XPost: alt.gossip.celebrities, alt.politics.democrats.d, sac.general   
   XPost: alt.rush-limbaugh   
   From: markle-fake-news@cnn.com   
      
   Harry and Meghan don’t know how good they have it. They want to   
   bust out of their gilded cage and roam free, but they’re so   
   naive they’re like fluffy kitties who have never crossed a busy   
   road before and are likely to get squashed if they try.   
      
   A key motivation to the shocking Megxit announcement this week —   
   even as the Queen warned Meghan and Prince Ginger Whiskers   
   against going public with their moronic plan — was their fury   
   with the media. They hate the “Royal Rota” system, in which a   
   designated royal reporter and photographer cover their events as   
   representatives of the entire media and the royals have to do a   
   little light waving and smiling and generally go along with it.   
   What they don’t seem to understand is that this system exists   
   for their protection; in exchange for the small compromise of   
   making nice with designated journos on a set schedule, they get   
   a break from the pandemonium of being trailed by hordes of   
   invasive paparazzi at all times.   
      
   They think life is so great outside the Firm? Let them call up   
   Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Those two aren’t royals. How much   
   privacy did they enjoy during their relationship? Being in the   
   crosshairs of the media evidently took its toll on both of them.   
   Pitt lamented on a podcast released earlier this week that, “I’m   
   just, like, trash mag fodder. I don’t know … because of my   
   disaster of a personal life, probably.” He developed a drinking   
   problem that hit crisis level on a plane in 2016, after which   
   Jolie dumped him. It’s not clear whether Pitt has any   
   relationship with his son Maddox, 18, who is now a university   
   student in Korea. When an interviewer asked about his dad   
   visiting him on campus, Maddox said, “I don’t know about that   
   [or] what’s happening.” Asked whether the pair’s relationship is   
   over, he added, “Well, whatever happens, happens.” Being a   
   global celebrity who isn’t in a royal family isn’t automatically   
   easy.   
      
   Like all celebrities, H & M think their media coverage is   
   intrusive but in their case they think the coverage is also   
   racist and insufficiently respectful of their self-image, which   
   is cool global ambassadors of woke. They envision puff pieces   
   that portray them as daring new avatars for social justice, and   
   there will be a few of those. But they also envision enjoying   
   total control over their image. That just isn’t going to happen.   
   They say that in the future they will work only with “grassroots   
   media organisations and young, up-and-coming journalists” and   
   “provide access to credible media outlets focused on objective   
   news reporting.” In other words: You’re fired, media. H & M   
   dream of picking and choosing their own outlets, preferably the   
   “grassroots” (read: progressive) ones that will amplify the   
   political virtue-signaling envisioned by the Woke Wallis Simpson   
   (as Brendan O’Neill of Spiked dubbed the former Ms. Markle).   
      
   As if! Within the royal embrace, media coverage is bubble-   
   wrapped. Out there in the cold cruel world of ordinary   
   celebrity, it’s anything goes. No “Royal Rota” agreement applies   
   in Hollywood. It’s every paparazzo out for himself, every time   
   you go out for a coffee, and when you’re on your own property   
   you have to pay for your own security to keep them at bay   
   instead of sending the bill to the taxpayer. The Royals, because   
   of the circumstances of Princess Diana’s death and because of   
   the institutional respect commanded by the Crown, are just about   
   the only celebs west of Vladimir Putin who can enforce any   
   limits whatsoever over their coverage.   
      
   Besides, if H & M ever were to break completely free of the Firm   
   (unlikely), a big chunk of their mystique would be gone. They’ll   
   soon find themselves being mocked for pimping out their new   
   Sussex Royal brand. Hoodies, T-shirts, socks, ball caps and   
   pencils — really? They’re going to leverage a thousand years of   
   dignity and tradition for a bunch of cheesy crapola that’s going   
   to wind up at the Dollar Tree? The whole point of being royal is   
   to float above and beyond ordinary existence, to make ordinary   
   mortals fantasize about what it’s like to be you. Once you’re   
   doing interviews with E! or hawking Christmas ornaments on the   
   Home Shopping Network, you’re just two schmucks getting torn   
   apart by the late-night comics.   
      
   Kyle Smith is critic-at-large at National Review   
      
   https://nypost.com/2020/01/11/why-harry-and-meghan-will-find-   
   life-even-harder-as-non-royals/   
        
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)