarch part 2-6. . I don’t know Betty sure chats more dead than she did alive
Yup. Tales from the Crypt.
Sally
slams the best of the royals. Diana. Harry. And Meghan were too good for them
Harry and Meghan make W and K look bad with their hard work and their charisma.
Well technically it’s not Betty money or chucky money. It’s the tax payers money and I am sure that Harry and Meghan wedding put a heck of a lot more into the British economy because of their wedding than chuck and Betty spent on it . And Betty cousin seems like she was one petty miserable B alive and dead
My question is did the Queen know Demi Moore and Robbie Williams and the other celebrities who were invited to Eugenie’s wedding? I really wished Harry and Meghan had stuck to their guns and insisted on the small private wedding in Botswana that they wanted. It couldn’t have been easy for Meghan to deal with two bridezillas- the Queen and Kate. At least we can stop believing that Meghan was welcomed with open arms. Every story that comes out says the opposite happened. I hope one day Meghan will talk about this.
Can you imagine how gorgeous a wedding in Botswana would have been? Sigh …
And bonus: The heads of the royal racists and rota would have exploded.
The queen is not around to confirm these stories. Keen was not a bridezilla it wasn’t her wedding but wanted to hassle meghan.
once on AbFab Bubble was reading a tabloid with the headline “queen furious.” they cant even find a new way to spin stories on her even after death.
“But it’s my house. And I’m paying for it.”
— I thought the Queen only owned her name?
Right?!? “How could they name her Lilibet? All I have is my name.”