Caught In The Middleton

When you think of divas, who do you think of? Madonna? Mariah? J-Lo? All good answers, but none hold a candle to… Jane Goodall.

The famed chimp-handler has really been making her presence felt around London this week. First there was a visit to the Dean Street Townhouse in Soho, where porters were hauling a bunch of palm trees and fig leaf plants up to the top floor in their tiny lift to create a tropical paradise for her chimp (apparently on a previous visit her chimp had a miserable time of it, so they were really pulling out the stops this time).

Then she was at a photo studio yesterday getting some pictures taken and she took a liking to their fish tank. She said she wanted it, and so – long story short – she’s getting it. Her people are currently making arrangements to pick the fish up next week.

Jedward have had plenty of interesting things to say about Louis Walsh after he rather unwisely called them “vile” on Celebrity Big Brother the other night – and we imagine there’s plenty of others who have a bit of light to shed on the reality of going through the X Factor machine.

Jedward might not count themselves lucky, but they crossed Louis’s path when there was still a bit of spunk in the X Factor. For one of the later series, Louis’s acts were all flown to Vegas for the Judges’ Houses episode. Despite what the B-roll of the episode might imply about them living the high life, whooping it up in first class, the truth was somewhat different.

Those seats were all taken by the producers and execs. The contestants were all crammed into coach, and only brought up front to capture a few shots of them with some champagne and legroom for the show’s benefit. Then they were immediately booted back to the cheap seats.

Channel 4’s Hunted is gaining a real reputation for bed-hopping bacchanalia behind the scenes, with a bunch of the hunters all banging each other in their off-time – but which of the hunters has bagged the most?

When Princess Diana died in 1997, the blame was placed squarely at the feet of the media. The media’s excuse – that they were only giving the public what they wanted – was given short shrift, but increasingly it’s looking like they may have had a point.

At the moment, we’re seeing exactly what happens when an unstoppable appetite for information meets an immovable news vacuum.

Today’s privacy laws mean that the only people who can grant permission for the press to discuss the health of Charles and Kate are Charles and Kate themselves. As they’re staying (mostly) schtum there can be no reporting on the matter. So, in the absence of detail, papers just resort to one of two modes: strange cheerleading or impotent questioning, both of which result in some truly bizarre stories.

Readers in the comment sections sense this, so whip themselves up into a fury that they are either being told too much – or not enough. Add in the unregulated social media sleuths who can speculate with impunity in a way that the papers can’t – occasionally hitting an indisputable bullseye, like with this week’s dodgy photo – and you have a perfect storm.

The Photoshop fiasco has shown the serious shortcomings of the modern relationship between the monarchy and the media. And if the public ever do get wind of just how much the Royals have been holding back from them these last few years, then they might properly be screwed.

One of the more audacious TikTok theories about the Kate Middleton photo suggests that the picture was actually taken in November 2023 but the colour of Kate and George’s clothes have been doctored to throw some dust on the tracks. While that might sound insane, the technique is not without precedent.

Back in 2006, Scarlett Johansson turned up to the Golden Globes in a famously eye-catching red dress. The cleavage-heavy pictures were so beloved of certain editors that, for a while, they became the go-to shot of her. In fact, they became used so often that papers and magazines took to changing the colour of the dress and doctoring the background to make the picture seem less ubiquitous.

And there wasn’t a murmur of complaint from anyone about that.

The only person to have had a more embarrassing time out of the whole Kate Middleton Photoshop fiasco than Kate Middleton was Sarah Vine. Her tweets on the topic and the 24 hour evolution of the headline on her column about it were exquisite.

Headline – Sunday, 12:36: “The Picture Of Smiling Kate Couldn’t Be More Welcome. The Truth Is The Country Needs Her And William More Than Ever – Even If They May Not Realise It”

Headline – Sunday, 13:39: “The Picture Of Smiling Kate Kills The Absurd Conspiracy Theories. The Truth Is The Country Needs Her And William More Than Ever… Despite What The Montecito Moaners Say”

Tweet – Sunday, 23:00: “Kensington Palace has a lot of questions to answer”

Headline – Monday, 09:54: “Kate’s On The Mend, So What A Pity This Image Is Fuelling Yet More Rumours”

Even though it made them both shedloads of cash, She’s The One ended up being a persistent thorn in the side of Robbie Williams and its writer Karl Wallinger.

Robbie hated that it became one of his biggest hits, because he had no hand in writing it. And Karl hated Robbie’s recording, in part because the rest of his old band (World Party) were invited to play on it but he was iced out.

The two sat stewing about it for over a decade, but things reached breaking point when Robbie – duty-bound to play it at every gig – decided to introduce She’s The One on stage as the best song that he and Guy Chambers ever wrote. Unluckily for him, Karl’s daughter happened to be in the audience that night, so word got back to Karl pretty sharpish.

Karl called Guy Chambers asking if he could pass on a message for him: “Tell him from me he’s a cunt.”

Which prompted Robbie to revise his introduction. He henceforth referred to it as “the eighth best song” he’d ever written.

Finding the perfect replacement for Holly Willoughby on This Morning was a tricky task, but producers have played a blinder with Cat Deeley. They both got their breaks on Saturday morning kids TV. They were both firm favourites in the lads mag era. They’ve both had a sideline in hosting celebrity dance shows. And they both seem to be rather disliked by former agents.

In fact, celebrity agent Jacquie Drewe used to take great pride in boasting that Deeley was the only client she ever sacked.

As the reboot of Gladiators makes its way to its grand final, some Popbitch readers have been reminiscing about their tales of the old lot.

MJ writes:
“In the early noughties I was in a band with a man who was the lodger of Hunter off Gladiators. We used to use the flat as an occasional rehearsal space. Hunter was never there when we were, but we did note that he kept a pugil-stick in the umbrella stand in his hallway.”

Ever had a run-in with a Gladiator? hello@popbitch.com

Remember Hipgnosis? That flailing song fund that paid hundreds of millions of dollars for things like the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ back catalogue – and is now somehow struggling  financially? Bosses there don’t sound as if they’re entirely confident of their current position. They’ve just announced their next update to the markets will be on March 29th.

Calendar owners will be able to confirm that March 29th is Good Friday – which is also a bank holiday. In fact, it’s the start of a four-day public holiday. So trading won’t resume until the following Tuesday.

Sounds promising…

If Ariana Grande’s fabulous Robyn-esque new single hits number one in the Billboard chart, Max Martin will overtake John Lennon to become the songwriter with the second most number ones – behind Paul McCartney
[Listen here]

If Kate Middleton needs to hire a stand-in at any point, apparently she can hire Caitlin Moran to do it
[Susan Scoot Lookalikes]

The story of Jimmy The Raven: a bird who starred in 1,000 films
[Read on Empire]

Why fanfic is Hollywood’s latest obsession
[Read on The Fence]

Local News Of The Week: Oxford Dogging Edition
[Read on Witney Gazette]

Literary hook-ups and celebrity sniffing at the British Library
[A dispatch from The Fence]

Toyota has built the Cat Bus from My Neighbour Totoro
[See it here]

What’s the true cost of having influencers for parents?
[Read on Cosmopolitan]

Tik Tok is now growing slower than Facebook
[Read on Business Insider]