Diana, Princess of Wales

• Rowing Blazers joins an esteemed group of brands held by BCC including Staud, Solid & Striped, Danielle Guizio, BaubleBar, and Tory Burch.
• Carlson, a designer, archaeologist, former member of the U.S. rowing team, and long-time friend of Burch, launched Rowing Blazers in 2017 with co-founder David Rosenzweig.
• "I am very excited to be partnering with Burch Creative Capital, and excited for a new chapter in the Rowing Blazers story," Carlson said.
• "I am thrilled to be joining Jack, Burch Creative Capital, and the dynamic team at Rowing Blazers," said Simm.

• Recent celebrity documentaries Beckham and Robbie Williams, and the final season of TV drama The Crown, have painted a portrait of the UK tabloids as cruel, sadistic and predatory of its homegrown celebrities.
• While criticism of the British tabloids – particularly the ethics and methods of the News of the World – is often justified, the specifics offered by all three shows fall flat.
• While these shows all try to claim part of the noughties nostalgia trend, they feel politically and contextually vacant.

The millennium press

• By 1998, only 8% of editorial in The Sun and The Mirror could be classed as “public affairs” – the rest focused on gossip, sports, or both.
• Inevitably, as celebrity culture became news, news also became gossip and both categories disintegrated into what we now call “clickbait”.
• As The Crown dolefully shows, one picture of Princess Diana could sell for millions to print newspapers in 1997.

The Crown

• The final season of The Crown covers the last eight months of Princess Diana’s life.
• Through fictionalised monologues from actors playing real photographers and journalists, the press compare themselves to “hunters” and “killers”.

Beckham and Robbie Williams

• Unlike The Crown, the main characters in the documentaries Beckham and Robbie Williams are not only living subjects but also active participants in the programmes.
• Beckham consults a litany of talking heads – former managers, teammates, Spice Girls and two suitably shame-filled paparazzi – to build a portrait of the footballer and his union with wife Victoria.
• As Williams notes, “[When you become famous] you want to give away the privacy you want to give away.

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Rachel Sykes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• In the U.S., AHF will continue its longstanding tradition of hosting a high-profile World AIDS Day concert and awareness event.
• AHF mobilizers also will host 26 events in 21 cities across the country, promoting testing, education, and open conversation around HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention.
• “AHF calls on all nations and global public health institutions to ensure that adequate resources and political will are available to fight HIV/AIDS.
• Past performers at AHF’s World AIDS Day concerts in the U.S. include Jennifer Hudson, Christina Aguilera, Patti LaBelle, Gladys Knight, Diana Ross, and Mariah Carey.

• In this controversial interview, Diana said:
  I don’t think many people will want me to be queen.
• Diana, now no longer in line to be Queen of England, resolved instead to be “queen of people’s hearts”.
• Nonetheless, the following year Ipsos recorded a temporary drop in satisfaction with the queen from 75% in 1992 to 66%.
• Supported by her popularity at her death, it will likely present the queen’s inaction in 1997 as a temporary misjudgement in a long life of public service.

A rebounding monarch

• This was partly due to a succession of milestones which encouraged public celebration of the royal family and its matriarch.
• These include the royal weddings of 2011 and 2018, the televised christening of Prince George (2013) (the so-called “republican slayer”), and the queen’s Diamond (2012) and Platinum Jubilees.
• These fond cultural memories will form a vital counterpart to The Crown’s treatment of the queen’s brief fall from grace.

A nation grieves

• The phenomenon of collective grief suggests that she may have stood, for some, for our own pandemic losses.
• While mourning Diana as “the people’s Princess”, the series will likely end with Queen Elizabeth as the ultimate queen of hearts.

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Bethany Layne does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.