Royal Reporter’s Insidery Book Sheds Light On Shaky State Of Monarchy

rewrite this content and keep HTML tags Omid Scobie is back — and more emboldened than ever ― with his second book on members of the British royal family. In “Endgame,” the Harper’s Bazaar royal editor at large voices aloud what is usually left unsaid in royal reporting. He intersperses his own private interactions with members of the monarchy and reveals behind-closed-doors talks he’s shared with palace aides and sources, all while letting audiences in on certain moments of regret in his own writing.While his first book covered Prince Harry and Meghan Markle and their step back, “Endgame” is a searing look at key members of the now-slimmed-down British monarchy. Scobie sheds new light on who these royals reportedly really are, how they handle media and scandal, and what their approach is to crafting their public image. Seeing as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have shared their story through many channels, including Harry’s own memoir published earlier this year, Scobie focuses more on the current king and the monarchy itself — and all that lies ahead. Scobie aptly toes the line between informative and entertaining in his book. Though he takes on a more academic approach to exploring the complexities of the Commonwealth and “empire” and the cultural significance of the British monarchy within Britain, he is just as comfortable quoting Kim Kardashian and calling some royal strategies “dusty.” There’s no shortage of juicy tidbits, as “Endgame” explores who which royal was reportedly behind evicting Harry and Meghan from Frogmore Cottage, discusses the internal handling of Prince Andrew’s continued fall from grace, and breaks down rumors about Prince William and Kate Middleton’s fallout with close friend Rose Hanbury. The author also offers updates on King Charles’ relationship with his two sons, sheds light on whether William and Harry have any shot at reconciliation and examines the future of the king’s own relationship with the Prince of Wales, and how it appears to be changing already. HuffPost spoke with the author last week ahead of the release of “Endgame,” which comes out Nov. 28. What prompted you to write this book?I felt that coming up to the Queen’s Jubilee at the time, that it seemed like an appropriate moment to kind of stop and take a step back and just look and see where the institution was in that moment and what the future may look like. Obviously, when I started piecing that idea together, I didn’t expect just a few months into it, the passing of the queen.And so a book that was initially going to partly theorize about the future of the royal family ― [I] was able to report on it as it happened. And I felt like those years leading up to reign change were years in which so many major events happened, good and bad. And I think it had been so fast, so rapid, even just as someone that has all the time to cover the royals, as you know. It still felt, there was never enough time for that kind of deep-dive analysis on all of it to really fill in the gaps, maybe areas that we hadn’t really thought about, but also better understand why certain things happened in the way they did and what that means for the royal family today.I think we often talk about optics and the royal family, and once upon a time at the height of the Queen’s reign, I think that this was an institution that represented the best of British traditional family values. But the question is, do they still uphold those same ethics, morals, and values in the work, not just in the work that they do, but in their actions with each other and the people around them? And as we’ve seen ― with a number of the events that have happened recently ― is it hasn’t been the case. So listen, it’s a topic that I think a lot of people find it easier to avoid. But I personally want to live in a world where as a democratic country with a free press, there is a freedom and an ability to scrutinize this publicly funded institution in the same way we would politics or the British government.For people who are expecting something like your first book ― “Finding Freedom,” written with Carolyn Durand ― they will find that this book is quite different. “Finding Freedom” was a first book. I think for all its flaws in places, it still set out to tell the story of two people whose story hadn’t been heard at that point. That even in attempts to report on it fairly or thoroughly, it was sort of washed out by the noise of rampant tabloid press in the U.K. and so on. And so “Finding Freedom” felt like the right place for that. But as it was put together, I did feel like there were certain areas I would love to have gone in further: the deeper understanding of that relationship between the royals and the press and the issue of race in “Finding Freedom.” We touched on it with regards to Meghan and her experiences, but it’s so much more than Meghan. This is about an institution that sits at the heart of diverse Britain in 2023 and the predominantly Black and brown Commonwealth.And again, the same topics keep coming up and again and again in the coverage around the history of slavery, around the issue of race and the family to this day, unconscious bias, lack of diversity in the households. And again, I just wanted to have a space in which I could dive into them in these. And I think also just as a reporter, my journalistic skills have matured and evolved over time, and I’ve learned more about how to cover and tell a story in the last five years than any other time in my life. And I wanted to be able to show that in this book as well, that there was growth and maturity when it came to telling such a serious story ― a story in which I knew or hope will sit at the heart of the conversations that people are now comfortable having about the future and purpose and relevancy of the royal family.Omid Scobie, the author of “Finding Freedom” and “Endgame.”I want to expand more on that in my questions below, but I did notice one similarity between “Finding Freedom” and “Endgame,” which is there is another urine reference. We’ve got a Michael Fawcett moment and we’ve got a Meghan moment in Botswana [in “Finding Freedom”] and there’s Tampongate talk abound. There’s bodily fluids again!I can’t take any credit for the Fawcett story, as it’s famous lore. But yeah, listen, I think that you’ve got to go into the warts and all of it. Ultimately, these are stories of human beings and family and there’s moments to be proud of, moments to laugh at, moments to be ashamed of. I think that one can only tell a fair and accurate story if all of those elements are present.That’s what I liked about “Endgame.” Even when you’re critical of certain parts of the monarchy and people, I enjoyed the moments where you were also at the queen’s funeral or the coronation and write that it would just be dishonest for you to say that you didn’t grasp the huge weight of this moment, and things like that. And I think that adds a lot of color, seeing both sides of your experience.I think that’s often so lost in reporting or media coverage in general. The nuance, or the kind of duality, of any situation. One can be critical of the institution and be pushy in my reporting at times. But at the same time, I can still care about it and have elements of the royal family and its legacy in Britain that I’m really proud of. That I can still talk the work that the queen did and how much impact that’s had, not just on me, but people across the country and around the world and at the same time be critical of other things. All of those things can exist in one place. One doesn’t have to be a royalist or a hater, which I’m neither.Going back to your personal experience, you write in the book about getting a phone call from Meghan,…

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