The biographer of “Discovering Freedom,” the flattering biography of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, has once more come to the couple’s protection by questioning what he sees as a double-standard within the media’s reporting about Prince William and Kate Middleton, who even have used tens of millions in taxpayer funds to repair up their palatial houses.
In a brand new column, Yahoo’s royal government editor Omid Scobie, a identified advocate for Harry and Meghan, described how the couple have confronted scrutiny for his or her renovation and actual property selections, whereas the media tends to painting William and Kate’s selections as a obligatory funding in royal enterprise and because the couple looking for his or her younger kids’s security, privateness and greatest pursuits.
In mild of reports that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge could also be selecting up a 3rd dwelling — a cottage close to Windsor Citadel for his or her important residence — Scobie has raised questions concerning the $5.4 million in British taxpayer cash that was spent to modernize their four-story residence in Kensington Palace, the place they've lived for 9 years.
Scobie instructed that little fuss was made within the media when it was revealed in 2014 that the renovations, together with the couple’s private touches, price such an “eye-watering” quantity, or that the the Cambridges added $1.2 million to the prices in 2019 once they had a brand new driveway put in. The prices have been justified as a obligatory funding for a future king and his spouse, who deliberate to make use of the residence as everlasting base to work and lift a household. Now it’s been discovered that the residence received’t be the Cambridges’ “perpetually” dwelling,” they usually’ll be heading to Windsor, the royal model of the suburbs, Scobie stated.
“It’s a call that has raised a couple of eyebrows, significantly at a time when the nation is coping with a serious price of residing disaster,” Scobie wrote. “Choosing up a 3rd dwelling, particularly when considered one of them price the general public a lot to renovate, is hardly the norm for normal folks.”
Relating to information about extravagant royal spending on houses, the media tends to deal with Harry and Meghan, Scobie instructed. Certainly, a lot continues to be made about how the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge paid $14 million for his or her nine-bedroom, 16-bath mansion in Montecito after they stepped away from royal life and moved to California in 2020.
The U.Okay. media additionally excoriated the Sussexes for the $2.8 million in taxpayer cash that was spent to improve their 10-bedroom U.Okay. dwelling, Frogmore Cottage at Windsor Citadel, in 2019. The cries of protest grew louder after they ended up residing in Frogmore Cottage only some months earlier than leaving the U.Okay. in late 2019. In response to the criticism, Harry and Meghan repaid the Frogmore Cottage prices after transferring to america.
In the meantime, William and Kate have lengthy been celebrated for main a comparatively easy life in the case of royals, Scobie stated. For instance, it was seen as “refreshing” when the newlyweds spent about $900 a month on a farmhouse in Wales, Scobie stated.
The narrative about Adelaide Cottage, their new dwelling in Windsor, is that it’s unpretentious and can solely have 4 bedrooms and subsequently received’t have room for live-in employees, together with a nanny. The couple’s three kids, George, Louis and Charlotte, additionally can have a number of room — 655 acres — to run round on. Throughout faculty holidays, the kids will proceed to have a number of outdoors locations to play at Anmer, the Cambridges’ nation property in Norfolk, which was a marriage present from the Queen.
Scobie stated it would soothe individuals’s issues about cash spent on House 1A if the couple proceed to make use of it for his or her London workplaces. They most likely will keep there in the event that they have to be within the metropolis for official enterprise. Additionally they might return to Kensington Palace after their kids are grown up, he added.
“House 1A will all the time be their official residence,” a royal supply informed Scobie.