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Over the summer, royal reporter Valentine Low released the paperback edition of his most recent book, Courtiers: Intrigue, Ambition, and the Power Players Behind the House of Windsor<\/em>. In the paperback edition, he added some new details, one of which got a lot of attention: that the current Princess of Wales was the one who argued, in 2021, that \u201crecollections may vary\u201d be added to QEII\u2019s official response to the Sussexes\u2019 Oprah interview. The phrase was always designed to negate Meghan\u2019s story and to gaslight Meghan about the abuse she suffered at their hands. Well, Omid Scobie\u2019s Endgame<\/em> picked up the thread of what was really going on behind-the-scenes within the Windsor clan in the hours and days immediately following the Sussexes\u2019 televised interview in 2021.<\/p>\n The palace\u2019s slow response to the \u201cconcerns about the baby\u2019s skin color\u201d issue:<\/strong> The issue may have later been briefly discussed between Meghan and Charles over letter (and this is why the incidents were not repeated in the Sussexes\u2019 2022 Netflix series or in Spare), but the Palace\u2019s initial response was not a swift one\u2014they would instead wait until the interview\u2019s U.K. broadcast aired the following day before planning anything. The family, a Palace aide told me, was keen to hear what the nation thought and see which way the wind was blowing in the court of public opinion.<\/p>\n The Windsors\u2019 math: <\/strong>If the Sussexes\u2014whose overall popularity in the country had been on a downward trajectory since they stepped away from their roles\u2014received minimal sympathy from the British public, they would get minimal from the institution, too. After morning television hosts mocked Meghan\u2019s stories, newspapers called the couple liars, and a nationwide poll found that more than a third of Britons (36 percent) had more sympathy with the royal family (compared to just 22 percent for the Sussexes), the Palace issued a carefully worded statement to mirror the public\u2019s mixed reaction. <\/p>\n Recollections may vary:<\/strong> Those three words, recollections may vary, artfully submarined the issue by casting it as a he said\u2013she said situation, effectively throwing the hounds off the scent without any mea culpas or promises of investigations. With a large swathe of the public instantly taking the side of the royal family, it felt like mission accomplished for Prince William\u2019s then communications secretary Christian Jones and private secretary Jean-Christophe Gray, who helped devise the caveat during multiple drafts of the statement. They worked closely with Charles\u2019s chief press aide, Julian Payne, on the perfect response \u201cto plant that seed of doubt in people\u2019s minds,\u201d said a former staffer, who was also involved in communications efforts at the time. \u201cThe last thing they wanted was for people to start pointing fingers at the bosses [William and Kate].\u201d <\/p>\n Whether Kate was involved:<\/strong> Someone else also keen to protect the family\u2019s reputation was Kate. Years later, The Times\u2019 royal correspondent, Valentine Low, reported that the then Duchess of Cambridge was the one to suggest that the statement needed something to reflect how the institution \u201cdid not accept a lot of what had been said . . . [She] clearly made the point, \u2018History will judge this statement and unless this phrase or a phrase like it is included, everything that they have said will be taken as true.\u2019\u201d A source later told me, \u201cShe was really passionate about defending the family.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n [From Omid Scobie\u2019s Endgame<\/em>]<\/p>\n \u201cShe was really passionate about defending the family\u201d<\/em> – she\u2019s a toxic, racist Karen who thought only about her own survival. Something I\u2019ve always wondered is whether William and the rest of the family knew the extent of Kate\u2019s racist bitchery towards Meghan before the Oprah interview. With Meghan quickly and efficiently butchering Kate\u2019s years-long smear of \u201cMeghan made Kate cry,\u201d Kate was desperate for some way to negate Meghan\u2019s story. What\u2019s also interesting is that Scobie pointed out that QEII\u2019s private secretary Edward Young kind of hated \u201crecollections may vary,\u201d because he thought it would lead to the Sussexes dropping receipts. Which they should have done, because these people are f–king dirtbags. <\/p>\n Also, just a reminder: in Meghan\u2019s mind, the biggest headline from the Oprah interview was that she was suicidal from the palace and press\u2019s sustained campaign of character assassination, and she absolutely hoped that the palace response would be to (at long last) acknowledge her pain. Instead, the main focus from the media and monarchy was on racism and the institution was in a clownish scramble to cover their asses.<\/p>\n\n
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