AMANDA PLATELL: Never mind the Invictus family, Meghan, what about the relationship with your own father?
How refreshing it was to see Meghan join Harry in Dusseldorf at the Invictus Games, his wonderful sports competition for injured veterans from the Armed Forces.
It was the first time in four months Harry and Megs had appeared together at an official event and their loved-up performance told a rather different story from those rumours that their marriage is in trouble.
Though she arrived three days late, she received a rapturous welcome at the Games’ Family & Friends party, apologising and saying she had been tending the children back home, ‘getting milkshakes, doing the school run’.
Made her sound just like any old home-spun American Mom which, for someone with nannies, a security detail and housekeepers on tap was a bit of a laugh-out-loud moment.
But then the whole emphasis of this event was ‘family’, so fair enough. She mentioned the importance of family in the rehabilitation of wounded soldiers — which is perfectly true. She proclaimed: ‘I’m really proud to be part of this Invictus family with all of you.’
And Invictus is certainly something to be proud of. But all this family talk had me thinking. What about her own family? I don’t mean the Montecito branch with Harry and their children. I’m talking about her frail father Thomas, the man she turned her back on, who paid for her private education and looked after her when her mother Doria Ragland mysteriously disappeared for years during her childhood.
How refreshing it was to see Meghan join Harry in Dusseldorf at the Invictus Games, his wonderful sports competition for injured veterans from the Armed Forces
A father who has never even met her husband Harry or, heartbreakingly, his two grandchildren.
And what about the Royal Family she married into, the one she accused in her vicious and calculating Oprah Winfrey interview of being racist and cruel to her. The one which, since her marriage to Harry, has seen an insurmountable breakdown between him and his brother William.
Not to mention his fractured relationship with sister-in-law Kate and his father King Charles.
Indeed, this week was the first time the Royal Family failed to post a birthday message to Harry.
When Meghan parades her virtue at Invictus and mentions the importance of family, I can’t help thinking of the family members she has slighted. And I can’t stop thinking how hypocritical it seems.
In a doom-laden world, hurrah for the wacky ‘Ig Nobel’ (geddit?) science awards which celebrate unusual areas of research. Like the boffins who studied noses to find out if both nostrils contain an equal number of hairs. Trimmers at the ready!
Around £2 billion was wiped off BP shares after boss Bernard Looney, 53, quit over claims he had not fully disclosed all of his personal relationships with colleagues.
The real sin is that BP’s profits have more than doubled to £23 billion since Russia invaded Ukraine – while ordinary folk were left choosing between eating and heating.
Expected to fetch £50,000 at auction, Princess Diana’s black sheep jumper – worn when she was newly engaged to Charles and painfully aware his affair with Camilla was not over – topped £885,000.
What kind of ghoul pays that much for a jumper worn by an innocent but distraught 19-year-old?
Time for an heir cut, Kate
We all adore the Princess of Wales, but hasn’t Kate’s new Mermaid hairstyle of ever-so-long cascading curls gone a bit far?
She’s a beautiful woman with a lovely face and gorgeous figure, so why distract from that?
We all adore the Princess of Wales, but hasn’t Kate’s new Mermaid hairstyle of ever-so-long cascading curls gone a bit far?
The last thing we want our queen of style to be is half woman, half hairdo.
When asked on ITV’s This Morning what he most regretted about the death of his former wife Amy Winehouse, who would have turned 40 this week, Blake Fielder-Civil said: ‘Almost everything.’
He admitted he introduced her to heroin when he was ‘a 20-something drug addict, so I had no idea how to make myself clean, let alone someone else who was a big cog in the machine for a record label and there were vested interests in Amy carrying on performing’.
Blake has come clean about his part in Amy’s death, maybe it’s time for her friends, family and record label bosses to do so, too.
Sienna’s a silly belly!
Sienna Miller arrived at Vogue’s London Fashion Week party wearing a skimpy Schiaparelli bolero top and puffball skirt slung low beneath her burgeoning baby bump – she’s heavily pregnant with actor Oli Green’s child. Jolly good, but does anyone really care?
Wouldn’t a beautiful dress have been more flattering?
Sienna Miller arrived at Vogue’s London Fashion Week party wearing a skimpy Schiaparelli bolero top and puffball skirt slung low beneath her burgeoning baby bump
And isn’t parading your bump like this a bit over – given that Demi Moore did it in 1991 on the cover of Vanity Fair.
Barbie star Margot Robbie turns up to support striking actors and scriptwriters in Hollywood — as British film and TV crews call for furlough pay during the action which has left them unable to pay bills.
Given Margot will earn £40 million in salary and bonuses for Barbie, surely she should be paying some of her squillions to the unsung minions who make her movies so fabulous?
Ex-Foreign Office boss Simon McDonald tells the BBC he was a staunch Remainer, civil service staff were ‘in mourning’ when the country voted for Brexit and he posted ‘it was a good day’ when Boris quit. Proof the WFH Leftie Blob is no longer fit for purpose.
Angela Rayner vows that if Labour wins the next election the party will ‘strengthen the role of trade unions’ and scrap recent anti-strike laws requiring minimum services for transport, health and education.
A New Deal for workers that could have been written by hard-Leftist Jeremy Corbyn.
Given a two-star rating by our film critic Brian Viner and mocked by other reviewers, Kenneth Branagh’s latest Hercule Poirot film, A Haunting In Venice, is surely proof he should shave off that daft moustache and go back to provincial theatre where he belongs.
Who wasn’t shocked to see the first pictures of Freddie Flintoff’s injuries after that horrendous 130 mph car crash on Top Gear.
The three-wheeler he was in had no airbag and his wife Rachael was told ‘to expect the worst’. Yet Freddie survived and is back helping train young England cricketers.
We salute you Freddie, one of the greatest – and still in the game.
Ballet girls miss the pointe
Perplexing that two of our top ballet schools, including the Royal Ballet School, are accused of body shaming – which they deny.
Ex-dancers say they were told to ‘tone up’, – code, they say, for ‘you’re too fat’. Only in our woke world would dancers claim it is bullying to require them to be fit enough to perform. Who wants to see The Dying Swan danced by a hippo?
Much merriment in the Platell household as Strictly is back tonight.
Can Angela Rippon, 78, still do the high kicks? My money’s on ex-tennis star Annabel Croft, whose husband of 30 years Mel Coleman died from cancer in May. She’s trying to dance through the heartbreak – and millions of us will be with her every quickstep of the way.
My moggie Ted was horrified to read a study claiming a vegan diet benefits a feline’s health – especially after I fed him steamed spinach and lentils. Ted concluded Professor Andrew Knight, who conducted the research, could only be a dog lover.
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