William, Harry, their Girlfriends and the Press

[Ava Elizabeth]

What are their relationship with the press? Some seem to think that William is the one who is shy in the public eye and in front of the press, while Harry is more open.
I think they both seem really reserved in public and very wary of the press (which obviously is understandable). Do you think that the public are getting little acces to the two princes in comparison to other young royals- i.e the Swedish siblings or as Prince Frederik/ Joachim and Felipe got when they were at Harry and Wills age?
It would be interesting to see yout wiews.
Ava.

 

[kaydura0717]

I think they don't feel comfortable in front of the camara ( which is understandable) but what I think is that both of them should do more royal engagements and take a more active role so that they can be more comfortable in their role in the monarchy. I think there has been a hate built up towards the press in their view since their mother passed away. I think the Queen failed on this depaprtment bcuz they seem to disconnected from the people.

 

[margotantoinette]

I am not at all surprised that they are a little press shy. First of all, I would very well like having people following me around all of the time, but more importantly if you had seen the press they way they did, from watching their mother's volatile relationship with the media, well I wouldn't like them much either. But yes, eventually they will need to become more open with the media insofar as their royal duties are concerned, however until that time, I say let them be and live as much of a normal life as they possibly can given circumstances.

 

[corazon]

For william and harry the relation for the press is very very hard, them see the relation of they mother with the media, and in some sence from them the press kill diana (of course, the press not was the ''unique'') , may be with the ''serius'' press is more easy, but I don't think that the relation with the paparazzis change in the future.

 

[margotantoinette]

well I wouldn't expect their relationship with the paparazzi to change all that much. There is a difference between the "official" press so to speak with which they will have to deal in carrying out their royal duties and the gossip rags who are only interested in predicting when they will be married, who they might be sleeping with, how often they go clubbing etc.

 

[sara1981]

when the brothers was young getting lots of pictures in his life.Because his mother the Princess Diana very famous taking pictures of her more hundred of her over and over of Diana's images.

After mother's death but William and Harry have hard times over the press since Diana's death and the press wont leave William and Harry alone since their mother's death.

the paparazzi still getting pictures of his mother all the times for 15 years since 1981-1997 but they wont stop it and Diana told press and leave her alone and she got really BIG pissed off from paparazzi and Diana got peace herself on vacation after her divorce from Prince Charles and Diana have found new lover before she death and Diana told press and she would leave England to lived in USA for rest of her life!

the brothers still more upset of their paparazzi taking lots of pictures since their mother's death in 1997 but they wont help it and getting cover of magazine all the times every month and everyday but Diana's brother would handles it about paparazzi.

the brothers got interview with press about his life before and after college and going to army,dating with his girlfriend.

in 2001 Prince William got back-off from press about his late mother's new books and he told press about what happened everythings this books of his late mother's private secretary did publish that books also but the brothers would need to have attack of ex-butler Paul Butler about his late mother but its too late! but the ex-butler Paul Butler did publish that books also about his boss Princess Diana and she called him "the rocks" but the brothers really big pissed off for that!

 

[HRH Kimetha]

I think they feel comfortable in front of the press. They just don't feel comfortable talking about their private lives and don't want to make a mistake in answering a question or seem dim-witted with an answer. They don't seem to stutter, which is a sure sign of discomfort. Especially Harry. He seems real energetic and anxious to move on to a favorite pastime. William has a serious agenda. Say a lot with saying a little and getting on with it, so he can move on to whatever he wants to do. It comes with the job.

 

[ladyinwaiting]

When you look at some of the video footage e.g. the sun, it doesn't appear that motorcycle paps were following PW and Kate Middleton. PW and Kate Middleton knew the paps are usually at Maliki and Boujis and they went anyway. If Kate and PW doesn't want to be photographed then why don't they just go ahead and pose for the photographer or better yet stop going to places where they know the paps are.

 

[kimebear]

The fact is that a tighter leash needs to be put on the paparazzi. No one should deny them their chance to take a photo, but they need to be reined in if their actions are creating a dangerous situation. High speed car chases in a crowded city street while their lightbulbs are continuously flashing need to be prohibited. Not just for the safety of the pursued, but also the other innocent drivers. Even a mob outside a club could face serious danger in a push/shove situation. I don't think that it was necessarily the smartest idea for William and Kate to go to such a pap hot spot either, but I can't deny them their right to go to their friends club without potentially incurring bodily injury. Whether or not anyone likes Kate, she is still a private citizen. She should have the freedom to go wherever she likes no matter how much some people think she is asking for trouble. It's not the point. She is entitled to the same protection from danger as anyone else is.

As for William stumbling drunk outside the club, well, I haven't seen a photo of that for some months, has anyone else? He's hardly a fall down drunk, then. He's just a young man who enjoys the party scene. Most of the 25 yr old boys I knew did the same thing before they settled down, and they still managed to get up the next day and attend to whatever responsibilities that they had. The two actions don't have to be mutually exclusive. I have seen significantly more photos of him in the past few months at official functions than clubbing, so he must be doing some work. Remember, and we could all debate this to the moon and back, William is not yet an officially "paid for" royal. He does not receive a direct payment from the civil list. He benefits from his father's money, his mother's inheritance and his army pay, which, honestly, I think we would be hard pressed to find a soldier that doesn't go out on a tear every now and then. Let William enjoy himself now while he can. His life will be far more restrictive as he gets older than any of ours will be.

 

[Principessa Cano]

When you look at some of the video footage e.g. the sun, it doesn't appear that motorcycle paps were following PW and Kate Middleton. PW and Kate Middleton knew the paps are usually at Maliki and Boujis and they went anyway. If Kate and PW doesn't want to be photographed then why don't they just go ahead and pose for the photographer or better yet stop going to places where they know the paps are.

In addition, there are reports in reputable papers that the vehicle in which Kate and William were traveling in left the club only to return a few minutes later, stop in front of the club and in front of the paps, and then drive off again. Talk about taunting the press. I don't know what kind of game William is playing at, but I think he has made a serious mistake going on this outing.

 

[karla64]

prince william and kate complaints against paps..

see video..

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

 

[karla64]

The Royalist - Press Complaints Commission Reacts To William & Kate Paparazzi Chase

 

[Luv2Cruise]

This is a very tough situation. I can understand arguments on all sides, despite my very strong opinion.

 

[Myriam]

i think the couple has all the right to complain. william deserves a normal youth as any other young man of his age.

 

[misselle]

I find it both ironic and depressing that the paparazzi engaged in an unsafe chase of the couple the same week as the inquisition into Diana's accident. Unfortunately,
these photographers make a lot of money selling these pictures and add to that that they don't have the sense to see that they are totally out of control! William and Kate can't go out in public without being photographed by the paparazzi-swarms;is another accident going to happen?

 

[zembla]

If they go out to a club...what do they expect? The paps live at those places...just like Hollywood stars know not to shop on Robertson Blvd. or go to The Ivy unless they want to be photographed...

 

[BeatrixFan]

As I write this, I'm listening to a phone in on a London based radio station which is all about this very topic. I phoned in and the response was a flood of calls agreeing with me. Now, that's personally very satisfying but it's a rather dark omen for the Windsors when it seems more and more people are reaching the opinion that there's something fundamentally wrong with William.

William claims that the press were insensitive to hound him the way they did when there's an inquest into his mother's death going on. Well what the hell was he doing in a nightclub if it means that much to him? Whilst a jury are watching footage of her last moments, William is bopping at Boujis so in my opinion, he hasn't got a leg to stand on. Secondly, if he's back with Kate then for goodness sake, pose for one picture and then get in the car. If he did that, the press complaints commission would be more likely to be sympathetic but let's look at the case against William.

William says it's wrong that when an inquest taking place about his mother's death, the press should mob him. Yet William isn't taking part in the inquest, hasn't made a statement about it and is going to nightclubs and getting drunk whilst it goes on. So he obviously doesn't give a monkeys about the inquest. The claim that they should leave him alone, in my opinion, is complete penguin poo. By going to Boujis, he encouraged the press. By walking out with Kate, he encouraged the press.

It seems to be the case that William wants to go to nightclubs every week, he wants to go with Kate but he doesn't want it to be reported. We see photographs of him looking gawky and silly, falling about and generally making an ass of himself and so that's the image the media pander to. However, he then tries to play the humanitarian, caring Prince which doesn't match and seems to be all too familiar. It must be a family trait. William lives a life of priveledge, he isn't working, he doesn't have a goal in life at the moment other than to be the spare yet he has the opportunity to make himself a real asset to the House of Windsor. Instead, he moans like a girl when the press take pictures of him - he's the future King for heavens sake, the press want a photograph.

Of course there's give and take. William should pose for one photo when he goes out and the press should be satisfied with that. Now that won't happen because neither side will give. William wants the celebrity lifestyle without the work. And I'm looking at him as a celebrity because he isn't a working Royal, but unlike most celebrities, I'm paying for this one. William can't piggy back off his mother's angelic image anymore - he better show he's got some real substance and some real metal to him or he'll get a very nasty shock.

 

[Luv2Cruise]

The paparrazzi over there are over the line. I hope Prince William and Kate Middleton continue to use every legal means to keep the paparrazzi on the defensive and keep the issue in the public eye. They have a right to go to a club and not have their car chased down the road. The same thing happened to their mother 10 years ago, her car was chased down the road, the drunk driver crashed trying to elude them, the paparrazzi hovered over the steaming car wreck which contained Diana and the other passengers and snapped photos of her as she lay dying.
D-I-S-G-U-S-T-I-N-G. People were outraged then. But as I knew, the outrage would be short-lived.

So it's business as usual for the vulture paparrazzi: satisfy the public who want "new Pics!!" "By any means necessary." Including chasing William and Kate's car down the road on their way away from a club. This has NOTHING to do with William or Kate's character, or lack of job, or immaturity, or too much partying.

This poor behavior by the press is all about making a buck off of feeding the preying eyes of an insatiable public. It's not William's morals I question.

 

[Duchess]

BeatrixFan...as always your posts are interesting and i love reading them. my response is that i think william fully expects, or at least he should, to be photographed/written about but what he hates is the "mob" thing. would that be a realistic to you?

 

[BeatrixFan]

They are over the line yes, but William and Kate are acting like morons too. Why can't they just pose for a picture? Joan Crawford always posed for the press and they respected the barrier and never got intrusive. It's a matter of playing the game and William really needs to grow up. The press aren't feeding the public, we're more concerned with taxes I assure you. We couldnt care less if we don't see a drunk posh boy on every front page, but I sort of think it is a matter of concern when someone we pay to live in luxury acts like a childish school boy. Ask any member of the British public if they want 'new pics' and they'll say no.

 

[BeatrixFan]

BeatrixFan...as always your posts are interesting and i love reading them. my response is that i think william fully expects, or at least he should, to be photographed/written about but what he hates is the "mob" thing. would that be a realistic to you?

Well, in a way I agree. The mob is over the top but it's encouraged by the places he's going to, how often he's going to them and who he's going to them with. In other words, William might hate the mob and the endless photographs but he doesn't do himself any favours and until his behaviour changes, he'll have to learn to put up with the press.

 

[Duchess]

my only issue with the "pose for one photograph" would be that yes it worked with joan crawford but that was a different time and place. lot's of celebrities pose for photos and cooperate but the intrusion continues. but you're right, if he did pose, then at least you could have some sympathy and he'd have an argument.

 

[BeatrixFan]

my only issue with the "pose for one photograph" would be that yes it worked with joan crawford but that was a different time and place. lot's of celebrities pose for photos and cooperate but the intrusion continues. but you're right, if he did pose, then at least you could have some sympathy and he'd have an argument.

The media frenzy that surround Crawford was much like the frenzy we see today. Wherever she went, whatever she did, she was photographed. Now some of that she engineered much like Diana did but the majority of the time, she was papped. I would agree though that the press weren't as vicious as they are now, they respected Joan and kept a distance as long as she played ball. When she didn't, they got a bit nasty and so I think with the press, it's all about boundaries. I have well-known friends (no I'm not boasting and no they're not celebrities) and when I'm out with them, the press might appear and ask for a photograph. They pose, say thankyou and we walk on our way. It's simple, it's tidy and the pictures rarely make the papers or magazines but they never have major intrusion or media stalking. I know that with the press an inch can turn into a mile but as I said originally, as it stands, William doesn't have a leg to stand on when he complains.

 

[Luv2Cruise]

Unless your friends are the Queen and Prince Philip, they are not suffering the same as the Prince and his girlfriend.

To think the press will back off after Kate and William stop to pose is a bit unrealistic. The paparrazzi are not satisfied by photo ops. They want unguarded moments, preferably in less public settings. Those are worth far more. Surely you understand that this is what they are all about.

To compare press treatment of a US celebrity from a completely different era when the press not only kept a respectful distance when asked, but were often complicit by not publishing the shenanigans of bad behaving celebs and others, ie Joan Crawford abusing her adopted children, is to to compare apples and oranges.

William and Kate can walk hand in hand naked down the street it does not mean that the press is right to chase them in a car down the street on their way to retrieve their clothing or to mob Kate coming out of her front door, moronic behavior on her part for daring not to slide down the chimney or crawl out of a neighbor's back window so as not to court the press coming out of her home.

William and Kate are right to complain, and I hope they continue to do so whenever they feel the press has crossed the line. They won't prevail, there is no way IMO they can without making intrusions on a free press, but they can at least make nuisances of themselves by forcing the press to continue to swat away their complaints.

And as for no leg on which to stand, nice top flight lawyers like William and Kate have retained are paid to be creative and find holes in which to sue the pants off of these vultures. There are provisions in the PCC code of conduct that prohibit news organizations from using photos of agencies whose photographers stoop to these disgusting methods in order to get pictures. Very easy to single out just one offending client and go after them jointly and severally.

 

[Duchess]

The media frenzy that surround Crawford was much like the frenzy we see today. Wherever she went, whatever she did, she was photographed. Now some of that she engineered much like Diana did but the majority of the time, she was papped. I would agree though that the press weren't as vicious as they are now, they respected Joan and kept a distance as long as she played ball. When she didn't, they got a bit nasty and so I think with the press, it's all about boundaries. I have well-known friends (no I'm not boasting and no they're not celebrities) and when I'm out with them, the press might appear and ask for a photograph. They pose, say thankyou and we walk on our way. It's simple, it's tidy and the pictures rarely make the papers or magazines but they never have major intrusion or media stalking. I know that with the press an inch can turn into a mile but as I said originally, as it stands, William doesn't have a leg to stand on when he complains.

i think the difference is that you're right, joan loved the attention but the there wasn't the voracity for the intrusive moments that we have now. while, as i mentioned earlier, i think william fully expects to be photographed and written about he doesn't necessarily like it...he's so like his father that way but i think the way things are today, if you're on the same level of "celebrity" that william is, stopping and posing is never going to be enough. the public will always want more and more and what will be next. i'm just not sure what the happy medium is. we can't realistically expect william and catherine, or any celebrity for that matter, to never go out in public but neither can we expect them to become happy with the increasingly growing public appetite for pieces of their private lives. having said all that, i don't think we can blame any celebrity for their annoyance at the behavior of the press. it all boils down to greed, plain and simple. greed of the public for wanting to know all this nonsense, greed on the part of the photographer to get the money shot and greed at that papers and magazines for printing the photos.

 

[CasiraghiTrio]

Well, William can't complain about paparazzi when he goes to a club like Boujis or Mahiki, because paparazzi camp out there every night waiting to get pics of the all the celebs and society stars on their way in and out. So if you go to these clubs, you are photographed, plain and simple. Nevertheless, it is always inappropriate when paparazzi pursue someone's car and if William felt threatened in this situation, he and his spokespeople have a right to complain about that. It's one thing to take pics of stars leaving the famous clubs. It's another to follow them home. I never believe in the paparazzi's right to take pics of people going or leaving their private homes, nor in their "right" to pursue them in vehicles. I didn't like one bit in the 90s with Diana, and I don't like it now. It's just wrong, no matter how you slice it. I know I would be freaked out if they were following me in my car, so I can't blame William and Kate for complaining about it.

 

[BeatrixFan]

But would they have been following them home if they hadn't gone to a place where they knew the media would be waiting? I think the blame is with both parties.

 

[Duke of Marmalade]

The paparrazzi over there are over the line. I hope Prince William and Kate Middleton continue to use every legal means to keep the paparrazzi on the defensive and keep the issue in the public eye. They have a right to go to a club and not have their car chased down the road.

Unfortunately this is not an ideal world but the british media reality and both Prince William and Ms Middleton should know by know the environment they are dealing with. You can't have both, a celebrity lifestyle and being left alone. As long as they do things that attract the paparazzi (eg binge drinking in an A List VIP club) they shouldn't complain about their picture being taken. If both did not want their pictures in the papers they should lead their lives accordingly (eg get on with their jobs - in Kate's case: get one!) and to think their laments could change anything or make the media go away is just hopeless naivety that I wouldn't expect from the second in the line of the British throne and his girlfriend who obviously has not learned from her sisterhood media desaster experience some months ago. Both have no talent whatsoever in handling the media (make a deal and it will be easier) but are bold enough to blame them whenever it suits, an attitude adopted from the Prince of Wales. William lost a lot of credibility in the past months as he thinks he can do whatever he wants and impose some censorship on the media, where only the good things are mentioned (eg Diana memorial events) and the embarassing things are left out (eg clubbing), but this is not the way it works. He's not some twen after all but Prince William, funded by the British taxpayers, time to show some maturity and appropriate behaviour.

 

[BeatrixFan]

Unfortunately this is not an ideal world but the british media reality and both Prince William and Ms Middleton should know by know the environment they are dealing with. You can't have both, a celebrity lifestyle and being left alone. As long as they do things that attract the paparazzi (eg binge drinking in an A List VIP club) they shouldn't complain about their picture being taken. If both did not want their pictures in the papers they should lead their lives accordingly (eg get on with their jobs - in Kate's case: get one!) and to think their laments could change anything or make the media go away is just hopeless naivety that I wouldn't expect from the second in the line of the British throne and his girlfriend who obviously has not learned from her sisterhood media desaster experience some months ago. Both have no talent whatsoever in handling the media (make a deal and it will be easier) but are bold enough to blame them whenever it suits, an attitude adopted from the Prince of Wales. William lost a lot of credibility in the past months as he thinks he can do whatever he wants and impose some censorship on the media, where only the good things are mentioned (eg Diana memorial events) and the embarassing things are left out (eg clubbing), but this is not the way it works. He's not some twen after all but Prince William, funded by the British taxpayers, time to show some maturity and appropriate behaviour.

Very well said. It's time these boys learned that both good and bad will be reported. Not that clubbing is a bad thing but it's not a good thing when one has no job, no direction and no grasp of reality.

 

[susan alicia]

well whether we approve of their daily lives is besides the point. The newspapers did not print their pictures not because of what happened to Diana but probably because of something in the law and we are all equal to the law and they have the right to some measure of privacy.