We were told, around September 23, that Prince William had quietly traveled to Scotland to spend some time one-on-one with his father. The briefings felt like they were coming from Kensington Palace, in an attempt to make it sound like William and King Charles are perfectly aligned and super-close, especially after William spent weeks screaming, crying and throwing up over Charles’s brief meeting with Prince Harry. Well, the storyline fell apart quickly, as it was revealed that William had actually gone up to Balmoral for a shooting party with some friends, and he had barely spoken to his father, who was staying at Birkhall at the time. Tom Sykes revealed as much in his Royalist Substack, and other outlets eventually followed suit. Well, Sykes is taking a victory lap over his reporting, and he’s spilling some interesting behind-the-scenes tea.
Readers of this Substack have known since last week that Prince William’s visit to Scotland, pitched by the palace as an intensive strategy retreat with the king, was nothing of the sort. In fact, as I revealed on The Royalist, the Prince of Wales didn’t even stay at his father’s home, Birkhall, instead being lodged at Balmoral, and spent far more time shooting grouse with his friends on the moors of Balmoral than he did hunkered down with his dad.
This weekend, the London Times confirmed a crucial part of my story. In an article about the Eugene Levy interview on AppleTV+, the paper noted, “Last month William travelled to Scotland without his wife and children to visit the King and catch up with friends, staying at Balmoral while Charles was at Birkhall.”
The palace has been aggressively trying to discredit my detailed and accurate reporting, which reveals significant differences of opinion and tensions between Prince William and his father in recent weeks.
This follows a spat I had with the king’s communications secretary, Tobyn Andreae, after describing King Charles’ cancer as “incurable.” Andreae objected to this on grounds of taste, not accuracy, and kicked me out of the palace’s WhatsApp group (it had long since degenerated into naked propaganda, so it was not a huge loss). I believe I was used as an example to threaten other journalists not to report on “demise planning” for the King’s death (predictably, given the craven British press’s access-at-any-price attitude, this has been entirely effective. You won’t read a sausage about it anywhere else.)
The king’s staff are, of course, entitled to manage the media however they like, but my sources are not and have never been, by and large, press officers. I’m a few years older than William, but I went to Eton and know many of the people and their wider families who William and Harry went to school with. Tobyn should be well aware of this, as he went there too. It is through these contacts, not palace flunkies, that I put together my work, including my account of the conflicts between Charles and William. These include their profound disagreement on fundamental policy issues, their diametrically opposite attitudes to pomp and ceremony, a variance of opinion on the importance of attending Aston Villa games, and William’s despair over his father’s cataclysmically awful handling of the Prince Andrew affair—and his concerns that his father was going to indulge in the same weakness, as he sees it, towards Harry….
By choosing to “punish” me by no longer communicating with me, the palace scored a spectacular own goal by losing any means to even try to influence me, just as I was about to launch into this major story.
Instead, as far as I can tell, they went around briefing other newspapers; the story I had been faithfully reporting was complete nonsense, William and Charles are so close you couldn’t fit a cigarette paper between them and then, to prove it all, they leaked that William was headed to Scotland for a three day summit with his father, at which father and son would bond over brave ideas for the future (and PTSD flashbacks to the Way Ahead Group be damned).
I love a royal process story, actually. I love knowing how the royal-reporting sausage is made, because we can see the sad, bland royalist propaganda sausages everywhere. The product of the palace-rota WhatsApp, the palace talking points sent out to their most loyal stenographers, the enforcement of the palace’s party line. What’s interesting is that the Times went out of their way to confirm Sykes’ reporting on Charles and William, that they were not having a sit-down summit whatsoever. It’s also interesting that Sykes was kicked out of the rota WhatsApp, and that his sources are seemingly all Etonians… with more connections to William, more than anyone else.
Photos and screengrabs courtesy of AppleTV+.
Hmmm… now that he has been “kicked out”does that mean that he will start telling the truth about Peg and Charles for real? Will he have little temper tantrums and spill tea that needs spilling? I guess time and how angry he is for being “kicked out” will tell.
He has been Will’s man for some time anyway. I don’t think Charles cares about him. He has his own allies.
It sure sounded that way from what I just read, like he was putting them on notice for deleting him from the WhatsApp group chat.
This is so hilariously immature, I wonder if there are any actual adults anywhere in the royal family and rota. Someone seriously wrote an article about being kicked out of a WhatsApp group! I love it!
@Hypocrisy, yes!
Also wondering if there’s a bigger threat implied: if this was listed as a 3-day work “summit” with the King in the court papers (or whatever it is that tracks how much “work” these grifters do), but really W was hanging out with friends and not working/barely working, that’s a pretty big falsehood.
(That said…does anyone care?)
Or Sykes is making an even bigger threat, namely that he’s sitting on something really big about William. Right now Sykes is drip-drip-dripping about William, but to what end? The Balmoral “weekend with daddy” scam is only good for a news cycle, and the rota and Sykes all know that. Saying “I’ll bang on about the Charles-William rift unless you let me back into the rota” isn’t much of a threat because, let’s face it, Sykes isn’t the Daily Mail and you have to be paying attention to know the rift is even going on. Unless Sykes is still basically a 13-year-old, he must be playing a longer game.
At this point, even if he doesn’t go nuclear, he can potentially blow up and embarrass some of the royal reporters. The whole “summit” of William and Charles to bond together in Scotland was farcical. But its a narrative that they were happy to comply with and dutifully write about. At the very least, he could keep blowing up that spot. Until he’s invited back to the whatsapp lol!
A world where Sykes (a) isn’t part of the rota, and (b) isn’t getting direct calls from William and William’s friends, could be an interesting world.
You guys might be right, Sykes could just be threatening the rota to let him back in. But Sykes really seems to be taking aim at William now (exposing the Charles-William rift, the “weekend with daddy” scam, and snarking about “the relative importance of the Pope’s funeral). I don’t think the rift with William/Jason can be easily healed.
A Sykes-on-the-loose could be really interesting to watch. Sykes is definitely a bomb-thrower. I’ve said it before, there might be a lot of money in blowing up the rota system. Scobie’s book is now a few years old, and Sykes has different and possibly better connections among William’s friends and the media. Sykes’ sisters Plum and whats-her-name are key socialites, for one thing. But also, Scobie paid the price by having most royal sources completely cut him off, and Sykes may not want that. So there could also be a future where the rota lets Sykes back in (even if William/Jason never forgive him), and Sykes agrees to be on his best behavior, publishing the nonsense about William and the Sussexes without questioning it.
It gets interesting, right? Because if you are someone who is an actual journalist, and not a stenographer – why would you want to be let back in only to parrot “naked propaganda” as he calls it? But at the same time you do need some level of access. And like you said, Scobie paid a price and had a plan for post royal-reporting life. I dont know if Sykes has it.
Yeah, Scobie is doing something in Hollywood these days. Probably not an option Sykes has.
“I went to Eton and know many of the people and their wider families who William and Harry went to school with. Tobyn should be well aware of this, as he went there too. It is through these contacts, not palace flunkies, that I put together my work, including my account of the conflicts between Charles and William.”
And through these contacts, he also reported on the Rose story, just like Dan Wootton. Then, suddenly, both men started getting direct quotes from “Will’s friends” talking sh*t about Harry and Meghan all day every day. Pity, Tom isn’t allowed to write like this in his ACTUAL column in Daily Beast.
Uh oh, trouble in paradise 😅🤣😂
And the new KP briefing spree today to People mag from the usual ‘sources’ and sycophants is in full flow. ‘William and Charles are so close’, etc.
Clearly, People mag is still on the WhatsApp, lol.
Suspicion confirmed: These people ARE really still stuck in high school. No wonder they have so many weird issues.
(Yes, I understand it’s ETON but it does clarify the larger class-system issues a little more for this American.)
Sykes got kicked out of Eton for drink and drugs, but it looks like he stayed long enough to make friends. He wrote a book about his addict days.
Huh? I speculated yesterday that Sykes is on crack, not knowing that he is “in recovery”. Personally, I have a strong belief that most of these people, yes Sykes included, are abusing drugs or alcohol or both and most of their batsh!t articles are written under the influence. That’s my belief and I stick to it.
Proof positive that William is NOT okay. Why does someone moving have to result in punishment? What a controlling nutter.
My favorite line of the day… “a variance of opinion on the importance of attending Aston Villa games”…!!!!! Sitting back to watch this public open warfare on Wills!
Best line!
I laughed out loud at this – Sykes is a reporter scorned!
Sykes sounds like he’s in need of a WhatsApp SUPPORT group for the formerly royal-adjacent.
Yeah, Sykes could have phrased this as “a difference of opinion about the importance of attending the Pope’s funeral” but he chose not to. Hmmmm.
Oh dear. Sykes was kicked out of the WhatsApp group! I wonder if there are separate WhatsApp groups though. One for Charles and BP v one for William and KP. He’s out of one of them anyways. “William’s friend” is from Eton then, lol. I just always figured William told William’s friend what to say to Sykes.
Oh my God this is so petty and bitchy.
Uh! Tom Sykes is spilling the beans. He must be quite pi**ed off. More of that!
Hell hath no fury like an Etonian kicked out of a WhatsApp group!!!
LOL!
HOW DARE THEY
DON’T THEY KNOW HOW RICH HIS FAMILY IS
😭😭😂😂 Such weirdos, really.
My friend was in Prince William’s grade at Eton and said he sucked. Just another entitled rich kid.
But he’s black so Eton was a nightmare.
He said Eddie Redmayne was nice tho.
Who sucked? Prince William or Tom Sykes? Sykes has written a book about being kicked out of Eton for drink and drugs, so he may not have been the best classmate. Thanks! Sorry your friend faced racism there.
Tom Sykes says he is a few years older than William so they could not possibly have been in the same class (grade). Rachel is referring to Prince William.
Trying to remember but I’m pretty sure it was Becky English who first wrote about William going up to Scotland to be with his dad. Which tracks.
Doesn’t English run the WhatsApp group? I guess that makes it more likely to get an “exclusive” if you are setting the party line for your fellow reporters and then cut off their access if they don’t echo it.
I don’t know if she runs it but Scobie referred to her as the de facto head of the rota and talked about how she was against smaller online publications being included within the rota. So she is a gatekeeper for the rota, not allowing anyone in to give her or the other’s competition. That’s without even touching how she just happened to see William at the hospital while she had a doctor’s appt. or the fact that she is very specially named as one of the journalists in Harry’s DM case for allegedly committing unlawful acts of privacy invasion. Imagine that.
Is Peg a grown man or a rebellious teenager? These conflicts over football games and punishing Harry are juvenile and ridiculous.
Ah that explains his recent Flip flop writing over the last few weeks.
What Sykes is saying in this article sounds like a threat to me 🤣🤣🤣 the chickens have come home to roost 😁😁
@Swaz
True. Little tommypsycho might sound as if he’s putting the former-dailyFAIL-editor-now-chucky’s-media-manager on notice that he has beans to spill, in retaliation for being kicked out of the royal-and-rota whatsapp group.
It is, of course, the natural move that any little petty bitch would make. But I find it interesting that psychotommy would give a warning instead of just going ahead and start spilling.
Consider: If indeed the whatsapp group “had long since degenerated into naked propaganda,” as psychotommy said and which we’ve always believed to be the purpose of the royal-and-rota whatsapp group, then psychotommy has scores and scores of stories to spill……..about how the palace propaganda campaign targeted H&M.
So andreas knows that tommy could spill these beans; tommy knows that andreas knows he could spill these beans. But how much do you wanna bet that tommy wont spill these beans. And it wont be because andreas would threaten him (altho he will.) But the reason tommy wont spill is that he knows of the power of the palace to use its minions to disappear him; ir at least, put him out of business.
Never forget, the palace critters that run the monarchy see the slightest thing that might cause onlookers to get a peak behind the curtain, as a threat that must be eliminated.
Yeah, unfortunately I don’t see him going fully unleashed, and tbh, without evidence of anything, the lawyers would be swarming, think about Colbert, but he is trying to carve out a unique space for himself within the royal reporting ecosystem and I do like getting the glimpses into the sausage being made even if I don’t trust his personal ethics or motivations and alignments.
Yes, for a moment I dared to dream of a world where Sykes, who is a bomb-thrower after all, blows up the rota system AND exposes the coordinated palace-tabloid hate campaign against the Sussexes. Surely Sykes has lots of receipts, like screen captures from that Whatsapp group and anything William/Jason texted him. And there would be a lot of money in a book on the subject, or even drip-dripping it through his substack (I would subscribe).
Then I fell back to earth. Sykes probably doesn’t want to burn all the bridges that allow him to earn a living as a reporter, and he can’t do a Scobie and move to Hollywood to make movies or whatever Scobie is doing there. And Sykes’s socialite sisters (Plum, Alice and Lucy) won’t want to be ostracized along with him. The more realistic future is probably one where Andreae/Becky English invite him back into the rota WhatsApp, on the condition that he behaves and parrots every lie about the Waleses and the Sussexes, and Sykes agrees because he has to make a living. So I guess we can enjoy the ride for now.
It’s a lovely dream anyways. Fascinating to watch it play out.
Hummm, doesn’t sound like Tobyn Andreae will be much of an improvement over The Wasp after all. So sad.
@WaterDragon
Tobyn Andreae and clive alderton (the Wasp) have different portfolios. Alderton has been serving as the monarch’s (chucky and cowmilla) private secretary since betty died and before that, he served them in the same capacity from 2015. So he’s wholly and solely chucky’s brain.
Andreae is the communications secretary for chucky and cowmilla and, by extension, the monarchy………he’s the royal media relations manager, if you will. As such, he’s the head communicator for the monarchy and the liaison between the monarchy, the media and the public.
BTW, he’s said to have been specially hand picked by cowmilla.
Thanks for the clarification. Do you know the current status/activities of the Fly and the Bee? Last I read Simon Case was supposedly on a medical leave for some mysterious ailment. I was just wondering if they are still up to their evil ways.
I still don’t trust Sykes. I think he gets info straight from William’s Eton friends. Everything he says should be treated with extreme caution. He certainly has a high opinion of himself. Tom, you write about royals for the Daily Beast and have a Substack. This is hardly Watergate🙄
Unless Tom knows something that can make it a sort of Watergate. In which case, bring it on.
Do you mean you don’t think he gets info straight from the eton friends? I think he absolutely does. I also would not be surprised if William keeps him on speed dial to rant and rave about Harry. I don’t think the Van Cutsems or friends that close to william talk to him, but I think others a bit farther out in terms of closeness to William absolutely talk to him. And the way gossip spreads in social circles – he probably knows a lot more than he shares.
These reporters are really starting to chomp at the bit to say what they know. I wonder who will break first.
Is it Watergate? No. but we also don’t know what’s being covered up and hidden.
I absolutely believe William rants directly to him (and a lot of ‘William’s friends’ are just William) and he’s also in the wider gossip ecosystem so hears plenty from there too. His number one priority is protecting himself.
Interesting. I always figured William kept his hands cleaner than that. As in he tells his friend what to tell Sykes. But I can also just strait up see William calling him too. I wonder if these reporters ever just say, or at least want to say, dude, get yourself together. But judging by the way William behaves, I’ve gotta imagine it’s just sycophantic nods.
They all know far more than they share. Whenever something they knew about finally breaks in public the Rebecca English’s all announce they knew and kept it a secret at the behest of the Palace. Like the Queen having multiple myeloma or William having covid.
Sykes’s socialite sisters (Plum, Lucy, and something) are also really, really well-connected, so they may pass info on.
Re William and William’s team (esp. Jason the Knife), I wonder if any of them are still talking to Sykes after his exposé of William’s scam “weekend with daddy,” the William-Charles rift, and Sykes’ snark about “the relative importance of Aston Villa games.” These were all fairly recent. I can definitely see Jason the Knife, even William, talking directly to Sykes in the past. FWIW, both Sykes and Jason are gay, but that’s probably not relevant. But since Sykes’ recent snark about William, he may have burned his bridges with William/William’s team and Jason for good. Still, Sykes would continue to know lots of people in the William/Eton circles.
So this is the Tom Sykes I enjoy. When he is getting fed story lines and feels like he has insider access, he’ll play along to a large extent with the KP narrative. But when they cut him or try to exclude him, he gets PISSED and starts reminding the palace of his contacts.
We saw this happen with Rose Hanbury, when something set him off so he wrote a whole story about his background and contacts and how he heard about william and rose from the daughter of an earl at a dinner party.
Its funny to me because clearly he does have contacts, and clearly those people spill the beans to him on a regular basis. And his contacts arent just at KP or wherever so he probably does know all the gossipy stuff that would be discussed at country parties.
After that article it felt like KP tried to bring him in a bit and that’s when he started getting all those exclusive quotes from “William’s friend” but alas, here we are. Kicked out of the whatsapp group and ready to spill some beans.
tell us everything sykes!!!
There is nothing aristos love more than gossip! They’ve got so much time on their hands!
Ohhh, I can so believe this. It’s probably why KP smacked down so hard on Anna Pasternak’s Tatler article. They wanted to shut down the aristo gossip. The reaction seemed so oversized but looking back they must have realized how important it was to shut down that channel. Kind of smart actually.
Becks, I would love to see Sykes fully unleashed, but while he rails against the rota for repeating the party line, he might do the same if his own sources ever dried up, idk.
Agreed on all points. I think the reason he wrote the Rose process story was 1) William lawyers’ sent a letter to the Daily Beast and 2) KP was pushing the idea it was all made up on Twitter.
Love it! He gathers up his mama and his bonnet and flounces out of the tea party in high dudgeon vowing to never, ever come back
Tom Sykes is emitting “Don’t you know who I am?” energy, lol. And I guess with the Daily Beast it’s technically a “job” so he could get “fired” or dropped for crossing the line but with his substack, it’s “Who gone check me, boo?” I also think Tom is fed up with the whole Harry thing because he knows, like the rest of the Rota that William is not up for the job and they need the Sussexes back in some capacity.
Nobody puts Sykes in a corner! I love that he’s basically threatening that if they don’t let him back into the rota chat group this instant he’ll just have to…Do Actual Reporting! With sources! You know, his job😂. As revenge!
Sykes is so busy bragging about his level of access to Etonian sources and complaining that the rota is punishing him, but it doesn’t appear to occur to him to question the system itself. Is having all of the royal reporters repeating an agreed upon set of inane talking points directly from the palace still working well in 2025? But I don’t think Sykes is ready to start questioning the system that made him successful and actually strike out on his own or start telling us everything. Unfortunately. Instead, he just wants to get right back in with the rota, and he’ll exploit his connections and drop a few threats if he doesn’t get back in.
TLDR: Tom went to Eton and would like to speak with your manager!
LOL. The Dirty Dancing reference. I mean I think he sees the system but has no interest in necessarily questioning it. As long as it serves him. If it doesn’t, he’ll air it out for profit.
Sounds like the left behinds and their media lap dogs are b- slapping each other and pulling their wigs out . Lol. Could not have happened to more deserving pathetic, disgusting people. Me thinks Tom is big mad that he got cut off from the family of liars WhatsApp and he is like : no one cuts me off and lives to tell about it . It’s funny how morally bankrupt they all are
It’s interesting bc when QE2 passed, in some ways, Charles and private secretary Young had already been running the show so the turnover wasn’t as obviously rocky. Right now, it feels like there is different jockeying going on between reporters and the different houses as they wait to see how Charles fares.
Is there more power up for grabs when a weak king inherits? King William will be weak, stupid, stubborn and lazy. He’s a leaner who depends on Jason to tell him what he wants to hear and do the dirty work. Clive ‘s pitch could be I ‘ll do the behind the scenes admin while you relax and concentrate on your young family. Clive is defacto King behind the scenes.
It’s always been said that Charles listens to those closes to him, which would be Clive. I don’t know that QE2 wasn’t that different, especially by the time she was in her 90s. Now William, William is grasping for authoritative people around him to simultaneously flatter him and do the work for him. There’s a space there, for sure, whether it’s JK, IR, or CA.
The way Sykes is revealing this very much suggests that William and William’s people don’t care if it is revealed that he isn’t in Scotland yearly for a summit with his father. The narrative that they are all the same page and so close is emanating from Charles’ people.
Yeah, I can see this. William might not mind the narratives that say he is infiltrating BP and accruing power towards himself. Whether he’s actually doing that is another story. The moves he makes come across as so juvenile. But then at the same time, was it really only Charles making it seem like a bonding summit was happening? Did Charles even care? Bc it came across as William wanting to say look me and dad met up too, Harry! What a mess. As others have said, so HS.
I don’t see the “major story” Sykes mentioned. That William was shooting birds, not holding a summit with his dad?
Is this what counts as a major story? Or is he hinting at something else? I’m confused.
Sykes should probably stay away from open windows. ( Winter is coming and standing in a draft isn’t healthy.)