#Million Dollar American Princesses

[emcgoverns]

elizabeth mcgovern for “million dollar american princesses” (aired 2015) | 📸: smithsonian channel

[goingknowherewastaken]

Me: I want to watch a movie or show so it's a good thing I have so many options since I'm very behind on media that's come out!

Me: *starts watching Million Dollar American Princesses that came out in 2015*

[silentangell95]

Филми и сериали: Септември

[the-froschamethyst4]

How much!?

𖤐Pairing: Billionaire! Alejandro x Wife! Reader

𖤐Pronouns: She/Her

𖤐Warnings: fluff, hints of smut, rich man Alejandro, language, married couple,

𖤐Summary: When shopping on her own, Y/n sees a beautiful necklace but it was extremely expensive, does she gets it without Alejandro's permission or does she ask?

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Alejandro was at the office and Y/n was getting ready for a shopping spree, she does this every now and then, Alejandro gives her his American Express card and she can spend as much as she wants.

But Y/n never hits the millions or anything, she barely reaches $100,000 the most she spent on was a home store looking for new house decorations and a few new things for the house.

But shopping for new clothes was kind of a different story, she spends as much as her heart desires and Alejandro watches those bank charge stack and he doesn't care as long as his wife was happy he's happy.

Y/n had bags on her arms as she just left Prada with a few new bags, Gucci sunglasses, belts and a dress, LV shoes, YSL shoes and bags, you name Y/n probably just bought it.

As she walked around a jewelry store caught her eye, she needed to get her wedding ring cleaned up.

"Hi ma'am," a lady says walking towards her.

"Hi, I need my wedding ring polished."

"Oh yes, let me see the ring." Y/n placed her hand out and the consultant looked at the ring.

"Lovely ring, your husband has good taste."

"Thank you," she takes her ring off and hands it to the consultant. Y/n walks around the store to look at the jewelry.

A necklace with pearls was on display, it looked like something a Queen or Princess would wear, it was magnificent to look at.

"Are you finding everything alright, ma'am?"

"Yes. This necklace is beautiful."

"I know, a new piece of ours, it goes for $25,000,000."

"Wow, I can see that," the man looks at the bags in Y/n's hands and smiled.

"Would you like to try it on?"

"What? No way, that's so expensive," Y/n says.

"Ma'am you are carrying bags that are worth for 5,000k, I do not mind if you try it on." He says.

"Umm~ if it's alright," he smiles and puts on some silk white gloves, and took it off the black velvet neck stand, and placing it on Y/n's neck, everyone in the store watched how the necklace complemented Y/n's skin and eyes.

"Wow."

"Gorgeous."

"Would you like it miss?" He asks her.

Y/n stares at herself in the mirror moving her head around to get it from better angles on her neck. She didn't even want to touch it or LOOK at it.

Alejandro was tapping his pen against his desk, taking a deep breath and looked out the window that was behind him, he was bored out of his MIND. He wanted to go home and be with his wife and see what she bought.

Alejandro loves having his own personal fashion show when it came to his wife.

Just thinking about her wearing a new LV dress hugging her body just right made him feel...all over the place.

His phone pinged and saw a HUGE charge to his card. His eyes widened and immediately started to call Y/n, she wasn't answering.

"Y/n, what the hell," he mumbles.

Y/n looked at him calling her phone, she just stares at her phone knowing she might have fucked up. Her fingers in her hair as she stares and stares and stares.

The next time he calls, she will answer which didn't take long, she took a deep breath and answered.

"Alejandro."

"Precioso (gorgeous) what was that charge to my phone?" Alejandro sounded like he was trying to stay calm.

"Umm~ Ale, I can explain."

"Start." He says.

"I was just trying to clean my ring and I got caught up in looking at a necklace and spent-"

"25 MILLION DOLLARS!" The calm was broken.

"I'm sorry," she apologized.

"Mi amor," he groans and rubs his temple. "How many times have I told you...BREAK MY BANK!!"

"Huh?" So he wasn't mad?

"You can spend higher, why didn't you?"

"I-I-I...I'm c-confused what?"

"I've told you many times to spend higher and 25 million was all you could do? Mi Corazón (my heart) I want you to make me go broke, a dollar in my bank account broke, I'll get it back, you know I will."

Y/n was so confused.

"B-But-"

"No buts, next time you go shopping break my bank account, anyways, I love you, I have to go, see you at home," he hangs up.

Her phone falls from her hand and looked at the necklace sitting on the black velvet neck stand.

---------

4:00PM

Alejandro was coming home now and Y/n was trying on the new clothes she bought looking at herself in her full body mirror, turning and looking to see how she looks in the back and seeing if her girls in the front looked perfect as well.

"Starting the show without me?" Alejandro asked, placing his blazer on the back of the black leather chair in the shared master bedroom.

"I was going to wait, but you were taking forever," she teased, walking towards him and sitting on his lap. Her arms wrap around his neck as his hands rested on her waist. "You look fucking stunning," he leans forward kissing her neck.

"Thank you, now do you want this fashion show or not?"

"Yes, ma'am," he leans back as she got off his lap, he pours himself a glass of whiskey and watched her come out in a new dress and new heels.

"YSL?" He asks. She just nods, turning to the mirror and looking at it.

Alejandro loves seeing his wife like this, he turns and saw the black velvet neck stand holding the necklace, she bought.

"Ohh~ so that was the 25 million dollar purchase," he points to the necklace.

"Yeah."

"It's pretty." He says, taking a sip from his glass and looking back at her.

"I know, he said it was new and I was technically the first person to wear it," she says sounding excited which made Alejandro smile.

Alejandro placed his glass down and grabbed the necklace off the stand and walked up behind Y/n. Moving it to the front of her neck and clasping it. He stares at her in the mirror.

"It suits you perfectly, mi amor," he kisses her neck and held her against his chest.

"A-Alejandro...I'm not done."

"You still have more?" He asks.

"I bought a lot," she says, with an innocent smile on her face.

"Alright, show me more," he smirks as she walks to her walk-in closet, her door slightly opened and he could see her half naked body.

--------

10:00PM

Y/n and Alejandro were going to an expensive dinner tonight, she was wearing her new dress and new YSL shoes with a new Prada bag and of course that necklace she bought. Alejandro held her hand as they walked in, they were immediately sat because of the restaurant knowing who they both were.

Alejandro and his gorgeously stunning wife.

He sits her down first before going to his chair across from her, they were given a wine menu but Alejandro ordered them a bottle of King Louis XIII, one of the most expensive bottles they have, it reaches to $23,000.

"Do you know what you want?" Alejandro asked.

"I think I'll switch it up tonight from lobster to maybe a beef wellington?"

"A wellington? Normally you don't get it."

"I know, but like I said switching it up," she gives him a soft smile.

"Here is your wine, now what can I get started for you both?" The waiter asked.

"I'll take Kobe beef, they way I like it." Alejandro started.

"Of course, you miss?"

"Could I have bluefin tuna?"

"Of course, now I will be right back," he says.

"Bluefin?"

"Is that okay?"

"Of course, mi amor," he holds her hand and kissed her knuckles.

--------

A few Hours Later

Alejandro and Y/n talked, drink, and ate their dinner and now Alejandro and Y/n were heading down the street just for some ice cream, an expensive dinner with cheap ice cream to fill them up.

It was always something they both did after eating at the restaurant was to eat dinner and go down the road for some ice cream.

It was mainly because Alejandro would treat his wife to everything she could ask for, and when they first met Y/n didn't come from money so the expensive date use to overwhelm her and then afterwards she showed him to an ice cream parlor she came to a lot when she was a little girl.

And to bring back memories and recreate their own Alejandro made it possible for her and in hopes one day they can still do it when they have kids and get older together.

Alejandro and Y/n sat on a metal bench enjoying their ice cream, she snuggled into his side, his hand hand holding his cone and the other resting on her hip.

"Did you like the dinner?" She nods.

"I like dessert better." She smiles up at him.

"One day, I hope we will come here with our kids and when we grow old and gray we will still come here," he says, looking down at her.

"Of course we will, Alejandro," she leans up and kisses his lips.

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

Will we never see the day the Harkles get what they deserve rumour tracking anon? I'm losing faith and I'm really tired. They are saved from all those scandals that demand their answer just with this one incident. I cannot anymore

I know, anon. It's really frustrating to see them keep getting away with it, almost as if they're constantly rewarded for bad behavior.

Some things that have helped me (bolding for emphasis to break up the giant chunks of text):

Taking breaks. Just walk away from it. A day, a weekend, a week. There isn't a whole lot happening in the BRF to counteract the Sussex shenanigans so Harry and Meghan are dominating the news There are no tiara or glam events. No tours/foreign visits. No projects being announced. 3 out of 7 senior royals are on medical leave and the ones who are working don't generate the same kind of headlines, attention, or coverage. Take a break from all this - maybe do a deep dive into another royal family or read historical books about the BRF (especially ones that pre-date the modern House of Windsor) or non-text books (like Angela Kelly's books or Chris Jackson's photobooks).

Spend time pursuing a creative hobby. I find that doing something creative helps keep my mind from wandering to the Sussexes and the nothingness coming from the BRF too often. Some of my creative pursuits: baking and cooking new recipes, DIY and craft projects (I love going to Goodwill, thrift stores, and architectural salvage places for home decor and furniture. Also, I'm not saying you need to pledge allegiance to Catherine, The Princess of Wales in every aspect of your life, but I'm also not not saying that Kate's Ring is an excellent accent color for an end table), learning how to make craft cocktails (it was a pandemic thing), and organizing decades and decades of family photos.

What I also find a cathartic is fanfiction writing. I've had dreams of being a writer since I was Princess Charlotte's age but listen. I cannot stick to a plot for the life of me, because I always want to know "what happens next." But let me tell you. It is hugely cathartic to write a fanfiction novel where a Meghan-like evil witch gets everything she deserves and a Harry-like tortured prince is redeemed by the pure love of an ordinary American girl (okay, that one was pre-Oprah before we all learned how truly messed up Harry is) or where a revenge fantasy where a Harry-like spoiled brat loses everything when he treats his saintly Kate-like girlfriend abominably and when he tries to win her back, she's fallen in love with a Henry Cavill-like swashbuckling Real Man or where the Harry-and-Meghan-like entitled spoilt prince and his wife try to overthrow the saintly and universally loved heir but the Queen swiftly, immediately, justly, and properly handles them with eviction, termination, and worldwide embarrassment. You can do everything to your characters and you can make them suffer in a way the real Harry and Meghan may never.

Find trashier, more trainwreckier drama to get stuck in. Bravo, anyone? A new season of Vanderpump Rules has just started, Summer House is about to start, and two of the villains from OG Vanderpump Rules (Jax and Kristen) have a spinoff series that's about to launch.

Changing your perspective. There's a famous leadership quote about problem-solving: How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. In other words, you have to take big things (big problems) one at a time, piece by tiny piece. So yes, the big "elephant" is that the Sussexes look like they have everything - they still have titles, they still have massive million-dollar deals, they've got the Olive Garden, the BRF isn't stopping their PR. But also look at everything they don't have anymore:

They can't use their HRHs.

Their RPOs were taken away.

Their royal charities and patronages were taken away.

Charles isn't paying them as much money, if he's even paying for them.

Everyone is blaming them for hastening Philip's and The Queen's deaths.

They were evicted from Frogmore Cottage.

It took six months for the palace website to add Prince/Princess titles to Archie and Lili but it was instanteous to change George, Charlotte, and Louis to "of Wales."

Charles calls them "Harry and Meghan" or "my other son and his wife."

The family doesn't want to be seen with or around them. Even Eugenie seems to have abandoned ship these days.

William isn't taking Harry's calls.

Lili doesn't have a webpage on the royal website.

Harry's military titles and honors have been revoked. All he has left is the merit-based rank he "earned" as an enlisted soldier. (Which is being generous.)

Their Spotify deal was cancelled early. (Scobie admits this in Endgame.)

No more social media birthday greetings/shout-outs from official royal accounts.

Nothing has come out of Netflix except a whinefest docuseries that no one has taken seriously. Everything they've pitched gets shot down and Meghan isn't getting the talent she wants for her movie.

The only awards they're getting are the ones that they pay for - no Grammys for Spare's audiobook, no Emmys or Golden Globes for their documentaries or the Oprah interview, no Pulitzers or Literary Awards for their books. No Nobel Peace Prize for their recordbreaking humanitarian aid work.

They got the knockoff Kennedys (William got the real ones).

Meghan isn't "in" with A-List Hollywood. The celebrities she's been namedropping haven't had commercial box office hits in at least a decade. She isn't hosting or presenting at award shows.

Meghan isn't getting the lucrative influencer sponsorships and merching she wants, which is why she papwalks in parking lots.

Their foundation is a joke and their philanthropy/giving is increasingly under scrutiny for things that don't make sense.

Their "good deeds" are actually ulterior motives designed for maximum PR and celebrity bandwagons, rather than actually helping underserved communities.

There is actual, open, frequent speculation that their children aren't even real and that has to hurt as a parent.

The British press doesn't take them seriously.

They're a comedy punchline, and not just for satire. The Golden Globes made fun of them. The whole world laughed at them after the "car chase."

Harry's lawsuits aren't going well. He's now trying to relitigate a court finding so he doesn't have to pay his fines.

Elton John isn't flying them anywhere anymore. Oprah and Gayle have cut ties. Ellen DeGeneres seems disinterested. Tyler Perry noped out.

Harry's balding is atrocious. (I mean, really. In the overhead camera angles of The Queen's funeral, his bald spot jumps out at you from a mile away. Not even William's bald head stands out that much.)

They/Archewell bleed staff faster than a flesh wound.

Andrew -- ANDREW! -- still has a royal residence, still has RPOs, still gets papped with members of the royal family, still gets friendly press coverage (on occasion), still gets to wear/use some of his honors (like the RVO at coronation).

Eugenie got to have her own personal social media while Harry and Meghan got a "business" account.

The Sussex wedding was overshadowed by so much drama that still persists to this day (thanks for the Markle v Markle lawsuit, Sam!).

Spare made everyone realize Harry is as bad as Meghan and it's not all on her.

Harry's "Hero Harry"/Queen's Soldier PR persona has been completely and thoroughly shattered. Everyone knows it was just a publicity facade now.

Harry isn't even getting the "William's brother" edit anymore - that's now Mike Tindall.

They were erased from most of the Platinum Jubilee - their only official event was the service of thanksgiving. They didn't even get Trooping - Meghan had to arrange for a pap to take her picture to show us they were at Trooping.

They were erased from the Coronation - Harry got lumped in with the extended family (vs the line of succession, order of precedence, or working royals) and didn't get into any of the official programs, memorabilia, or portraits.

They've been shunned by most of British aristocracy - no invite to the Grosvenor wedding later this year.

No royal christening for Lili, and it's exceedingly more and more likely that the BRF hasn't met her yet.

The British media/press actually shows up and will be the first to defend the BRF against Sussex allegations when it really matters.

There are accusations of stolen valor against Harry because he seems to be supporting American military more than British military.

Harry's African charities, of which he is the figurehead, are in crisis with the discovery of SA and other allegations.

Supposedly Harry's role with BetterUp has been downgraded/demoted.

Invictus Games is going through some serious money issues. There's talk of cutting Harry and Meghan loose because they aren't/can't fundraise, and you know they won't go down swinging.

I'm sure there are more, but my point is that even though it looks like the Sussexes are getting away with things, they really haven't. after all, it's death by a thousand cuts...or eating an elephant piece by tiny piece -- it builds up over time.

Also I just realized that the Kate's Ring paint chip linked up earlier shows it being more of a teal or an inkier blue. It isn't - it's more of a cobalt blue or a royal blue.

[theoriginalmarke]

MADE UP MONDAY

Have I ever told you about the time that I was a Nigerian prince? It was a long time ago, before the riots and eventual revolution. I was forced to slip out of the royal castle through the escape tunnels and made my way to the Nigerian countryside with just the clothes on my back.

The clothes on my back, and this cell phone. Oh, and my bodyguard stayed with me. And we did have a suitcase in the back of the Range Rover. Did I mention the Range Rover?

Anyway. I barely made it. Now I'm broke, but there are millions and millions of Nigerian dollars just waiting for me but I need your help. All you have to do is advance me a couple of thousand American dollars as well as your bank account routing information, passwords, and PIN numbers.

Now if you'll excuse me I have to answer a text from UPS asking for my credit card information.

I love you, Princess. I hope you're feeling better today. MWAH!

Y'all have a great day.

[toxinellebug]

Paris and the World under The Supreme’s Rule Headcannons

Back during WW2, when Marianne suggested to Wang Fu they should use the Miraculous, she of course meant using them to fight. Wang Fu decided to use them to make a wish;

World Peace.

The price?

World freedom.

So there are SOME good things… No war in Vietnam, no war in Isreal, and good news Americans; 9/11 never happened and school shootings do not exist because it is impossible for anyone to get a gun, not even hunters!

On the downside, no guns for hunting means wildlife conservation is a thing of the past. Animal overpopulation in addition to human deforestation has led to a significant decrease in food sources for wildlife, many of which have gone extinct due to starvation. Another plus side is there are no “slap on the wrist” punishments for criminals who assault women and children. Death penalty is a very effective way to prevent recurring crimes.

Prisons are also no longer a multi-million dollar drain on tax-paying citizens; no free room and board for criminals. They all have to work in labor camps to earn every morsel of food and live in 15 square foot cells.

(Marinette’s Grandmother is currently serving time in a labor camp)

There aren’t really much in the way of trials either… You are arrested for a crime, presented with the facts/evidence, then sentenced.

There are no homeless wandering streets, begging for hand-outs. There are special labor camps for the impoverished where they are assigned tasks that meet their physical and mental abilities, snd are paid enough to afford them cheap living quarters, approximately 130 square feet in size, and the most basic of food stuffs and hygiene products to keep them alive. No, they cannot refuse.

Remember, the Supreme knows best.

Project Oxygen is a go- several small parks have been “re-habilitated” into giant filters and fresh air is beginning to be sold in fancy plastic bottles thanks to Bertrand King. He’s been trying for a while to convince Gabriel that Adrien should do commercials for Project Oxygen, as it would be great for the boy’s career…. But Gabriel always comes up with an excuse to get out of it. The latest being that it wouldn’t match with Adrien’s new look.

Audrey Bourgeois ADORES Adrien’s new look! It’s so much more bold and edgy! Also, the latest fashion trend is not glitter, it’s metal studs- industry and progress in a sleek, metallic form.

Audrey is home more often than Andre, who could be gone for months at a time working on one of his movies. But of course he still handles important paperwork and does video calls to check on hotel and sends lots of very expensive gifts to his little Princess.

Chloe is even more abusive and demanding of Sabrina, and poor Sabrina puts up with it for her father’s sake-

There has been a lot of vandalism lately (thanks to Shadybug and ClawNoir) and talk that Enforcers just aren’t as effective at keeping the order as they used to be. Word is that tech Giant Tsurugi is in the process of designing new automatons that will be more efficient (and less costly) than human Enforcers. Who knows? There may even be a surge of Enforcer lay-offs if the project becomes successful. Chloe has hinted that she MIGHT be willing to put in a good word with Daddy, should Mr. Raincomprix be one of the many Enforcers who finds himself out of a job. The Hotel could always use more security guards/bouncers. But since Daddy ONLY hires the most DEDICATED employees… Well, how can Chloe possibly make a recommendation if she’s not sure Sabrina’s dad would REALLY give it his all? So Sabrina bends over backwards until she breaks and then some to keep Chloe happy.

Officer Raincomprix is also uneasy about talks of future layoffs, and as such, has become harsh in Enforcing law and order. No little wrong doing goes unnoticed or forgiven. No leniency. (Think Roger-cop without the Akuma).

Rose is not that perky. Under the Supreme, there is no socialist nonsense like Universal Healthcare, so medicines, doctor visits, prescriptions, hospitals… it’s all crazy expensive just like in the USA. This means, in order for Rose to be able to attend a private school like Francois Dupont; her parents work a LOT of overtime and pinch pennies whenever they can. So it’s very lonely at home and in this universe, Rose has not (yet) met Juleka (as stated in previous headcannon). Instead of Unicorns, Rose’s favorite animal is the Caladrius, (a mythological bird that can heal any illness). Though unicorns and kittens are still in her top five favs.

Rose doesn’t see the word through rose-colored glasses. She can’t see the silver-lining in ever raincloud… Instead, she tries to make it herself; if there is no positive, she will just have to invent one! It’s more work, and exhausting, but she HAS to, otherwise she’d drown in depression. Rose’s illness is kept a secret, not because she fears people will treat her with pity, but that she fears people will look down on her; like she’s a burden on her parents, like it’s annoying to have to put up with her weakness.

(I’ve actually been sick myself, since xmas day in fact- perhaps as punishment from the universe for making ClawNoir cataclysm Santa Claus)

Penny is Bob Roth’s personal servant- er, I mean, assistant… which means she’s also gopher for XY. (There is no woman in Paris more miserable than Penny).

Jean-Pierre Monlataing is still an Art teacher at Francois Dupont… and he teaches traditional art styles. Helping students practice time-honored techniques through repetition and standardization. Graffiti is not art, so no spray-paint cans in his classroom! Alix Kubdel is his most troubled student. Marinette does not attend art club. Nathaniel shows great talent for portraits.

Jalil strives to be better than his father; he admire Nathalie Sancoeur and hopes to rise to her position of Director of the Louvre someday.

Directors of Museums are prestigious positions you have to work hard your whole life to even be considered for, as The Supreme appoints them. As far as the public knows, this is for the sake of preserving history as well as ensuring that dangerous ideas from the past do not repeat themselves and inspire anarchy in young, impressionable minds.

The reality is that they are searching for clues to missing Miraculous.

The Supreme has already taken steps to ensure the Prodigious will never pose a threat to his power (Temple and access to cave have been destroyed and the bracelet has been confiscated and placed in a secure location).

But there are still most likely Miraculous scattered across the earth. Gems that, if fallen into the “wrong hands” could disrupt the peace and order that the Supreme has worked hard to maintain.

Marianne intends to find these Miraculous first… if only she had the help of someone younger and more physically up to the challenge.

When Gabriel/Betterfly/Hesperia forms “The Resistance” and Marianne is introduced to their ranks, this is exactly the plan she suggests in order to take down The Supreme and give power back to all the people.

She only has a few clues on where to start searching though.

…Fun fact, if you were to unify the Ladybug miraculous of creation with the Eagle miraculous of freedom, you would get Ladybird- determined to create a new, free world.

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

The lux cottage couple of SAN YSIDRO RANCH

When the Frogmore Cottage renovation project was announced to the British tax payers, Meghan used her personal "mouthpieces" to express displeasure with the choice. She found this cottage beneath her expectations for a royal standard of living. She publicly compared Frogmore Cottage to the homes of William and Catherine, and took to twatter to express her disdain for the free "staff" accommodations.

We already knew she detested Nottingham Cottage before Megflix because she lived in a rented house in the Cotswolds. A detail they conveniently forgot to mention in the mockumentary.

While her public disdain for rent-free housing is ON BRAND for Meghan, it is no coincidence that she moved to CA and deliberately chose a luxury COTTAGE as the faux Hollywood set of their reality tv show.

Meghan & Harry's Santa Barbara Cottages & Gardens represents another sign that she has always obsessed with setting up her rival faux ROYAL court. The BRF security team is obliged to flag these seemingly unrelated decisions as more evidence of Meghan's disordered bunny boiler personality which I have termed PCDD¹.

I still believe Meghan was crazy enough to name ARCHie and their ARCHewell BRAND after the word monARCHy. I also believe she named her tig blog after William & Harry's lost dog TIGger and their beloved lost nanny TIGgy. She used the word TIG to wickedly trigger Harry's boyhood traumas rooted in losses. In this case, a dog and a 2nd mother figure. Harry was a Marked man (now a Markled man) long before they met in Istanbul, Turkey.

Their decision to burn unearned wealth to cosplay in lux COTTAGES only feeds Meghan's Princess Catherine Derangement Disorder (PCDD¹) and her deluded fantasy that she is destined to become QUEEN of the world.

To keep up their lux cottage couple lifestyle, from 2020-2022 Meghan Markle potentially burned through a min of $56,000-$84,000 per WEEK to stage zoom calls and create a fake lifestyle of luxury for a megflix mockumentary.

That is at minimum $1,000,000 (million) per year on luxury hotel fees all the while suing & shaming the British tax payers for SECURITY. This is CRIMINAL.

The money Meghan & Harry burned on a weekly basis (during a pandemic) is the amount of money average Americans hope to gross in 1 year. The average family in some of the poorest countries in the world could transform their entire village with what these (2) two spent in 1 week to stage zoom calls. No wonder Meghan was in debt when she married Harry. She's the fraudess who went into debt to create her HUMANITARIAN brand to "bag a Prince.²"

It doesn't add up: they own a 16 bathroom mansion and yet the director of megflix quit the job because Meghan & Harry weren't willing to film their REALITY TV show out of their home. They will write off the expense of these lux cottages. With the publication of SpareUs, they released photos and articles all about the cottages and the property. No doubt Meghan negotiated a reduced rate to act as brand ambassadors.

But why the deception?

We learned that Charles cut Harry a check for a few million dollars, and yet ungrateful Harry went before the entire world with his lying wife and lying NOprah to shame his father for cutting him off financially. According to Harry it was only the millions from his mother (his very own patron saint who communicates with him from her grave) that made it possible for them to avoid homelessness.

NOprah had the audacity to publicly shame the British people for wasteful spending in honor of their Queen's Platinum Jubilee. This hypocrisy from the woman who televised the moment she gifted a room full of MULTI-MILLIONAIRES with an extravagant pair of diamond earrings. Her media mogul mentee, Tyler Perry, purchased 2 Rolls Royce vehicles: 1 for a billionairess, NOprah & 1 for a millionaire, Gail.

This cottage couple cried to NOprah because their royal baby didn't have SECURITY. Bethenny Frankle was even contacted by A list celebrities and told to take down her criticism of Meghan because they couldn't AFFORD to pay their SECURITY bills.

Free people should do whatever they desire to do with their own money; however in this instance, it is Meghan's pretense, her hypocrisy, and her penchant for deception that voted her the 2022 #1 celebrity that people are most sick of and of course Harry took the 2nd place spot.

Harry's law suit against his grandmother's government has already cost the British tax payer $300,000. This selfish, greedy California cottage couple has the audacity to demand that the UK tax payer cover their annual $3,000,000 SECURITY bill. You couldn't make it up.

This comes as no surprise to us bc we observed her celebrity NO work ethic at a mere 72 engagements.

If you pay UK taxes or live in a Commonwealth Country, please write to the MPs and to your Prime Minister. Sussex titles need to be stripped, thereby relieving the cottage couple (and their invisibles) of their ties to the UK and any need for tax payer funded SECURITY.

Admittedly, Meghan cares nothing for the sacrifices that were made by the British people (dead or alive). She feels entitled to other people's money. Unfortunately Harry, like his wife, lacks a pure desire for servant leadership.

William and Harry's mother, who actually worked hard for a living (even as a house keeper), would be appalled at Harry's sense of entitlement. Sadly, Harry has managed to embody the egomania his mother feared might result from an uber privileged upbringing.

In selecting Meghan, it is evident to the world that Harry has again tragically lost the mother he knew for the first 13 years of his life.

In 2019, Tatum O'Neal was asked about Meghan's infamous bad behavior at Wimbledon, and she seemed genuinely disappointed. "This is not Diana...I don't know what this is..." More evidence that Harry was told by numerous people who actually knew his mother that this wife lacks his mother's virtues, and yet he prefers to believe & parrot her lies.

On Megflix, Meghan expressed that she's frustrated because after all this time (and Money on PR) people still don't have "a good sense" of who she is. For her to make such an outrageous statement only confirmed that South Park got it right, Harry's wife is "stupid."

Meghan dear, which one of your multiple personalities carried out those 72 engagements? Were we watching your clone? Did the British press tamper with the footage? Go back and watch yourself, preferably with a REAL medical professional. And while you're at it, print out the transcripts of those horrid podcasts. Everyone can see the real you except for you and your dumb now husband, H.

Harry had the audacity to say that unlike his British family members, he and Meghan never worried about how they might perform in front of the press because they are AUTHENTIC.

The fact that Harry believes Meghan is his mother incarnate is enough to warrant a wellness check visit on the invisibles by a qualified social worker. Obviously Dorito's CA license isn't worth the paper it was printed on.

The words of Harry's friend(s) about her rented apartment being Soho House "touched" certainly ring true today. I still don't understand the full meaning of those words, but even Dumb Harry wrote that she lived out of Soho House hotels where they stored her luggage.

"Soho House Touched" Living Accommodations

If you watch the home videos of Meghan, it affirms what her Uncle Mike said about his brother Thomas: he created "a prima donna." Sadly the entire world has been impacted by Thomas' creation. Meghan, the faux humanitarian, has shown the world the level of destruction an ungrateful adult child is capable of inflicting on her own families, and on all the families she never had.

So many elaborate schemes executed to feed the world an illusion of two innocent lovers who escaped their awful life inside the gilded cage of royalty, only to act out a modern day tragedy on a global stage.

Carry on duke & duchess. Carry on

¹PCDD Princess Catherine Derangement Disorder Last year I read a comment that summed up the root of Meghan's psychosis with a simple link to this photo:

²Gina Nelthorpe Cowne Quote

They negotiated a price cut from Mr. Warner. Too bad he also allowed them to redecorate w/Meghan's tacky home furnishings.

[whileiamdying]

The Strange Journey of John Lennon’s Stolen Patek Philippe Watch

For decades, Yoko Ono thought that the birthday gift was in her Dakota apartment. But it had been removed and sold—and now awaits a court ruling in Geneva.

By Jay Fielden June 17, 2024

The missing watch, now valued at between ten and forty million dollars, was a fortieth-birthday gift from Yoko Ono, along with a tie she knit herself.Photograph by Bob Gruen

For years, John Lennon’s Patek Philippe 2499 has been the El Dorado of lost watches. Lennon was known for collecting expensive things: apartments in the Dakota (five); guitars (one apartment was mainly for musical equipment); country estates; jukeboxes (three); and Egyptian artifacts, including a gold-leafed sarcophagus containing a mummified princess, who Yoko Ono believed was a former self. But the Patek appears to have been his one and only wristwatch.

A gift from Ono, the watch is more than anyone would ever need to tell the time. A perpetual-calendar chronograph, it is, as Paul Boutros, the head of watches at the American arm of Phillips auction house, says, a “mechanical microcomputer, the most sought after of all Pateks.” Between 1952 and around 1985, Patek produced just three hundred and forty-nine of them. The watch, which Ono bought at Tiffany on Fifth Avenue, records time in eight different ways; the dial houses three apertures (day, month, moon phase) and three subdials (seconds, elapsed minutes, date). If you never memorized the mnemonic “thirty days hath September,” no worries—the 2499 Patek hath. Its miraculous ganglia of tiny wheels and levers will adjust its readings to the quirky imperfections of the Gregorian calendar, including leap years. No other watchmaker was able to produce a perpetual-calendar-chronograph movement small enough to fit into a wristwatch until 1985.

What makes this 2499 even rarer—and perhaps the most valuable wristwatch in existence—is how little we know about it. Ono gave it to her husband for his fortieth birthday, on October 9, 1980, two months before he was fatally shot by a deranged man outside the Dakota. For the next three decades, the existence of the watch remained unknown except to a handful of family and close friends.

But, sometime around 2007, in the early days of social media, a new kind of watch obsessive materialized, equipped with native computer skills and an appreciation for the places where pop culture and the luxury market intersect. In those pre-Instagram years, fanboy wonks traded watch esoterica online: an image of Picasso wearing a lost Jaeger-LeCoultre; Castro with two trendy Rolexes strapped to one arm; Brando, on the set of “Apocalypse Now,” “flexing,” as watch geeks say, a Rolex GMT-Master without its timing bezel, a modification he made to better inhabit the role of Kurtz; and—the Google image-search find of them all—two frames of an uncredited snapshot of Lennon and his Patek.

“I’m not a watch guy,” Sean Lennon said. “I’d be terrified to wear anything of my dad’s. I never even played one of his guitars.”Photograph by Bob Gruen

Since its discovery, around 2011, the image has appeared online again and again, fuelling a speculative frenzy about what the watch—which cost around twenty-five thousand dollars at Tiffany in 1980—might bring at auction today, with estimates ranging from ten million to forty million dollars. (Bloomberg’s Subdial Watch Index tracks the value of a bundle of watches produced by Rolex, Patek, and Audemars Piguet, like an E.T.F.; the Boston Consulting Group reported that, between 2018 and 2023, a similar selection outperformed the S. & P. 500 by twelve per cent. In 2017, Paul Newman’s Rolex Daytona broke records by selling at auction for $17.8 million.) But all the clickbait posts about the Lennon Patek, as it had come to be known, were regurgitations that contained few facts. There was never a mention of who took the photo, where it was taken, or even where the watch might be.

During the long, dull days of the pandemic, I decided to see what I could find out. Several years went by, as I traced the journey of the watch from where it was stowed after Lennon’s death—a locked room in his Dakota apartment—to when it was stolen, apparently in 2005. From there, it moved around Europe and the watch departments of two auction houses, before becoming the subject of an ongoing lawsuit, in Switzerland, to determine whether the watch’s rightful owner is Ono or an unnamed man a Swiss court judgment refers to as Mr. A, who claims to have bought the watch legally in 2014.

Having reached its final appeal—Ono has so far prevailed—the case is now in the hands of the Tribunal Fédéral, Switzerland’s Supreme Court, which is expected to render a verdict later this year. Meanwhile, the watch continues to sit in an undisclosed location in Geneva, a city that specializes in the safe, secret storage of lost treasures.

Lennon holding up his birthday Patek in the fall of 1980 is one of the happiest moments captured on film in the final years of his life. That summer, he’d begun making music again, during a trip to Bermuda which he’d hoped would help repair the well-publicized strain in his marriage to Ono. Lennon’s “lost weekend”—more than a year spent living in Los Angeles with May Pang, a former assistant who became his lover—was not that far in the past, and Ono had fallen into an infatuation with an art-world socialite named Sam Green. (It was in Bermuda that Lennon wrote “I’m Losing You.”)

Lennon had spent the previous five years holed up in the Dakota as a self-proclaimed “househusband,” raising his son Sean so that Ono, whom Lennon called Mother, could take her turn at being the decision-maker of the music-business enterprise they’d named Lennono. While Ono dealt with Beatles headaches, controlled the purse strings, and invested in real estate, Lennon occupied himself by watching soap operas, eating bran biscuits and rice, smoking Gitanes, and listening to either classical music or Muzak. “If I heard anything bad,” he later explained, “I’d want to fix it, and if I heard anything good, I’d wonder why I hadn’t thought of it.”

In the photograph, Lennon, trim and fit from a macrobiotic diet, wears jeans and a loosely knotted striped knit tie adorned with a jewel-encrusted American-flag pin. The picture was taken in the Hit Factory, where he and Ono had been recording “Double Fantasy,” his first album in five years. The room is dim, but he has on sunglasses, celluloid horn-rims recently bought in Japan. Buckled on his left wrist is the Patek 2499.

In order to find out more about the photograph, I tracked down Jack Douglas, the noted record producer who oversaw “Double Fantasy,” and sent him the picture by e-mail. He replied right away. “Bob Gruen took the photo,” he wrote, referring to the well-known documenter of the seventies and eighties rock scene.

When I contacted Gruen, who is now seventy-eight and lives in New York City, he had no idea that his photograph had become the talk of the horological world or why he’d never been given credit for it; he’d published the image in a book, titled “John Lennon: The New York Years,” in 2005. But he remembered the night he took the photo—Lennon’s fortieth birthday. Since late that summer, Lennon and Ono had been spending a lot of time in a multiroom studio on the sixth floor of the Hit Factory building, then on West Forty-eighth Street. “I was one of the few people who had an open invitation,” Gruen told me. “They liked to work late.” Gruen, who said he was living on a “steak-and-Cognac diet” in those days, showed up after midnight, having attended the thirty-sixth-birthday party of the singer Nona Hendryx. “I thought I’d bring John a piece of her birthday cake,” he said.

When Gruen arrived, Lennon was enjoying his presents: the knit tie, which Ono had made herself (a copy of the one he wore at school in Liverpool); the flag pin; and the Patek, in yellow gold, which had a rare and highly coveted double-stamped dial, meaning that both the watchmaker’s and Tiffany’s logos were printed on it. Gruen remembered Lennon being abuzz over the tie and the pin, a nod to Lennon’s fourth anniversary as a green-card holder. He doesn’t recall talking about the watch. But Lennon nonetheless strapped the black lizard band onto his wrist when Gruen reached for his Olympus OM4.

A few other photographs that Gruen took that week have never been seen by the public. One shows Lennon at a mixing board with Douglas, who is wearing a recognizable watch himself, a Porsche Design Chronograph I—stainless steel and coated in black—which Porsche had presented to him and to the members of Aerosmith in 1976, after the band’s German tour for its album “Rocks.” Douglas told me that he and Lennon later wrist-checked each other. “Although I thought his watch was beautiful,” he wrote in an e-mail to me, “I told John it didn’t have the pizzazz of my black beauty, and we had a good laugh.

After Lennon’s death, Ono had a full inventory taken of her husband’s possessions, a document that amounted to nearly a thousand pages. She then put the Patek in a locked room of her apartment. And there the watch remained for more than twenty years.

I found a clue as to what happened next by putting together shards of information from various members of the watch intelligentsia who had all “heard” that the Patek had been stolen. “I think the guy was Turkish,” one said. Another remembered “something about a chauffeur.” This led me to a 2006 article in the Times about a man named Koral Karsan (Turkish: check), who had served as Ono’s chauffeur (check two) for the previous ten years. Karsan, a veteran member of Ono’s oft-shuffled staff—trusted enough that he had full access to her apartment—had simply gone berserk in December of that year, threatening to release embarrassing photos and private conversations he’d been recording unless Ono paid him two million dollars; he allegedly said that if she refused he would have her and Sean killed.

A tall, square-jawed man with a thick burr of white hair, Karsan, then fifty, was arrested. In a series of preliminary hearings in a Manhattan courtroom, he defended himself against charges of extortion and attempted grand larceny by claiming, as the Times reported, that Ono had “humiliated and degraded him, wrecking his marriage and making him so nervous that he ground eight of his teeth to the bone.” A letter he’d written to Ono describing himself as her “driver, bodyguard, assistant, butler, nurse, handyman and more so your lover and confidant” was also entered into the record. Ono disputed Karsan’s claims about a romance, but the prosecution allowed him to plead guilty to a lesser charge, and he was ordered to return to his native Turkey.

According to a story that Karsan would later tell, Ono—who was known to consult psychics—became worried one day in 2006 that a forecasted heavy-weather event might endanger some meaningful Lennon items, including two pairs of Lennon’s eyeglasses and several New Yorker desk diaries (which he used as journals during the last five years of his life); she asked Karsan to find a safer place to keep them. Unbeknownst to Ono, when Karsan was subsequently deported, these items, along with the Patek, followed him.

Ono, who is ninety-one and lives in seclusion in upstate New York, declined to comment. Of Karsan, Sean Lennon told me, “He took advantage of a widow at a vulnerable time. Of all the incidents of people stealing things from my parents, this one is the most painful.”

Karsan, back in Turkey, was in the market for a house. Around 2009, he showed Lennon’s watch to a Turkish friend visiting from Berlin named Erhan G (as he came to be known owing to German privacy laws). Karsan let Erhan G flip through the diaries, including one marked 1980, which includes Lennon’s final entry. Karsan threw out an idea: he’d give the Lennon Patek to Erhan G as collateral for a loan. Erhan G agreed.

One evening in 2013, in Berlin, Erhan G met an executive who worked for a new, much hyped digital auction platform called Auctionata. He couldn’t resist boasting about the Patek 2499 and the rest of the Lennon trove—some eighty items. In short order, a dinner was arranged with Oliver Hoffmann, Auctionata’s twenty-eight-year-old director of watches. “He told me the story of how he’d gotten the watch,” Hoffmann recalled, of his meeting with Erhan G. “It was strange, but it felt whole and true. It was credible because of the many details.” Erhan G, who said that he was the watch’s rightful owner, per an agreement with Karsan, didn’t strike Hoffmann as a man desperate for money. “He owned a successful business and lived in a large apartment in a building close to Potsdamer Platz,” Hoffman said. (Erhan G could not be reached for comment.)

Auctionata, which live-streamed its auctions, was one of Germany’s dot-com darlings, lauded in the press for disrupting the old auction-house model, dominated by Christie’s and Sotheby’s, which had yet to develop a digital-first business. Investors including Groupe Arnault, Holtzbrinck Ventures, and Hearst Ventures had put up more than a hundred million dollars of venture capital for the company. Hoffmann says that the C.E.O., Alexander Zacke, recognized what a publicity boon selling John Lennon’s lost watch would be and pushed for a way to do it with or without notifying Ono. (Zacke did not respond to a request for comment.) Teams of lawyers studied the watch’s provenance and puzzled over how to offer it for sale without raising eyebrows. A document called an extract was obtained from Patek Philippe, which meant that the watch had not been registered as stolen, and Karsan himself travelled to Berlin, where he signed a document in front of a notary testifying that Ono had given him her husband’s Patek as a gift in 2005. As for the authenticity of the watch, there was no doubt: on the case back is an identifying inscription that has never been made public outside Germany.

In late 2013, in preparation for an auction, Auctionata had the watch professionally photographed. (In the photo, the watch floats in a vacuum, a carefully lit token of commerce, divorced from all human and emotional context.) But Erhan G got cold feet. Some years earlier, Ono had sued a former employee who had slipped out of the Dakota with Lennon memorabilia; Frederic Seaman, Lennon’s last personal assistant, confessed to having stolen diaries similar, if not identical, to those which Karsan and Erhan G had stashed away. (He later returned them.) Searching for a private buyer, Hoffmann approached Mr. A, a man he knew from the rare-watch circuit. A deal by “private treaty”—a sale undisclosed to the public—was reached, and in March, 2014, Mr. A agreed that he would consign a selection of Rolex and Patek watches from his own collection, whose sale proceeds would go toward payment for the Lennon 2499, which was priced at six hundred thousand euros (about eight hundred thousand dollars). “This, in some ways, was more helpful than auctioning the watch,” Hoffmann told me, explaining that Auctionata’s watch department needed the inventory. The vintage watches Mr. A consigned, most of which Hoffmann valued at between twenty thousand and forty thousand euros apiece, were in total likely worth more than the 2499.

Mr. A told Hoffmann that he planned to keep Lennon’s watch in his collection, which has included pieces owned by Eric Clapton. But, within months, he took the Lennon Patek to the Geneva office of Christie’s. As part of the auction house’s appraisal process, a Christie’s representative reached out to Ono’s lawyer, who promptly notified his client. Ono rushed to check the locked room, only to discover that the Patek wasn’t there. She had no idea how long it had been gone.

In August of 2023, a reporter named Coline Emmel, who works for a small but enterprising Web site in Switzerland called Gotham City, found something interesting in a backlog of documents filed that summer by the Chambre Civile in the canton of Geneva—an appellate judgment in a civil case that had been going on for five years. European privacy laws, especially those in Switzerland, make legal documents unusually hard to decipher. The Swiss judiciary uses a system of letters and numbers to create pseudonyms for appellants, respondents, and anyone else involved, turning a case file into a cryptogram. Emmel knew enough about Beatles history to recognize that “C_____, widow of late F_____, of Japanese nationality and domiciled in [New York City]” was, in fact, Yoko Ono. Although the appeals court affirmed the lower court’s decision that Ono was the “sole legitimate owner of the watch,” Mr. A—“a watch collector and longtime professional in the sector, of Italian nationality”—was launching another appeal. Emmel posted a brief synopsis on Gotham City, along with the news that a final judgment was now being awaited from the Swiss Supreme Court.

“Mystery solved!” was the gist of the message that ricocheted around the watch world. But, to me, the mystery had only deepened. The basic itinerary of the Patek’s odyssey and its current location had been discovered, but the human detail of how it had passed from wrist to wrist, hiding place to hiding place, still hadn’t been reported. What’s more, where had Ono ever got the idea of giving a guy like John Lennon—eater of carob-coated peanuts, singer of a song about imagining no possessions, peacenik—a watch that was a status symbol of lockjawed good taste? And what was its famously secret inscription?

I had already been in contact with Mr. A; three days before Emmel posted her scoop, he’d cancelled a planned meeting with me in Italy. Instead, we arranged to speak over Zoom. Seated in a panelled room, he told me that, when Ono had found the watch missing, her counsel demanded its return. It was a tricky legal situation, because Ono, having never realized that the watch was gone, hadn’t reported it stolen, and because the case spans several national jurisdictions. Mr. A explained that he didn’t return the watch because he didn’t believe it to be stolen property. He mentioned the inventory that had been taken of Lennon’s possessions after his death, which was referred to in the judgment; he claimed that only two watches were listed—a gold watch (presumably the Patek) and another that Mr. A said was a pocket watch Ono had auctioned through Sotheby’s in 1984, two decades before Karsan swore she gave him the Patek.

Mr. A pointed to Ono’s own version of the story. “Following the death of the late [John Lennon],” the Swiss court’s judgment reads, in a summary of a deposition that Ono gave to investigators from Berlin at the German consulate in New York City, “[Ono] wanted to give something belonging to her to those who had worked very faithfully for her. So, she told [Karsan] to take a watch.” Ono, however, added that she in no way meant the “watch she’d given the late [John Lennon].” What watch did she mean? Mr. A asked rhetorically. “There was only the Patek.”

Christie’s, informed that the watch had been stolen, kept the 2499 secured in its Geneva vault, where it sat for several years. The judgment states, “On December 17, 2015, the parties and [Christie’s] SA entered into a consignment-escrow agreement under which the Watch would be consigned to [Mr. A’s lawyer], until agreement or right is adjudicated on the property.” (Christie’s did not respond to a request for comment.) Mr. A told me that he eventually decided to go on the offensive. In 2018, he initiated a civil lawsuit against Ono to prove that he was the Patek’s rightful owner.

What Mr. A never expected was that his fate would become intertwined with that of Auctionata, which went bankrupt in early 2017. A German court brought in a bankruptcy expert and lawyer named Christian Graf Brockdorff, who, in a review of the company’s inventory, stumbled on the eighty-odd other Lennon items that Erhan G had consigned for a high-six-figure sum. “I doubted that everything that had happened in the past was legally correct,” Brockdorff told me in an e-mail. He contacted the police; a criminal case was opened, and Erhan G was found guilty of knowingly dealing in stolen goods. He served a one-year suspended sentence, having admitted that the story that Karsan had told of how he got the Lennon items “did not correspond to reality.” (A Europol warrant was issued for Karsan, whose whereabouts are unknown; he could not be reached for comment.) That the case itself ever came to be is curious, but its verdict set a legal foundation that the Swiss judgment cited in declaring that Mr. A is not the watch’s rightful owner. According to Guido Urbach, a knowledgeable Swiss attorney, it is unlikely that the Supreme Court will decide any differently.

The secret dedication that Ono had inscribed on the back of the Patek Philippe 2499: “(JUST LIKE) / STARTING OVER / LOVE YOKO / 10 • 9 • 1980 / N. Y. C.”

In a series of follow-up e-mails, I asked Mr. A about what John Lennon’s Patek meant to him. “I’m more of a Rolling Stones man,” he replied, mentioning that he has played bass in a local band for years. Still, “to own the JL watch is really a double good feeling,” he said, adding that he remained hopeful that he could “wear it as soon as possible.”

But, if the Supreme Court confirms the appellate court’s ruling, the watch will likely return to New York. “It’s important that we get it back because of all we’ve gone through over it,” Sean Lennon told me. He added, “I’m not a watch guy. I’d be terrified to wear anything of my dad’s. I never even played one of his guitars.” He paused. “To me, if anything, the watch is just a symbol of how dangerous it is to trust.”

The watch never seems to have given anyone peace and happiness for long. When Lennon was in Bermuda, writing what he described as the best kind of songs—“the ones that come to you in the middle of the night”—Ono was spending time with Sam Green, whom the Times once described as “an unabashed poseur blessed with good looks.” Green had a way with rich and eccentric women. He’d had an affair with the Bakelite heiress, Barbara Baekeland, and by 1980 he was spending his time juggling Greta Garbo, Diana Vreeland, and Ono.

Looking through Green’s papers, which are at Yale’s Beinecke Library, I got an eerie feeling. I found a number of diary entries that corroborated his close relationship with Ono (“Yoko all day and night,” numerous notations read), and a handwritten tally for more than twenty-five thousand dollars—the cost of furniture that Green had sourced to appoint the Hit Factory studio. Whether Green was the one who suggested the Patek as a birthday present for Lennon is hard to confirm, but the cursed history of the watch invites speculation.

The secret engraving, which I found in the never-published Auctionata photo of the watch, is haunting in another way:

Was there a new start? By the time “Double Fantasy” was finished, Ono had lost interest in Green, and Lennon, who had just written and recorded no fewer than four love songs about her, appeared to be a happy man. The weeks they spent together at the Hit Factory that year had been charmed, which means that the Lennon Patek captures a measure of time that no other watch ever will—the little they had left together. ♦

Published in the print edition of the June 24, 2024, issue, with the headline “In Search of Lost Time.”

[barmans-fault]

You made a good point of how this staged photoshoot will lead to increased exposure and ticket sales esp ahead of the US tour, because correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think all their US dates are sold out? They’re not as popular in the states and it’s been a couple months since I checked but I only saw a handful of shows that showed sold out. All this just reminds us of a curated version we have of him. Someone who likes privacy and wants to be lowkey doesn’t date attention seekers consistently and calls the paps on themselves. He just lost all credibility he had

Words of wisdom here from a lovely anon and thank you for sharing these thoughts, i agree with every word 💘

I think people generally get very caught up in the whole "alex is a romantic little prince too busy with his mind on clever lines he's innocent and private and not like other celebs and his privacy has been violated" narrative and tend to forget how much of a business this whole thing is.

The primary purpose of any business, be that show business or not, is to make money. The band is an asset that needs to generate revenue. American market has huge potential for that, alas, as the anon above correctly pointed out, very few of the US shows are sold out at this point, just a month ahead of the tour and the sales need to be boosted. The best strategy would definitely be to hype it up a little. American audience seems to be really into the whole straight dominant greaser bad boy persona (where do you think all those endless alex/your name fics with that shitty 50 shades of grey vibes come from?) and the target audience must be catered for. Both parties benefit: Alex gets the publicity of a cool rockstar kind of tired of his fame with a beautiful gf by his side on an expensive posh Italian resort. The pictures will now be all over insta/twitter/tiktok igniting interest in new fans and rekindling the old ones. The girls will fantasise about taking Louise's place in his arms (oh to be a girlfriend of this rich handsome millionaire musician who is also intelligent and talented and famous and who will fuck you like a whore then treat you like a princess!) and the boys will be jealous of him and his beautiful French girlfriend, wanting to be like him (oh to be this rich handsome millionaire and get all the girls!). Some more tickets will be sold, some more records, some more merch, and a couple of tens (or hundreds) of thousands of dollars will be made. Louise on the other hand, will get more followers and will have more ads, which will also lead to more revenue for her and hence whoever is managing her. Not bad, no?

Alex is usually perceived as a poet with his head in the clouds, an ethereal creature, a poetic and storytelling genius, vulnerable, autistic woodland creature, too exquisite for earthly problems, fragile and defenseless. He is, however, in no way disconnected from reality or too naive not to know how the business works - after all, he's been in it for almost twenty years. And I am supposed to believe his privacy has been violated when it has hardly been violated for the 5 years he was hiding from everyone and no paparazzi whatsoever gave a fuck about him? Oh give me a break. His net worth is estimated to be millions of dollars, same as the band. He is one of the richest rock stars of the generation. I am not saying it is a bad thing - well deserved, he is a genius after all, - but money, even for geniuses, has to be earned. Their music is a product that needs to be sold, and their public image is one of the means to increase those sales.

I do not think that Alex or Louise called the paps themselves last minute - I am pretty sure the whole thing has been set up by the management in advance, with Alex's explicit consent. Again, it is just a marketing strategy which the sales and marketing department decided to go with in order to maximise the revenue. Why would Alex refuse? And please spare me the argument of 'he doesn't need any more money'. Maybe he doesn't (although i am not sure), but the band and the whole machine working for them definitely does as it employs hundreds of people who need to get their paychecks from this whole thing. Mr. Schwarz is staying strong for them, remember?

Once this is all over, the tour is over, the contracts are done and he disappears without a trace, we'll remember this and count how many times paps will ever try to take pictures of him or his gf (zero, mark my words).

Thank you for coming to my ted talk (or thesis defence, more like)♥️

[emcgoverns]

elizabeth mcgovern for “million dollar american princesses” (aired 2015-16) | 📸: graeme hunter/smithsonian channel

[byneddiedingo]

Erich von Stroheim and Maude George in Foolish Wives (Erich von Stroheim, 1922)

Cast: Erich von Stroheim, Miss DuPont, Maude George, Mae Busch, Rudolph Christians, Dale Fuller, Albert Edmondson, Cesare Gravina, Malvina Polo, C.J. Allen. Screenplay: Erich von Stroheim; titles: Marian Ainslee, Walter Anthony. Cinematography: William H. Daniels, Ben F. Reynolds. Art direction: Richard Day, Elmer Sheehy, Van Alstein. Film editing: Arthur Ripley. 

Erich von Stroheim's reach exceeded Hollywood's grasp, though not without some initial encouragement by the studio heads. Universal eagerly promoted Foolish Wives as "the first million-dollar movie," and most of that sum was apparent on screen: the huge sets re-creating Monte Carlo that were built on the Monterey Peninsula in California. Some of it, too, wasn't visible: Stroheim reportedly insisted on having underwear created for his actors bearing the monograms of their characters. But there were limits to what the studio would do for the director: When Rudolph Christians, a key actor in the film, died in mid-filming, Stroheim proposed that his scenes be reshot with his stand-in, Robert Edeson, but was forced to give in to the studio's work-around: Edeson played the role in the remaining scenes with his back to the camera. But mostly, the studio's resistance was to Stroheim's vision of a movie that would run somewhere between six and 10 hours and be shown on two consecutive nights. He was forced to settle for a three-and-a-half-hour version, which was subsequently cut again under the instructions of the New York censors. More cuts by the studio followed after the film was a box office disappointment, so that what we see today is a reconstruction cobbled together from existing versions. But after that, what we have is a juicy, kinky melodrama about decadent Europe trying to corrupt innocent America. Stroheim plays a con man pretending to be an exiled Russian aristocrat, Count Sergius Karamzin, living with two women he says are his cousins: the phony princesses Olga Petchnikoff (Maude George) and Vera Petchnikoff (Mae Busch). They're out to milk whatever cash they can from suckers at Monte Carlo, and Sergius sets his sights on Helen Hughes (Miss DuPont), the wife of an American diplomat (Christians). In his down time from that seduction, he also pursues, with purely carnal intent, a hotel maid (Dale Fuller) and the pretty but mentally challenged daughter (Malvina Polo) of the man who counterfeits the money Sergius uses to bilk gamblers at the casino. There's a spectacular storm and an even more spectacular fire, too, before Sergius gets perhaps more than what's coming to him. Even in its truncated version, Foolish Wives is almost too much. 

[inky-duchess]

Hello! I saw you recently answered an ask saying you think about Dollar Princess/Cash for Coronets and that’s my current brain rot at the moment. Do you mind pointing me in the direction where I can learn more please? Thank you so much!

There is a fantastic documentary that started me off an the interest, it's Million Dollar American Princesses. A very important book to read is written by perhaps the most famous Dollar Princess of the time, Consuelo Vanderbilt "The Glitter and the Gold".

[wyrmfedgrave]

Pics:

1. Portrait of Edward Bulwer-Lytton, son of General William Bulwer & heiress Elizabeth Lytton. His father died before he could be 'elevated' into the Peerage. So, the honor fell to his son - for his popular literary works!

2 thru 4. Photos of Edward, a prolific writer who gave us the following sayings: "the great unwashed", "the almighty dollar" & "the pen is mightier than the sword!"

1906: The Earth (is) Not Hollow.

In 1871 (some say 1870), E. Bulwer- Lytton published his lost world novel "The Coming Race." Whose very title is supposed to be a Darwinian threat!

Edward was a prolific British novelist, playwright, poet, critic & politician. He served once as a Whig. Then, again as a Conservative!

The reason he was so prolific was the extravagant lifestyle that he & his wife followed...

Edward's "Race" was 1 of the 1st lost world & proto-scifi works. Sadly, this particular book would play a role in the creation of the German Nazi Party!!

Plot: An unnamed American narrator & his engineer friend go spelunking in a cave system below an abandoned mine shaft.

Their rope breaks, killing the friend!!

Then our hero is hunted after - by a large lizard (cave dino)!!

The narrator basically stumbles into the Vril-ya (winged humanoids)! Who learn English by viewing our hero's own memories...

Millions of these Ana (their race's name) live in this netherworld. They had fled there long ago - to escape the Flood!!

Under the Earth, they found vril - an unlimited power! A force controllable by willpower & special staffs...

With vril, their society grew into an utopia! One that has no 'real' laws - as enforcement is impossible.

Instead, they have ritual customs - like mutual guidelines & conventions. A single magistrate resolves the few disputes.

Religion & philosophical speculation is seen as pointless & counterproductive to the Vril-ya's 'happiness'...

But, strangely enough, they do believe in a reincarnation cycle, where the dead "change form!"

The Vril-ya are horrified learning of human civilization. They see our democracy as an ignorant type of government!!

Worse, nation states seem repressive, politics seem like conflicts & our system of capitalism is just plain barbarous!

One day, their prophecies say, the Vril-ya must eliminate the savages above!! Though, they'll take no pleasure in these acts.

Just like they've already made most other underground races extinct...

A Vril-ya youth takes our hero back into the cave system - & mentally forces him to act as 'bait!'

When the dino shows up - the kid kills it with 1 blast of his staff!

Luckily for our hero, Zee (a Vril-ya woman) is falling in love with him. Something that could prove fatal to both of them...

Yet, our narrator only has 'feelings' for a younger Vril-ya 'princess'!! He wants to marry her - to take control of this land & make it a proper democracy!

But, being that the Vril-ya only really respect vril wielders, he's asking to be murdered!!

Worse, he's not allowed to leave! The Vril-ya fear that he would reveal their future plans...

Zee, however, 'clears' the blocked tunnel, allowing him to escape.

Back in the U.S., our hero records his warning (the very book that the reader is holding)!!

Pics:

1 thru 3. Covers for various editions of the book that's a warning against an invasion from the Vril-ya underworld.

Note how tall the women are in regard to all males - human or Vril-ya! But, all of the artists forgot that these folk are winged!!

Criticism: The plot here acts as a framing literary device. The rest of the story is a long description of the Vril-ya society.

There's chapters devoted to the Vril-ya's language, sociology & their failing Arts! Even the Vril-ya's skull shapes (a 'science' back then) are all detailed.

Characterization is extremely thin for everyone. Our hero is a mere reader's surrogate & serves as a mouthpiece for the views of the author's times...

Only Zee, the narrator's would be platonic lover shows any real traits beyond her race's usual 'serenity.'

[topconfessions]

Since there are people commenting about Miss Jennie Kim lemme add something for the perfect mix: (also this prob have leaked somewhere in Google blind items or such because it is a hot-topic since K-pop is trendy on the USA for now). Miss Jennie has become a yacht girl in her week in Cannes, she has been put on sale for 2 (2.5?) MILLION DOLLARS and then you can have one night w YG “favorite” princess, and I think at the end it was brought by one random CEO. Worst part? She got only 12% or 20% for her work and the rest was her company that received. It’s mf wild. I used to look for tea on her, but girllllll I would say that K-pop can be even darker than America Hollywood because how these groups are put on sales like wh**** and they don’t even receive the whole payment…. I won’t even start in the mess Rosé is in… she will soon become a yacht girl too if she don’t stop giving YG reasons to keep her in a chain.

Remember a year or two back trolls bitched at me cause I kept it blunt about idols especially TOP and even Jennie?

Thank you for confirming what I suspected. Before these blinds dropped I always knew and suspected she was a yacht girl. I just didn't say she was and kept it to myself cause kids today want proof but older objective fans know Hollywood dirt & tea 80% of the time is speculated about and dropped by those sources you've mentioned. I've seen many stories on LAA over the years leaked there through Incogs that were later released in the news or tmz later.

You don't get to Jennie level and not get pimped out. That's just facts. I do not care what any fan says. I knew it when she got on the idol and worked with weeknd she was selling pussy. The fact it's company managed is not shocking at all but is sad as fuck and underwhelming like you've conveyed. These teen fans, kids and adults who don't regularly study these things aren't familiar with yachting and thinking these girls are just vacationing hanging out and partying. Also that's a great price for her honestly. She's unrelated to this HyunA if she had crossed over during Red era and How's this era would have gotten 3.7-5 mill easy cause of body and her skills.

Thanks for the tip. I just knew she had to be yachting or escorting and not freestyling either. I feel indifferent about it cause sex is a huge hidden secret trade business in kpop and now even bigger cause of them being validated in America. I want to pretend to be surprised that rose is on her way to that but I'm not. Something about her always have me the vibe she'd end up in this way.

She deserves better.

Again, I don't feel bad for Jennie cause they need to stop foolish and actually link with an American celebrity for a PR relationship or hook up or actually give that pu$$ away in a normal relationship to an investor or CEO as a GIrlfriend and get them to help buy them out of their contracts so this isn't a thing anymore. I've yet to see an idol step up to the plate and actually crossover to establish themselves away from the market minus features on songs, photo ops at events and parties etc.

Idgaf what anyone says, networking and social climbing is how to advance in Hollywood these days. Look at Pete Davidson, Travis Kelce (nobody @ me on this) ice spice and a ton others I can name. If I was Jennie I would have already done that. Shit I would have took advantage of the weeknd cause what does Selena have that Jennie does minus full boobs and clout? Chile.

Anyways, I remember seeing Usher whispering to Jennie during the fashion show he wanted to work with her. And he's doing that obviously cause she's a boost and good look for a track. If she had sense and YG isn't keeping her on a leash, she should have went to Ushers Vegas show and get a spotlight.

Goodluck to her.

[meret118]

Docuseries I recommend on the Smithsonian Channel

Archeology

Sacred Sites* (Their Templar episode is rubbish IIRC, but the rest are good, especially the one on Petra.)

Mystic Britain

Legends of the Pharaohs

Secrets Unlocked (These vary in quality, but some are excellent. My two favorites are probably the episode about the Tower of Babel, and the Plagues of Egypt one.)

History

America's Hidden Secrets* (Lots of fascinating stuff we don't hear about in school!)

Million Dollar American Princesses

The Real Mad Men of Advertising

Other

Inside the Factory

I put an asterisk by my favorites.