There’s a moment in Tom Bower’s recent interview with Tom Sykes, an interview Sykes handled with real professionalism, pressing with precise, uncomfortable questions, where the substance isn’t in what Bower reveals, but in what he walks back. His answers weren’t notable for their insight. They were notable because they exposed something far more interesting: the quiet, creeping revisionism now being deployed to protect the King.

Bower spends a full minute laying out a devastating, realistic portrait of Charles, as shared in his original book The Rebel Prince, later reissued as The Rebel King.

He truthfully acknowledged that Charles “behaved appallingly for forty years,” briefly mentioning the money issues, the appalling way he treated people, numerous professional conflicts, insecurity, and chronic misjudgment…

In other words, a description of a man who clearly generated his own chaos.

And then, with no logic or evidence, Bower excuses it all by pointing to his unhappy marriage; he blames Diana.

Once Charles became King, the safest narrative suddenly became the one in which the monarch is a victim of circumstances rather than the architect of his own problems.

One mustn’t criticise the King.

Cue Diana, the perfect scapegoat who isn’t here to contradict anyone or defend herself. She can’t point out that many of Charles’s most serious scandals happened after her death; most of them, in fact, occurred after his marriage to Camilla. Cash‑for‑Honours, the donor access scandals, the political interference, the “black spider” memos, the Duchy controversies, the staff conflicts?

Not Diana. None of these is the consequence of an unhappy marriage, but nice try.

And Bower knows this, which is why I couldn’t leave it; he wrote the bloody book. He documented it in compelling detail and built his reputation on exposing everything, which is why this sudden, convenient reframing is so revealing. It’s not analysis, or even remotely consistent with his own body of work; it’s protection. We get it, Bower can’t criticise the King. I can.

And the record is clear: Charles’s troubles were not caused by Diana; they were caused by Charles, his judgment, decisions, alliances, and the systems he cultivated around himself. Blaming Diana is revisionism, and it collapses the moment you look at the timeline.

If Bower wants to pretend otherwise, I’m more than happy to refresh everyone’s memory using his own book.

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Violet von Westenholz, for a brief moment, was positioned as the oh-so-socially acceptable matchmaker who facilitated that first blind date between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, and then, almost as quickly as she appeared, she was gone.

I tried to understand why this could be by looking at the world she comes from. Violet is not a celebrity or a determined social climber; she doesn’t need to be; she has just the right background to give her that vital aristocratic gloss.

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There’s a very specific kind of Sussex propaganda that keeps getting recycled through the press; many people sense something is off, and they’re right.

For this video, I pulled six years of headlines, patterns, and media behaviour and laid them out side by side; the result isn’t subtle! The pattern identifies a long‑running PR machine that’s been allowed to shape public perception while the institutions responsible for maintaining standards look the other way.

In the breakdown below, I walk through the receipts, the amplifiers, and the institutional failures that have turned a constitutional role into a stage for Harry and Meghan’s agenda.

If you want to understand how this latest “family drama” was manufactured long before it hit the headlines, the video below will make it very clear.

Watch the full investigation below.

Another Sussex “announcement” that arrives with the usual well-worn pattern. Headlines that are predictable, performative and somehow taken seriously by outlets that should know better!

Anyone paying attention knew this was coming the moment Birmingham secured the Invictus Games. The Sussex machine is many things, but subtle is not one of them. If Meghan appears, it won’t be because she’s suddenly developed a fondness for the UK; it will be because they’re terrified the event is wobbling. They’re still hunting for sponsors, hence Harry’s sudden, very photo-op-focused appearance at the Warrior Games in San Antonio. That wasn’t service, it was sales, schmoozing with the sponsors!

And then came the “children are coming” announcement.

Of course they are.

When the Sussexes need oxygen, the children are always wheeled out!

You do know they were dangled in front of Vancouver–Whistler? Come to think of it, they were dangled before the Jubilee. They were dangled before the coronation. It’s the last rabbit in the bunny boiler’s hat, and they know it.

What’s striking is not the announcement itself but the way it’s being framed. The same script, the same emotional manipulation about “homeland” and “reconnection.” Meanwhile, the reality is far more transactional: the children provide insulation against much of the bad press, much-needed leverage for their want list (security, Royal access), and a convenient moral shield to bolster their victimhood should they get booed or, worse, ignored.

And once again, Invictus is the stage, veterans the backdrop to their endless victimhood.

Before we go further, I’ve broken down the mechanics of this in today’s video.

→ Watch the full breakdown below

A further note of caution to discuss with members below!

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Prince Harry’s inclusion in The Times Top 100 most influential sports people rests almost entirely on the claim that he “created” or “founded” the Invictus Games. It’s a line that has been repeated so often it has hardened into accepted truth, even though the timeline has never made sense. We’ve always been told that his visit to the Warrior Games in late May 2013 sparked the idea. The problem is that the logistics of Invictus, the scale, the funding, the international coordination, simply cannot be built from scratch in fifteen months. I never thought it was plausible.

I suspected for years that the Warrior Games trip wasn’t where it all began at all, but a staged moment added after the fact to give Harry a romantic origin story. The Palace was heavily invested in building “Harry the Hero” at the time, and the London Olympics had already given them the perfect infrastructure and personnel to work with. Even Harry closing the London Olympics, despite being only third in line, felt like a deliberate positioning exercise by the late Queen Elizabeth II; however, suspicion is one thing, proof is another.

I have that proof now.

A statement from the period published by the International Paralympic Committee spells it out plainly

That single sentence collapses the entire PR myth. It confirms that the Royal Foundation and the US Olympic Committee were already collaborating a year before Harry’s Warrior Games visit. Planning was well underway nine months before he supposedly had his “inspiration.” Sir Keith Mills had already designed the framework, using the Olympic infrastructure left over from London 2012, and Harry was parachuted in as the patron, not the creator! The founder story was constructed later.

If legacy media had bothered to investigate instead of recycling Sussex press releases, this would have been exposed years ago. Instead, The Times article omits every structural element that actually built Invictus: the Royal Foundation, Sir Keith Mills, the US and UK government involvement, the Olympic infrastructure, and the true 2012–2013 timeline. It replaces all of that with emotional positioning that centres Harry and pushes the veterans to the margins.

The inaccuracies don’t stop there.

Host nations, not Harry, determine the expansion of the Games. Winter sports, esports, pickleball- these are decisions made by bidding committees, not Harry’s personal vision. He does not curate the sporting programme. Yet the article frames him as the driving force behind every development, as though the veterans and athletes exist merely to orbit his sun!

The “sport saved him” narrative is equally hollow. Harry has never excelled at any sport, which may explain why he struggled to clap convincingly when Zara won Olympic silver. In Harry’s world, everyone- veterans, athletes, even his own family…becomes a supporting character in his personal storyline.

Meanwhile, Invictus itself is being reframed as a private Sussex asset.

Tom Bower flagged this in his recent book Betrayal, and the trajectory since then has only confirmed it. The Games have become a branding platform rather than a veteran‑first movement. And beneath the PR gloss, a tension is becoming harder to ignore.

That tension is tied directly to Birmingham 2027. This isn’t just another Invictus Games; it is the last realistic opportunity to hold the event in the UK. If the homecoming fails, not only does the founding narrative collapse, but Harry also loses his last major public platform. And the organisers lose the legitimacy that comes from successfully staging the Games in their country of origin. The Sussex PR cannot afford to fail this time, or there will be no next time.

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Royal identity has suffered significant erosion since Harry and Meghan’s flight to freedom.

Why?

Because Harry and Meghan operate as if they are still half in the institution while insisting, when it suits them, that they are fully out. That contradiction destabilises the monarchy’s authority, its boundaries, and the public’s understanding of what a royal actually is.

More ambiguity was injected when Harry declared in Ukraine that he will “always” be part of the Royal Family (whether they like it or not) and that he was “born” to do the “work” he was doing, which, in practice, amounted to turning up for photo ops.

We’ve all witnessed their faux royal tours: Nigeria, Colombia, Australia, and the now frequent Ukraine drop‑ins. Every visit is staged like an official engagement, speeches, handshakes, contrived media moments, blurring the line between celebrity junket and working royal.

And then there’s the audacity. They monetise the monarchy at every turn while using their platform to snipe at and undermine the very institution that gives them any leverage in the first place.

Isn’t that the very definition of hypocrisy?

I would argue the damage is even more insidious than that caused by Andrew Mountbatten‑Windsor. His alleged crimes are horrific, but they resulted in his containment and removal from public life. Harry and Meghan’s behaviour is more institutionally corrosive because it never ends. The Palace is trapped in a constant state of reactive weakness. They haven’t had clean air on any major occasion for six years, and the taint isn’t just coming from the media; it’s coming from the Palace’s lack of decisive action and ambiguity.

There is now a widespread perception that King Charles III is quietly plotting to bring his younger son back into the fold. Whether that’s true is irrelevant at this point; what matters is that the public believes it's possible.

Prince William’s feelings about the duplicitous duo are obvious, and that affords some relief! He made his position clear on the cathedral steps after the Duchess of Kent’s funeral, just as he did regarding the then‑Prince Andrew. He is loved for that clarity because it offsets the constant gaslighting the public endures through Palace media ops and apparent cover‑ups. William provides assurance where it matters, just like the late Queen Elizabeth did.

We have just witnessed Trooping the Colour, a flawless spectacle, and it was barely over before the media landscape was filled with recycled stories about Meghan’s inane “colourful” quip to Catherine when asked about her first experience. The fact Catherine didn’t collapse on the balcony in snorting laughter is now framed as evidence of her coldness rather than Meghan’s mean girl puns.

Then there’s the balcony discourse, the working vs non‑working invention. The nostalgia for the days when the balcony groaned with cousins, aunts, uncles, and small children squinting into the sun trying to spot the planes.

We all know why that ended. The palace was scrambling to find justification for blocking the Harkles from the Platinum Jubilee balcony. Andrew was easy to explain to a sceptical public; however, Harry and Meghan required a more delicate excuse, one that didn’t wander into “two grifters we don’t trust” territory.

All the tough decisions regarding the Sussexes happened under Queen Elizabeth II. The only post‑QEII action, turfing them out of Frogmore Cottage, felt more like a practical move to protect the Wales family’s privacy at Adelaide Cottage than a display of constitutional backbone from King Charles III.

The monarchy can survive scandal; let’s face it, it has centuries of practice…

What it cannot survive is ambiguity.

Andrew Mountbatten‑Windsor’s scandal was a moral disgrace; however, I firmly believe Harry and Meghan’s behaviour is a constitutional threat.

And the time to remove that threat is now, before it’s too late.

The defence of Beatrice and Eugenie usually begins with a plea for compassion. They were children used as props, pushed into photo ops, balcony appearances, numerous glossy spreads in Hello! magazine, all to give their parents proximity to the monarch.

That part is true.

They were deployed strategically, and far too young to have any say in it; however, adulthood has a way of getting in the way of excuses.

Once you start accepting payments and leveraging your HRH title, the “but they were just kids” argument ceases to be effective because the only thing that truly matters is what you do once you’re old enough to know exactly what you’re participating in.

Free subscribers can watch my recent video below, which covers topics relevant to this post.

Paid subscribers can keep reading below!

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Meghan Sussex sent a $300 As Ever gift box to an online supporter known for attacking Catherine and William. That’s the whole story, and it’s enough on its own. The man has a long record of mocking Catherine’s work, reposting hostile commentary, and using Diana’s image to take shots at William. He isn’t subtle about it either; it’s his entire brand.

Meghan thanked him with a handwritten note, sealed with her royal cypher, and lots of pseudo-calligraphy with horror-show scythe slashes. She appeared to be oozing gratitude, and it was, quite frankly, mean.

Do I need to state the obvious problem? Meghan has built a public identity around fighting online hate; she has sat on panels, made word saladly, insincere speeches, and given numerous interviews. The language is always the same: preaching digital safety and collective responsibility; however, none of it means anything, does it, if she publicly rewards those who behave the opposite way.

You don’t get to condemn online bullying while sending curated gifts to someone who does it for you.

It’s not that complicated, is it?

If you want a healthier online environment, you don’t elevate the accounts that make it toxic, endorsing a man who spends his time tearing your sister-in-law down.

Meghan does.

The gift wasn’t an accident; it was a clear signal.

Meghan has had Catherine in her sights since 2014, when she published that first sneering article about William and Catherine’s wedding in The Tig.

She won’t stop; I would go as far as to say that, in my opinion, she appears to have an unhealthy obsession.

The King needs to act.

I’m going to walk you through something tonight that doesn’t land where people assume it does. The evidence doesn’t point to the late Queen, and it doesn’t cleanly land on the then‑Prince Charles either. Once you see the timeline, you’ll understand why.

What we’re dealing with is thirty thousand emails, an archive that sat inside the Palace for years, and a Lord Chamberlain who had them the whole time. When you line up the dates, the roles, and who knew what when, the picture shifts.

So put your detective hat on, just don’t let your brain fall out.

I’m not here to tell you what to think about Prince Charles. You can make your own call once you’ve seen the full chain of evidence. But the person at the centre of this is probably the one who controlled the flow of information.

Watch the video and answer this important question.

Can the Thames Valley Police act on this? Yes, they can.

But, will they?

The answer to that tells you everything you need to know.

I have been having a lot of conversations with very smart people lately, thanks to my YouTube channel, The Vintage Read Show.

We’ve dissected the Andrew Mountbatten‑Windsor, Epstein situation, the questions around his time as Special Representative for Trade and Investment, Sarah Ferguson’s grift, the daughters’ possible complicity, Harry and Meghan, and the groaningly endless Sussex saga, both willing participants in the same corrupt systems, just pretending not to be. We’ve examined King Charles III and his fraught history as Prince of Wales, the tragedy and unresolved questions around Diana, and the misplaced loyalty of the late Queen Elizabeth II.

And throughout all of it, I’ve often felt the urge to blurt out what I really think, what I really feel.

However, maturity and a certain degree of professionalism thankfully kick in. I know people don’t want emotional hot takes; they want well‑researched positions they can sit with, interrogate, and return to. Still, my instincts keep whispering the same thing: this is not something weddings, Ascot, and Trooping the Colour will fix.

There are members of the Royal Family you can still sympathise with, the unflappable Princess Anne, the earnest Sophie and Edward, the always‑composed and warm Catherine, and the King‑in‑waiting William. It feels almost unfair that they must pay the price for an institutional structure that has failed them as much as it has failed the public, a system that seems to have become so insidiously rotten, so compromised, that even the decent players are affected.

They still have my support because we should celebrate the good, shouldn’t we?

My main point of angst is my lack of faith in the current investigation into the ex‑Prince Andrew. The focus is on all the wrong things. The overwhelming evidence that already exists is being ignored. The people who were in the room when the “misconduct” occurred are not being questioned, pressured, or even meaningfully acknowledged.

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The headlines this week have included some rather flattering spin about King Charles, claiming that the late Queen should have listened to Prince Charles’s “reservations” about Andrew becoming trade envoy.

A nice, simple narrative.

A little too simple, really, because it avoids one very important element, context.

What was happening inside the Palace in 2001 that made Andrew’s appointment look like a solution to the late Queen, rather than a risk?

Luckily for us, timelines don’t lie.

The photograph with Virginia Giuffre was taken in March 2001.

Andrew became a trade envoy in September 2001.

I’m not suggesting the public or the Palace knew about Virginia Giuffre, as the details of her accusations didn’t come out until many years later; however, the Palace must have known about Andrew’s world, the dodgy people, unsuitable environments, and his appalling lack of judgment.

However, here’s the part I aimed to highlight in my video.

In 2001, Prince Charles’s world was also raising alarms.

His donor network and his pay-for-play access culture were the early iterations of what would later become the cash‑for‑honours scandal.

This isn’t a story of one brother warning the Palace about another, but rather a story of an institution, the Queen, managing two liabilities at once!

The video below walks through the timeline, the intelligence reality, the internal politics, and the part of the story the press keeps smoothing over.

Click through to watch the full episode now.

And for members, I’ve included my research notes below the paywall.

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I’m not surprised Sarah Ferguson is “on the run”, supposedly from tabloid attention, yet I suspect the real reason is that Sarah knows far too much for her own good. I also wonder if, like other Epstein victims, the spectre of Ghislaine Maxwell looms large?

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When Richard Eden first revealed the existence of an establishment plot, Operation Thaw, on 10 October 2025, the reaction was instant and feral. He was mocked across social media, dismissed on YouTube, and treated as though he was wandering around wearing a tinfoil hat.

A few of us didn’t join the pile‑on.

Two days later, on 12 October, I went LIVE on The Vintage Read Show and laid out why Eden’s claims deserved scrutiny rather than scorn, and I’ve followed the story ever since.

People actually want the facts, not the spin, so I went back and looked at Eden’s original reporting, the undistorted version.

What did he actually allege?

That’s what today’s video, premiering in a few hours, breaks down.

Later reporting has suggested that political and establishment figures are attempting to influence the King, and that they might be succeeding. Project Thaw was designed to “melt” that hostility within the Royal family and the UK public; more troubling, it also appears to have given the wayward younger son a way to stay relevant and garner much-needed media attention.

Is Prince Harry a political puppet? Maybe those who developed Project Thaw saw the potential of the King’s youngest son a long time ago? Never dismiss the value of a useful idiot; after all, we’ve had a recent example with the ex-Prince Andrew!

Long before Meghan officially met Harry, the “spectacle” of a wedding, or the damaging Oprah interview, Meghan Markle was already orbiting political power. Not in a vague “Hollywood liberal” way in a strategic, curated, network‑building way.

Tom Bower’s Revenge documented it, but the implications were largely ignored, other than by a few switched-on people.

Toronto was the first real hub. We know Soho House has never been just a social venue; it has always been a conveyor belt of influence. The people who passed through those rooms were not random; they were cultivated, connected, ambitious, and politically adjacent in ways that would matter later.

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Andrew Lownie’s latest reporting included the allegation that Andrew Mountbatten‑Windsor kicked a dog in the head. We know, from over 15 years of reports, that this abuse was not a standalone incident, but rather a long, obvious pattern of red flags that the institution actively covered up. Confronting it would have resulted in inconvenient scrutiny and accountability, so they protected themselves and the pervy Prince instead.

Institutional convenience always comes at someone else’s expense, doesn’t it, someone else’s life.

Virginia Giuffre, a teenager trafficked and exploited by Epstein and Maxwell, reported to authorities that she was flown in to have sex with Prince Andrew. She was dismissed by the police, the Palace, numerous media allies and the creepy ex-wife as very inconvenient. Her allegations weren’t treated as grounds for action or protection; they were treated as a reputational threat that needed to be silenced.

Cue the sycophantic aristocrats and sections of the compliant Royal Rota media, who took every opportunity, particularly pre-news-night interview, to smear the victim, all willing participants in the palace PR operation for the Prince.

It’s all on record; we know who you are.

Can you imagine having the courage to stand up against the establishment like Virginia did? I can’t.

Then there’s the staff, humiliated, belittled, and bullied. The ones forced to curtsy again and again while Andrew stood over them, judging whether it was deep enough. A man demanding ritualised obedience from people who had no power to refuse him. They knew the price: they would lose their jobs and struggle to find another.

I think of the people there that day, at the Sandringham hunt, the faithful Labrador kicked in the head by a prince who knew, absolutely knew, that nothing would happen to him. The people who witnessed that cruelty and did nothing…

Cowards.

One man spoke up, one.

Presumably the same sort of cowards that enabled the Royal Family to cover up major red flags concerning Prince Andrew’s behaviour for over 15 years, because they valued being royal adjacent more than being a decent human.

People think I just talk a big game when I claim I would have acted, said something; however I know I would have, and many of you would too.

Yet we weren’t there, and the day just proceeded as planned, Andrew accompanied by members of his family and a group of snivelling aristocratic sycophants prepared to turn a blind eye to blatant cruelty, just so they’d get an invite next year.

Cowards.

We have the same story on repeat now, just told through different victims and reports of alleged bullying don’t stop with Andrew; we have a more recent example.

Meghan Markle was accused by multiple staff of bullying so severe that some required therapy! Senior aides described emotional distress, humiliation, and a workplace so toxic that people broke down. There were formal complaints, raised internally and independently investigated, yet the palace buried them again.

Different person, same system.

In a system where hierarchy outranks humanity, the institution’s instinct is always to protect the powerful, not the people they harm.

Over the last year, I have come to realise that deference can be dangerous. I was always charmed by the ceremonial ritual of it, but now I just see the cover-ups and abuse hidden by it.

Because once you train people to bow, do you also train them not to question or speak?

How many women would have been spared harm if someone had acted on the early warnings?

How many would still be alive?

And the people who pay the price are never the ones with titles, are they?

Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York — The Reckoning

Tonight I am publishing on my YouTube channel, The Vintage Read Show, a brief conversation I had with historian and biographer Andrew Lownie, whose expanded paperback edition of Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, lands on the 21st of May.

Andrew has spent years documenting the questionable conduct & nefarious connections of the York family, often long before the public or the press were willing to look. He has been dismissed, smeared, and stonewalled, yet the evidence he uncovered has now been confirmed in the Epstein files and in multiple ongoing investigations.

And on the very morning we recorded, Saturday 9 May, he broke a Daily Mail exclusive revealing Sarah Ferguson’s long‑running “friends with benefits” relationship with Sean “Diddy” Combs, beginning at a 2002 New York party hosted by none other than Ghislaine Maxwell. The details are sordid, and the implications for her daughters’ proximity to that world are deeply troubling.

This new edition of Entitled contains a new section called “The Reckoning”, and it earns the name. Lownie lays out, with detailed evidence, the gulf between what Andrew and Sarah have publicly claimed about their relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and what the documents now prove. Years of continued contact, financial entanglement and behaviour that would have ended the careers of any ordinary public figure.

We discuss the evidence that Epstein bankrolled Sarah Ferguson for fifteen years. The disturbing accounts of how she allegedly dangled young women as potential staff, her pleas for Epstein to marry her and her legal threats against whistleblowing employees, who just wanted to get paid!

It raises the question that now feels unavoidable: should Sarah Ferguson be questioned not merely as a witness, but as a potential participant in criminal activity?

We go further into the business dealings of Beatrice and Eugenie in the Middle East under the guise of “cultural ambassadors” and their active use of Royal Titles to open lucrative doors for their financial endeavours.

One of the most disturbing tales is one of animal cruelty, the then-Prince Andrew violently kicking his faithful Labrador in the head, leaving it whimpering on the ground because it stole a sausage roll from a hunting guest’s hand. Friends and family witnessed this unforgivable cruelty against a defenceless animal and did nothing.

Prince Philip came up later that evening to thank that one brave soul for speaking up…

On a personal note, I wonder why he didn’t take immediate action himself and ensure his bully of a son never went near a defenceless animal again?

I have witnessed Andrew Lownie being attacked, undermined, and used as a political football by numerous commentators with their own agenda, and he has just gone on anyway! Because the truth matters and he firmly believes that accountability is not optional in a constitutional monarchy.

I’m grateful he stayed the course.

I hope Andrew Lownie’s new paperback helps push the truth one step closer to justice.

*Our interview can be watched via the embedded link below. It will become available on May 11th at 7.30 PM AEST. The conversation was shorter than we intended because we were hampered by a poor internet connection.

The Invictus Games are (or were) an emotional and powerful event! Noble, inspiring, and deeply personal for the veterans who compete, that part has never been in dispute; however, the structure wrapped around the Games deserves scrutiny to determine whether it fulfils its mission to veterans.

The event has evolved into a hybrid creature of charity, spectacle, corporate sponsorship, and pseudo-royal branding, and the damaging perception is that it focuses on its patron and his wife rather than the participants themselves.

That’s why I invited Michele Marra of Behind the Throne to The Vintage Read Show.

Michele is a retired United States Air Force veteran, a former Human Resources executive, and a long‑time researcher of monarchies, particularly the British Royal Family. Her work on Invictus is not about tearing anything down. It’s about asking whether the resources, decisions, and public narrative are genuinely serving the mission the Games claim to champion: long‑term veteran support.

And yes, as Michele notes, much of the current public conversation was prompted by the passionate work of Rachel the Curious Pilot on YouTube, who was also recently featured on Paula Froelich Uncensored.

However, Michele’s analysis, especially her focused dissection of parts of the Vancouver–Whistler 2025 budget, raises vital questions, particularly her emphasis on Legacy funding.

• Out of a $63.2 million balanced budget, only $5.5 million went to the Legacy Fund.

• Only $9.6 million was retained for long‑term veteran support.

• Meaning 90.4% of the total spend went into the product, the Games themselves and the Veterans got the leftovers.

This isn’t about accusations or insinuations of illegality. Just the reality that when the vast majority of funding goes into the event rather than fulfilling the mission for veterans, the trade‑off becomes impossible to ignore.

Michele’s point is simple:

If even a 70/30 split were adopted, with 30% going directly to long‑term veteran programs, the funding would triple. Thousands of rehabilitation programs, tens of thousands of veterans supported through transition services, real outcomes instead of a nine‑day spectacle.

Then we have the “One Year to Go” event. Is that really necessary or just noise?

In her follow‑up analysis, Michele examined the 2024 “One Year to Go” event. Attendance was reportedly low. The purpose is rather unclear.

Does it meaningfully increase participation?

Does it justify its cost?

Or is it another layer of PR that adds little to the mission?

My personal opinion is that it is being used by Harry and Meghan for brand enhancement, relevance, and the pseudo-royal spotlight. I would like to know how their considerable expenses are covered and by whom?

However, let’s get back to Michele’s professional analysis!

Michele also breaks down the funding ecosystem:

• The Invictus Games Foundation (IGF) — the central charity, financially distinct from host cities.

• Host City Fees — a major revenue source.

• Media deals and merchandise — commercial income streams.

• Global Partners — corporate sponsors.

• Donations and legacies — the largest funding category.

And then the 2023 shake‑up, the departures of CEO Peter Lawless and CCO Bill Cooper, also raise questions about governance, direction, and internal stability.

One final issue Michele raises concerns about is BetterUp, which is an Official Partner of the Invictus Games Foundation. We know that Prince Harry is BetterUp’s Chief Impact Officer, and he is also the patron of Invictus. Does Harry receive compensation from BetterUp while BetterUp benefits from its association with Invictus? If so, what safeguards exist?

Again, no accusations, just a request for transparency, which any charity serving wounded veterans should welcome.

Below is my full conversation with Michele Marra. It is forensic, respectful, and grounded in one principle:

The veterans deserve clarity.

Video embedded here.

I was interested to hear, in my latest LIVE with , who was rather glamorously on the ground in New York covering the State Visit, that there was going to be a charity “do” for the King’s Foundation.

My ears pricked up because I’ve been doing a little digging of my own into royal fundraising, inspired by Tom Bower’s rundown in The Rebel Prince.

It hit me that if I wanted to understand why the then‑Prince Charles kept stumbling into donation scandals while Queen Elizabeth II sailed through seventy years without one, I needed to understand the structure, or the absence of one.

The late Queen built a system designed to avoid scandal, Charles built one that practically invited it.

Elizabeth II kept money at arm’s length. Her charitable role was ceremonial. As a royal patron, she didn’t cultivate wealthy foreign donors, didn’t run sprawling foundations, and didn’t host private meetings with political heavyweights bearing gifts, unless Andrew invited them. (Note the sarcasm.) It was a model built on distance and plausible deniability, a model that left no room for shopping bags filled with cash.

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The King nailed it.

He lowered the temperature, made us laugh, and strengthened a crucial relationship.

Tick, tick, tick.

However, it left me wanting more, not only from him, but also from the institutions around him.

Because if we’re finally in the business of doing things properly, let’s apply that standard everywhere.

Starting with this:

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Prince Harry has popped up in Bucha with a new bit, “I was born to do this”, delivered from a war zone, wrapped in royal hero imagery, and presented as if he still holds a role he voluntarily abandoned. It’s the same pattern every time: he rejects and criticises the institution, then performs the optics of it, then insists he’s still part of it. The contradiction isn’t subtle. I’m surprised he doesn’t need a neck brace due to self-inflicted whiplash!

If he truly believed he was born for royal duty, he wouldn’t have walked away from it. You don’t quit the Fire Brigade and still turn up to fires, wearing the jacket. The monarchy isn’t a part‑time hobby you dust off when you need relevance and have a camera crew in tow.

Does Hazza have a “One Off” account? That puffer jacket would sell well…

All of this lands on Anzac Day, a day when Australians honour people who actually understand duty, loyalty, sacrifice and service without a PR strategy attached.

Lest we forget. 🇦🇺

King Charles arrives in the United States in a few days, and if history is any guide, Harry and Meghan will not be far behind! Every time the monarchy is about to command global attention, they activate their pseudo-royal ecosystem. It’s painfully predictable now. A “surprise” appearance, a D‑list red carpet event or the now old reliable: reveal an extra three cms of the children’s faces to get engagement.

Or maybe they’ll just use all the imagery they banked in Australia and Ukraine; they’ll be distributing it through their usual outlets, no doubt, and we know the timing is never accidental.

Harry continues to thumb his nose at the Sandringham Agreement because he can. That agreement only works if the monarch enforces it, and Charles hasn’t. Every breach, every half‑in/half‑out performance, is met with silence. And if the monarch won’t protect the institution's boundaries, can the public assume they no longer exist?

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Because this wasn’t a random pop‑up. It was another example of Invictus functioning as his global pass, a veterans’ charity being used for diplomatic access, and it’s the same pattern we saw in Australia: doors opening that shouldn’t have opened, access granted that no private citizen should have been anywhere near, and a level of institutional smoothing that doesn’t happen by accident.

Someone is helping, the question is who? We are all onto it now, time to fess up!

And while the Palace continues to brief that they’re “fuming”, their inaction is becoming its own story. From Nigeria, Colombia and my country, Australia, these faux royal tours have resulted in the couple operating like a parallel royal court, complete with pseudo‑royal imagery and a global platform that no one seems willing to regulate.

In this episode, I discuss with parts of this saga that the headlines skate past: the unprecedented access, the obvious Royal choreography and the silence.

Why is no one inside the Palace prepared to draw a line?

We are both well aware of the long‑term damage this could inflict on the monarchy if nothing changes.

The video is below for those interested. It’s one of the most revealing conversations I’ve had on this topic, and frankly, one of the most alarming.