We’re still talking about Prince William’s selfie with Taylor Swift, Prince George and Princess Charlotte. Travis Kelce was there too – although he was mysteriously absent from the photo Kensington Palace posted on their social media – and we know that Jason Kelce also got to meet the Wales family. As I said when the photos came out, it was absolutely a “win” for William. KP also pushed an agenda with the photos and with William taking two of his kids to see Swift’s concert. The agenda was “William is an amazing (single) father who dad-dances.” It was a special bonus for KP’s public relations that Travis Kelce was so enthusiastic in his praise of “cool motherf–ker” Huevo. Well, it’s now been one week and the Mail’s Richard Eden is mad. Mad that people are comparing this concert outing to the Sussexes going to Beyonce’s LA concerts last year, a comparison Eden himself made immediately last weekend. Eden is also salty that anyone would suggest that the backstage visit was anything other than Taylor Swift’s idea.
Taylor Swift’s meeting with Prince William, Prince George and Princess Charlotte last weekend certainly impressed the pop superstar’s boyfriend, Travis Kelce. The American football player pithily described our future king as ‘the coolest motherf*****’, adding that George, ten, and Charlotte, nine, were ‘an absolute delight’.
But Harry and Meghan might be less impressed by the encounter, which took place at Wembley Stadium during the singer’s hugely popular Eras Tour. Cheerleaders for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have since claimed that, in attending such a high-profile concert, William was merely copying the California-based couple, who have themselves become friendly with another US pop singer, Beyonce.
Branding the meeting with Swift a ‘carefully orchestrated PR move’, one prominent American commentator with 1.3 million followers on TikTok declared: ‘I just want everyone to say, “Thank you, Meghan” for being the first member of the British Royal Family to really break out of their historic formula when it comes to being photographed with celebrities and, of course, getting dragged over the coals for it.’
However, royal insiders tell me that the truth could not be more different.
‘Taylor Swift was keen to meet the Prince of Wales while she was in London,’ a source tells me. ‘They already know each other, so the meeting made sense.’
Swift sang at Kensington Palace, London home of William and Catherine, in 2013. During that performance – part of a fundraising concert for the homelessness charity Centrepoint – William memorably joined Swift and rock star Jon Bon Jovi on stage.
There is something else worth remembering, too: the royal source is too diplomatic to point it out but, at Wembley, Taylor Swift was paying court to the Royal Family. In Harry and Meghan’s case, they are the ones paying court to showbusiness royalty.
Eden then goes on to claim that show business people don’t f–k with the Sussexes, which is such a gigantic lie, I’m not even excerpting that part. Beyonce did not “cringe” when she met Meghan whatsoever. Beyonce adores Meghan – Bey created a Queen Meg portrait for an awards show, Bey sent her a supportive text after the Oprah interview, and Meghan sat with Beyonce’s inner circle at Beyonce’s LA concerts. Beyond the Beyonce stuff, the Sussexes spend plenty of time with celebrities because they ARE celebrities. No one is “paying court” in the Sussexes’ situation.
It’s also gross for Eden to say that Taylor was “paying court to the Royal Family,” or making it sound like Taylor was begging for a selfie with William. There was clearly a lot of coordination between the two teams and I absolutely believe that Taylor is a pro-egg royalist, but there’s also an uncomfortable royalist desperation to portray celebrities as bowing and scraping for the attention of the Windsors. Taylor is a billionaire and one of the most famous women in the world. She’s more powerful, more successful, more hard-working, more famous and more interesting than all of the left-behind Windsors combined.
Photos courtesy of Getty, Avalon Red, Backgrid, Instagram.