Nicholl: Duchess Kate had a ‘wakeup call’ about Meghan’s charisma in 2018

Katie Nicholl’s latest book, The New Royals, has been excerpted in Vanity Fair and the Daily Mail extensively. I’ve covered some of it, especially the old stories with new Nicholl/Kensington Palace twists. The New Royals seems very light on fresh tea – there’s a lot of rehashing of old grudges, and it seems that at no point does Nicholl actually use the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s Oprah interview as a first-hand account of their actual experiences. Instead, Nicholl uses palace sources to keensplain everything that went wrong behind the scenes. Anyway, Entertainment Tonight had additional highlights from the book:

Charles hated Diana’s stardom: “Her star immediately eclipsed her husband’s, causing early fractures in their relationship. The diligent, sensitive, and status-conscious Charles found it hard to understand. He could not see that in the new media age, being a royal-born prince and future king was a lesser currency than his wife’s megawatt beauty and disposition.”

Charles was also jealous of the attention Kate received: After Diana’s death and with William’s introduction of Kate into the world, Charles once again had to compete for the media’s attention when it came to coverage of his engagements because all eyes were on what Kate wore – leading to apparent clashes with William. “In the past, father and son hadn’t always seen eye to eye. There was a well-documented clash of opinions in 2013 over the palace’s priceless collection of ivory, for one,” Nicholl writes. “And Charles was sometimes irritated that Kate’s frocks got more media attention than his good works. He also had been hurt by not seeing as much of his Cambridge grandchildren as he might have liked.”

William & Kate’s reaction to Meghan’s appearance at the Royal Foundation event in February 2018: “It was, according to one aide, the moment William and Kate, who was heavily pregnant, realized they needed to up their game. The Cambridges had already signaled their intention to be more than ‘ornamental royals’ and had, along with Harry, made a huge success of their mental health campaign Heads Together. But Meghan was the breakout star of the foursome. She was polished, passionate, and funny, using all her TV-honed skills to present her case. That was a wake-up moment for William and Kate when they realized that Meghan was very impressive, very confident, and very capable, according to a source.”

Prince Philip asked Charles to take care of QEII: According to the book, while they did not sleep in the same bed, the Queen had undoubted love for her husband. He clearly felt the same and made it evident to his son. Prior to his death, and as his health began to deteriorate more, the royal had a final request for his son which Nicholl writes were, “Look after the Queen” and “Keep the family together.” “According to a family friend: ‘Philip slept a lot but [Elizabeth] made sure he was comfortable. She read to him, played him music, and they reminisced, going through family albums together. Charles got time with his father as well and Philip told him, ‘Whatever you do, promise me you will take care of your mother.’ Charles was very emotional.”

[From ET]

That last part about Philip asking Charles to “take care” of the Queen… in less than a year after Philip’s passing, Charles was so reckless with masking and Covid protocols that QEII got a bad case of Covid. Charles was also out of the country when QEII was secretly hospitalized a year ago. Besides, I’m pretty sure that Philip would have asked Anne to take care of the Queen rather than Charles. But whatever.

As for what Nicholl writes about that Royal Foundation meeting, the birth of the so-called “Fab Four,” it’s funny to think that William and Kate were seething with jealousy from that point on. But really, it started way before that. Kate was literally doing crisis meetings with her mother the second Meghan and Harry became engaged. I still remember the Middletons’ hatchet job on Meghan around Pippa’s 2017 wedding too. Weird that Nicholl seems to forget all about that!