Royal Family

President Biden and the First Lady met with the Queen of the U.K. this weekend to break bread and throw back some high-quality H20 -- and by that ... we mean tea and biscuits.

Joe and Jill swung by Windsor Castle Sunday for a late afternoon powwow with Queen Elizabeth II -- who was ready and waiting for them with her entire Guard of Honour standing by as well ... dressed in their red coats, and tall hats and standing as straight as ever.

When the mister and missus pulled up ... they got out greeted QE2 on a platform she was chillin' on -- and then remained upright as the crew there started playing "The Star-Spangled Banner," to which the Bidens saluted with hand over heart salutes. Liz didn't do it, though.

Anyway, after the American National Anthem was played -- Joe undertook what's considered tradition when world leaders pay a visit ... and that would be inspecting the troops. He did a lap and then circled back with Jill and the Queen, proceeding to go inside for tea time.

One last thing we should note here ... Joe remembered to do something that his predecessor infamously forgot to do, and that would be -- do NOT get ahead of the Her Majesty. Literally.

You might recall ... when Trump went for a little face time with the woman herself back in 2018 -- doing much of what Biden's doing today -- he pulled a major snafu and walked in FRONT of the Queen at one point, which is a major no-no -- and seen as poor etiquette.

Watch the clip toward the end when they start making their way in ... JB minded his manners here, and let Liz take the lead, no matter how long it took.

T.M. appeared on Australia's "60 Minutes" and claimed Oprah took advantaged of a "weakened" Prince Harry to build her own network. He said, "I have things to say. Oprah Winfrey, for one, I think is playing Harry and Meghan," adding, "I think she is using them to build her network and build her new shows and I think she's taken advantage of a very weakened man and has got him to say things that you just shouldn't be saying on television."

In case you didn't know ... Oprah already has a network -- OWN. She's also just launched her brand on Discovery. It is true, however, ... the interview was massive and got attention few interviews get.

And then, Thomas threw down ... "She [Oprah] will disagree of course, and she may even sue me.  I don't care. But, the bottom line is she is working with Harry."

Markle says he learned of the birth of Lilibet from Harry and Meghan's public statement ... and he found that disappointing. Given his attacks ... no surprise.

Queen Elizabeth II isn't blind ... something she reminded an aide of when they tried giving her another option for cake-cutting ... other than the 3-foot sword she ended up using.

Her Majesty celebrated her "official" birthday Saturday -- which is actually different than her real DOB, April 21 -- but the day prior, Liz cut a ceremonial slice of a cake that had been trotted out to her at the Eden Project in Cornwall ... where she was on hand for G7 duties, among other world leaders -- including Joe Biden, Boris Johnson and others.

Camilla Bowles was actually there too, as was Kate Middleton ... who watched QE2 attempt to cut her bday cake with a super long blade which we guess is ... tradition??? Who the hell knows -- point is, the Queen seemed dead-set on getting it done, despite her vocal hesitations.

At one point, someone on her staff made a quick note as HRH seemed to struggle a bit with the awkward feat -- noting there was a knife there too, if that was easier for her.

Watch what happens ... Elizabeth shot the aide a WTF look, and told her straight ... "I know there is." Her quick wit and sharp tongue got a huge chuckle from everyone around her. No harm, no foul obviously -- but we must say ... her putting the aide in her place is hilarious.

BTW, the jokes from the Queen didn't end there ... she got even more laughs that same day when she was posing on stage with the shot-callers of the free world -- openly asking if they were just supposed to sit there and seem like they were enjoying themselves. Great delivery!

Oh, and we should also mention ... QE2 got a proper celebration at Windsor to kick off her weekend on Saturday itself -- with a giant procession that was full of pomp and circumstance ... and rightly so. She's a ripe 95 years old now -- and still going strong even at this age.

Dr. Jill Biden and Kate Middleton met for the first time ever ... and everything looked rosy, including their elegant outfits.

The First Lady and Duchess of Cambridge met Friday in Cornwall, England ... not too far from where President Biden is attending the G7 Summit.  Meanwhile, Kate and Jill are focusing on education and kiddos.

They toured the Connor Downs Academy and visited a classroom for 4- and 5-year-olds ... who were reading the book, "Greta and the Giant." Both women wore masks indoors while chatting with the kids about the book.

They later headed outside and visited some of the animals on the premises. The kids look after some rabbits there ... which explains why Jill was carrying a huge plate of carrots.

They also took part in a roundtable discussion on early childhood education. Jill, of course, has spent decades as an educator. She's currently a college professor ... so this trip and the discussion itself are, no doubt, especially meaningful to her.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have welcomed their second child -- a baby girl who's been named to honor Harry's late mother, Princess Diana, as well as his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex just announced their daughter's arrival Sunday morning, but they say Meghan actually gave birth on Friday at 11:40 AM at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital. The little girl's name -- Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor.

They've already given her the nickname, Lili, and say she tipped the scales at 7 lbs. 11 oz.

Lili's got some big shoes to fill with that name -- her first is the Queen's family nickname, and then there's Princess Di ... Lili's grandmother. Giving her Diana's name is momentous for Harry, who -- along with Prince William -- is scheduled to unveil a statue of his mother in the UK this summer to mark what would have been her 60th birthday.

The Sussexes say Meghan and Lili are both healthy and settling in at their home in Montecito. The couple announced in February that they were expecting, and Lili's birth comes at a stressful time in the royal family.

As you know, earlier this year Meghan and Harry called out the royals for racism ... telling Oprah Winfrey, multiple family members had expressed concern their first child, Archie, would be too dark-skinned.

It will be interesting to see if a new baby, and Princess Di's statue ceremony, can help the House of Windsor mend fences.

Harry and Meghan now have a full set -- a boy and girl. Lili's big bro, Archie is 2.

Congrats!

Prince Harry is feeling the effects of his break with the Royals, because his title was removed at the Princess Diana Wedding Dress Exhibition at Kensington Palace.

There's a panel under the wedding dress with the following engraving ... “Lent by HRH [his royal highness] the Duke of Cambridge and HRH the Duke of Sussex.”

The HRH title was quickly 86'd ... officials cited an "administrative error." Administrative ... really? Harry and Meghan were allowed to retain their HRH status, but they agreed not to use it. It makes the removal from the exhibition all the more revealing.

The exhibition -- Royal Style in the Making -- includes Diana's 1981 bridal gown. Hard to forget the 25-foot train which followed her as she entered St. Paul's Cathedral.

Diana's dresses are actually the property of Harry and William ... they loaned it out for the exhibition.

Millennia-old human remains have been discovered mere feet from Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's estate ... and all signs point to them being early inhabitants of the area -- we mean the bones, not Meghan and Harry.

The Santa Barbara Sheriff's Office confirmed some veeeeerrrrry old bones were recently found buried on a neighboring property next to the couple's Montecito home ... this while construction crews were busy working on a landscaping gig.

The bones were buried three feet under the earth, and at this point ... it's suspected they might belong to a young indigenous person, perhaps someone from the Chumash tribe -- which has ties to the Santa Barbara area dating back thousands of years.

Authorities actually think the remains may be 11,000 years old. So yeah, we're talking way before any Euros came washing up onshore and wreaking havoc.

The Sheriff's Dept. notes they're consulting forensic anthropologists to make sure what they think it is is actually right ... which, if true, could potentially turn into a good old-fashioned fossil dig. The Chumash people are also being looped in, it seems, but have yet to comment.

Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle may have something in common ... they've both gotten vaccinated.

You'd think Kate would be fully vaccinated by now, but nope ... she got her first shot Friday at the London Science Museum. Seems London's a little behind the U.S. of A. in the vaccine department ... Kate, who's under 40, just became eligible.

Kate said after getting poked, "Yesterday, I received my first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine ... I'm hugely grateful to everyone who is playing a part in the rollout. Thank you for everything you are doing," adding she's "hugely grateful."

Her hubby, Prince William, got his shot a few days before at the same site.

It's unclear which vaccine they both received. They'd be entitled to either Pfizer or AstraZeneca.

Prince Harry got a phone call recently with some tragic news, but he never answered the phone and cops ended up at his door.

Law enforcement sources tell TMZ ... back on April 9, someone from the U.S. Embassy began calling Harry just before 3 AM to inform him his grandfather, Prince Philip, had died.

It's unclear if Harry's ringer was turned off or whether he and Meghan were just sound sleepers, but no one answered. After repeated attempts, the Embassy rep called the Santa Barbara Sheriff's Dept. and asked if an officer could go to Harry's Montecito estate to inform him the Embassy was urgently trying to reach him.

The Sheriff's Dept. obliged and an officer rolled up to the gates of Harry and Meghan's estate and made contact with someone who went and told Harry he needed to call the Embassy STAT, and that's how Harry was informed Prince Philip had died.

As you know ... Prince Philip died the morning of April 9 at Windsor Castle in England, which is 8 time zones ahead of California.

There's some interesting subtext to this story ... the Royals are extremely upset that Harry and Meghan have gone public with their grievances over their treatment by the Royal Family, including allegations of racism. You gotta think they did not want Harry to learn of Philip's death through the media ... it would make the Royals look kinda heartless, so the scramble to get to Harry ahead of the death announcement is understandable.

Martin Bashir -- the journalist who infamously interviewed Princess Diana and just got trashed for it -- says he didn't do anything wrong or deceitful in nabbing the sit-down ... despite what an independent report has concluded.

Bashir made his first public comments about the scandal to the Sunday Times ... denying any nefarious behavior he and the BBC are alleged to have engaged in back in '95, when Diana agreed to talk to him on camera about her relationship with Prince Charles.

It almost sounds like an apology, but it ain't ... because Bashir straight up says he played no part coming up with alleged fake docs and/or bogus phone calls placed to Diana. He says, "Even in the early 1990s, there were stories and secretly recorded phone calls. I wasn’t the source of any of that."

He goes on to say the idea the interview was somehow something Diana didn't want, or that it was framed in a way that harmed her afterward is simply not true ... regardless of what her boys, Prince William and Prince Harry, might be saying now ... nearly 30 years later.

Bashir says, "Everything we did in terms of the interview was as she wanted, from when she wanted to alert the palace, to when it was broadcast, to its contents," while going on to say he and his family loved the Princess, and they remained close even after the interview aired.

MB goes on to say this, "I don’t feel I can be held responsible for many of the other things that were going on in her life, and the complex issues surrounding those decisions." He went on to say Diana's brother, Charles Spencer, squarely putting the blame of Diana's death on his shoulders was "unreasonable and unfair" -- while also explaining he gets the grief.

After the report came out affirming the BBC had, in fact, undertaken deceptive methods -- including made-up bank statements purportedly showing Palace staffers accepting payment for stories about her -- PC and PH both slammed the outlet, and Bashir by extension.

Prince Harry's still dealing with the trauma of his mother, Princess Diana's fatal car crash when he was 12 -- but says therapy's brought him a long way since his days of partying hard to mask his pain.

The Duke of Sussex opens up about his own mental health battle in the series he co-created with Oprah -- "The Me You Can't See -- and he takes viewers back to 1997 when he and his brother, Prince William, were in shock after their mother's death.

Prince Harry says he felt "outside of my body" and struggled processing what happened, but his feelings turned to anger over Di getting no justice. He says, "Nothing came from that. The same people who chased her into the tunnel, photographed her dying on the backseat of that car."

Though he was having a very hard time, Harry claims his calls for help within the Royal Family were met with "total silence" ... and he was expected to carry on. Eventually, he says he just stopped thinking about it because it only made him sad.

Remember, Harry's already said Prince Charles' parenting caused him serious trauma -- and, as a result, royal aides have reportedly suggested Harry should be stripped of all his titles.

This all led to a period of hard-partying from the ages of 28 to 32, which Harry calls "a nightmare time in my life." He tells Oprah he was drinking a week's worth of alcohol on some nights to mask his pain, and was willing to take drugs to make him feel less like he was feeling.

Harry also talks about his relationship with Meghan Markle, who he says first encouraged him to seek therapy about 4 years ago. He says, "I knew that if I didn't do therapy and fix myself, that I was going to lose this woman who I could see spending the rest of my life with."

Meghan, of course, has detailed her own mental health struggles, and Harry talks about the scary night she expressed suicidal thoughts to him while pregnant with Archie ... something they first revealed during their CBS interview with Oprah.

Prince William and his brother Prince Harry are finally on the same page about something -- condemning the BBC for the way it treated their mother ... specifically regarding her now infamous 1995 TV interview.

The Royal bros both made strong comments Thursday after an independent investigation into Princess Diana's explosive sit-down with BBC journalist Martin Bashir nearly 3 decades ago determined he and the network engaged in "deceitful behavior" and dishonest tactics to persuade her to do it.

William blasted the BBC, saying ... "the deceitful way the interview was obtained substantially influenced what my mother said," and he blames it for his parents' relationship falling apart.

He also added, "BBC’s failures contributed significantly to her fear, paranoia and isolation that I remember from those final years with her."

During the interview -- a huge get for Bashir and the BBC -- Diana notoriously stated that "there were three of us in this marriage" ... referring to Prince Charles’ relationship with Camilla Parker-Bowles, and her account of the marriage failing was watched by millions.

Prince Harry went further than his big bro, ripping not just the BBC, but British media in general and laying her death at their feet -- "The ripple effect of a culture of exploitation and unethical practices ultimately took her life."

He adds that he's deeply concerned that the practices used in 1995 are even worse, and more widespread, today.

As for what sparked the BBC inquiry -- Diana’s brother, Charles Spencer, recently accused Bashir of using false documents and trickery to gain access to the princess, and the retired judge who was appointed to handle the investigation confirmed those allegations were true.

Prince Harry and Oprah just dropped the first trailer for their mental health documentary ... and it shows them opening up about their own pain, alongside other famous and non-famous people.

The preview of "The Me You Can't See" starts with the project's executive producers chatting about the mental health crisis around the world ... partially due to the pandemic -- but both Oprah and Prince Harry get emotional, talking about their mental health battles.

As Oprah puts it, "The telling of the story ... being able to say, 'This is what happened to me,' is crucial." The Apple TV+ series features other celebs, like NBA star DeMar DeRozan, Glenn Close and Lady Gaga ... who's using her real name, Stefani, for the project.

The trailer also features several images of Robin Williams, so it appears his battles with depression will also be discussed when the series premieres this Friday.

While promoting the show, Harry's been talking a lot about his own mental health issues ... including criticizing Prince Charles for his parenting skills, or lack thereof.

The Royal Family reportedly has had it up to HERE with Prince Harry trashing them publicly, and they think he's not acting like a prince, so he shouldn't have that title.

Royal aides are angry Harry's been lashing out, most recently at his dad ... this according to Daily Mail sources. The report came out after Harry went on Dax Shepard's podcast and said his dad caused him great pain and suffering. He does go on to say Prince Charles endured the same trauma because it's "genetic" in the Royal Family, but vowed he would break that cycle with his own kids.

Harry is speaking out on mental health issues -- he's got a new doc about it with Oprah -- but apparently, his message has fallen on deaf ears over at the Palace.

DM sources said, "The Duke of Sussex has now spent a significant amount of time emphasizing that he's no different to anyone else and attacking the institution which he says caused him so much pain.  There is a growing feeling that if you dislike the institution that much, you shouldn't have the titles."

As for the "genetic" abuse, the Royal aide lashed out, saying, “People are appalled that he could do this to the Queen when the Duke of Edinburgh is barely in his grave."

As you know, Harry and Meghan Markle also accused the family of racism, with someone (or multiple people) worrying Archie's skin might be "too dark." They didn't name names, but by eliminating the Queen, lots of folks believe they were accusing Philip, William and/or Charles of making the comment.

Prince Harry went to extreme lengths to keep his relationship with Meghan Markle on the DL -- like going on a secret supermarket run to meet her while pretending he didn't know her.

The Duke of Sussex made the revelation on Dax Shepard's "Armchair Expert" podcast when Dax asked if he'd ever been able to do any mundane things ... like going to the supermarket. His answer was yes, but he had to go way back to 2016 when Meghan first stayed at Kensington Palace.

He said, "The first time Meghan and I met up for her to come and stay with me, we met up in a supermarket in London, pretending we didn't know each other, texting each other from the other side of the aisles. There's people looking at me, giving me all these weird looks and coming up to me and saying hi."

He didn't reveal which supermarket ... but there's a Whole Foods a mere 100 yards away from the Palace. Harry said he stayed in such true "incognito" character ... he wore a baseball cap and kept looking down to avoid being recognized. Obviously, he needs better costumes, since people were spotting him.

But, since leaving his Royal duties and moving to L.A. ... Harry says he feels free. And, he feels like he can walk with his head held high. He compared living the Royal life between a mix of being on "The Truman Show" and living in a zoo with all eyes on him.

Harry chatted about a ton of other subjects ... including Joe Rogan's recent controversial remarks about the vaccine. The Prince called out Joe for initially saying healthy, young people don't need the vaxx.

Joe, of course, later called himself a "f***ing moron" for the remark but that didn't stop Harry from ripping Joe and essentially telling him to stay in his lane because "if you have a platform, with a platform comes responsibility."

Prince Philip died of nothing more than just being an old-timer ... that's how his official longtime palace doctor is putting it anyway.

The Duke of Edinburgh's official cause of death has reportedly surfaced, and it's simply stated as "old age" ... this according to the Daily Telegraph, which says it obtained his death certificate.

Now, we know what you're thinking ... what the hell does that even mean??? Welp, according to experts from across the pond -- citing old age is acceptable for someone over 80 who had one doctor look over his care for years ... and if there's no other identifiable disease or injury responsible for the death.

So, the obvious issue is Queen Elizabeth's husband had a number of ailments in his later years ... including a heart scare just months before he passed. Still, "old age" is what Buckingham Palace is going with and they kinda make the rules.

As they say ... it's good to be the Queen.

Seriously, though, in the U.S. ... it seems like the kind of thing we'd list as "natural causes."

As we reported ... 99-year-old Philip died last month, and the Royal Family held a grand funeral procession for him. Prince Harry flew in from the States for the ceremony and got some face time in with his brother and father ... the first time he'd seen them since his and Meghan's bombshell interview with Oprah.

One last thing about Phil's death cert -- it lists his full name, which is a mouthful ... even for a Royal. It reads ... His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh formerly known as Prince Philippos of Greece and Denmark formerly known as Philip Mountbatten.

His occupations were Naval Officer, and Prince of the United Kingdom.