Royal wedding puts King Charles to the test
So one minute you're capital 'N' normie – a paediatric nurse working in the UK's decaying National Health Service and a single mother – and then several short months later you are in the Royal enclosure at Ascot yuking it up with King Charles and praying your fascinator stays put.
Such is the story of Harriet Sperling who this week added 'royal bride' to her CV with the announcement of her engagement to Princess Anne's son Peter Phillips.
However, this lovely jubbly news was not revealed via thick white paper borne aloft by a Buckingham Palace footman but was exclusively splashed all over Hello!, with Peter and Harriet duo posing for exclusive photos for the magazine like a couple of bonafide Love Islanders with a fresh sideline in waist trainers.
And therein lies the rub.
Just as the royal family's wedding apparatus rustily cranks into gear and a courtier Googles who has the royal warrant for bonbonerie, King Charles could be about to be sorely tested. His Majesty has six nieces and nephews who live civilian lives and have civilian bills to pay – and for whom their most bankable asset is their royal status.
The exclusive right to a Windsor wedding could be worth millions, even if the groom is only 19th in line to the throne and is so far down the line of succession he needs a decent pair of field glasses to see to the front of the queue.
How does the King handle this given his own son and daughter-in-law have been selling their own (much better) story for more than five years now?
This very issue overshadowed Peter's first wedding to Autumn Phillips in 2008 when the couple sold exclusive access to the family celebration to Hello for £500,000 ($AUD1 million), all unbeknownst to the late Queen.
On the day Her late Majesty, Prince Philip and now King Charles all turned up to what was supposedly a private affair only to later find out that four snappers from the mag and a journalist had been on hand to capture the Windsors off-duty and in the vicinity of an open bar. The end result: A glossy 59-page spread including 10 photos of the late Queen alone.
However the real 'get' for Hello was the first photos of royal girlfriends Kate Middleton and Chelsy Davy bonding with their potential in-laws.
One was decidedly not impressed. 'Aides let it be known that [the Queen] was deeply unhappy with the decision, while senior members of the Royal Family spoke about feeling 'betrayal',' the Daily Mail 's royal editor Rebecca English later reported.
So in 2008, after Peter and Autumn's Hello fiasco, Her late Majesty imposed a ban on family members monetising events such as weddings and christenings.
Except, that was under the old regime.
And that was long before the King's own son took himself off to California to tell his story and to reveal family details far, far more intimate than a shot of Charles eating a vol-au-vent or something.
Can or will the King maintain the late Queen's photo deal ban given what Prince Harry and Meghan, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex's have been doing with themselves for the last five years?
Compared to Netflix and Oprah, a cheery spread of photos of, say, Peter and Harriet on a matrimonial high on their wedding day seems a nearly quaint idea. (If not downright attractive. Anything that pushes the idea of a functioning, affectionate and united royal family couldn't hurt.)
However, nor can he risk it looking like he is letting his siblings' children make bank off their royal family status even if they do have to financially fend for themselves.
Complicating things further is the fact that Charles risks looking deeply hypocritical if suddenly came over all stern about his nieces and nephews undertaking paid media outings, – but nor can he let them unabashedly go forth and commercially exploit the accident of their birth.
For Peter and sister and brother-in-law Zara and Mike Tindall and cousins Princess Beatrice, Princess Eugenie, Lady Louise Windsor and James, The Earl of Wessex, they now find themselves between a rock and tax bill: None of them do royal duties and therefore none receive any palace funding while their adjacency to the throne and royal lustre must be worth a bomb on the open market.
In January 2020, the same month that the Sussexes were relocating their matching yoga mats to North America Peter controversially starred in a TV ad for a Chinese state-owned dairy, posing in front of a grand home (actually the Marquess of Bath's historic Longleat) with a replica of a royal carriage and while totally-normally clutching a large glass of milk.
'As children, we used to spend a lot of time down at the dairy. There was a herd of Jersey cattle at Windsor and we were brought up on it,' he said in the ad. 'This is what I drink'.
The tagline billed him as 'British royal family member, Peter Phillips.'
After facing accusations of cashing in, an insider told the Telegraph: 'He was asked to do it and he didn't really see it as being a major issue. People have done far worse … He regularly gets offers for reality shows but he doesn't see himself as a famous person.'
(Well don't tell the Chinese dairy industry that.)
While their cousin Prince William might be raking in more than $40 million-a-year thanks to the handiwork of a mediaeval King who set up the Duchy of Cornwall trust, Peter and Zara have to earn their own coin and both have inked deals over the years.
In 2001 Zara and then boyfriend the jockey Richard Johnson sold an 'at-home' story to Hello for a £125,000 fee ($AUD256,000) and she and now husband Mike Tindall sold the photos of their first child, daughter Mia, to Hello for a reported £100,000 ($205,000). (In 2011, Zara and Mike ruled out selling their wedding photos for what would have been a reported $2 million.)
In 2023, Mike Tindall starred in I'm A Celebrity, earning an estimated £150,000 ($307,000).
So how will King Charles navigate things around Peter and Harriet's wedding? And who is going to foot the bill for the doves? One expense no one will have to worry about – the groom's mother buying a new frock. No one has ever done more for the mustard serge industry than Princess Anne.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
News.com.au
an hour ago
- News.com.au
Shock news INXS received just before historic 1991 Wembley gig
Just before INXS walked onstage to play a career-defining gig at London's famous Wembley Stadium, the six musicians were given shocking news by manager Chris Murphy. The band's shrewd dealmaker had blown almost every cent of their 1.4 million pounds box office takings for the huge show in front of 74,000 fans on July 13, 1991; that's worth roughly $AU7 million in 2025. 'F**k! What am I in this business for? We're getting paid 1.4 million pounds for this gig tonight (and) I'm getting five grand. Five f**king grand. That'll pay my f**king champagne bill at the hotel,' frontman Michael Hutchence cheekily shared down the barrel of one of the many cameras shadowing the band backstage. Murphy spent the band's pay cheque on those cameras, having enlisted renowned British film-maker David Mallet to capture INXS at the pinnacle of their live powers. Mallet was one of the hottest music video and concert film directors of the era with credits including David Bowie's classic music videos Ashes to Ashes and Let's Dance, AC/DC's Thunderstruck and Queen's I Want To Break Free. All the sexy swagger and pulsating energy of that electrifying performance was preserved on the Live Baby Live concert film which has now been reimagined as INXS Live At Wembley, a behind-the-scenes look at the gig screening on Seven. Jon Farriss and Kirk Pengilly recall that this gig was a triumphant middle finger to the notorious British music media who had brutally dismissed INXS - as they did every Australian band of the era - until they exploded onto the UK charts with the X album in 1990, the wake of their 1987 global smash Kick. Five years before their mammoth Wembley gig, INXS had opened for Queen at the iconic venue and were pelted with bread and tomatoes. Who takes bread and tomatoes to a concert? So the success of INXS, off the back of the hit single Suicide Blonde, was entirely fan-led. 'That tall poppy thing, I think we were one of the first bands to experience it on that level,' Farriss said. 'We taught ourselves to stay quiet about it, we just wouldn't talk about it.' The critics may have hated them but the fans and their celebrity peers adored Hutchence, Jon, Andrew and Tim Farriss, Garry Gary Beers and Pengilly. The guest list for the Wembley gig was between 2,000 and 3,000 people depending on who you ask. Both Kylie Minogue and Helena Christensen, Hutchence's ex and next girlfriends, were backstage. So was Rolling Stones' then bassist Bill Wyman and members of Duran Duran. 'Yeah, I heard it was over 2,000, closer to 3,000 people,' Pengilly said. 'Apparently it was insane. I didn't know any of them. But, you know, it was London, (therefore), it was celebrities.' Jon added: 'I was like Andrew, I was just hiding in the dressing room.' One of the enduring myths about the Wembley gig is that Hutchence gave his friends - and a couple of band members - pills not of the prescription variety, with the instruction to take them on 'the fourth song' during the set which was The Stairs. 'It was the times,' Pengilly said diplomatically while confirming the myth but preferring not to name names. Mood enhancers aside, the gig is a tour de force for the band. Watching it now, as more than 70,000 people bounce up and down in unison to New Sensation, reminds you why it remains one of the most powerful live music moments ever captured on film. 'What was beautiful about it is that it wasn't us going, 'Come on, everybody'. It just sort of happened,' Jon said. 'The whole thing was trippy and it was extremely emotional. It's hard to understand what a strange psychological transition it is leading up to the moment you walk on stage to then being on stage.' INXS got their flowers recently when Never Tear Us Apart was he shock No.1 on the inaugural Triple J Hottest 100 Australian Songs of all time. 'Oh man, that was wow,' Farriss said. 'I was genuinely just speechless. 'It absolutely floored me and from that moment on when it was announced, I've never received so many texts and so many warm wishes and just beautiful messages from people I haven't spoken to or thought of for years and years and it's sort of brought us all back together. 'It's been amazing.'
ABC News
13 hours ago
- ABC News
20th Anniversary Collection: The comic genius of Jennifer Saunders
Jennifer Saunders says everything that's happened in her career has been the result of a happy accident, rather than any careful planning. When she and her great pal Dawn French were making their first series, French & Saunders, they were given complete freedom by the BBC, including the freedom to fail. Despite a few mishaps along the way and a battle with breast cancer, Jennifer now says that early freedom, risk-taking and random opportunities were the best things that could possibly have happened to them. Further information First broadcast in April, 2014. You can hear Sarah's full conversation with Timothy Spall on the ABC Listen App, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also read all about the Conversations origin story on the ABC News website.
ABC News
16 hours ago
- ABC News
Booming Asian music markets provide new opportunities for aspiring musicians
For generations of aspiring Australian musicians, there was a simple recipe for success: pack your bags and move to the UK or US. This rite of passage helped forge the careers of many Australian superstars, from AC/DC and Nick Cave to Sia and Iggy Azalea. But the dominance of Western markets is being challenged by the growing prestige and influence of the music business in Asia. The shift can be seen on streaming service Spotify, where the most-followed artist is no longer US pop superstar Taylor Swift, but Indian singer Arijit Singh. And it's changing how artists and educators think about where the opportunities lie for international acclaim. At the Australian Institute of Music in Sydney, the curriculum has been shaped with Asia in mind. The college has spent years building ties with institutions in countries including South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and India. They bring in practitioners from across Asia to hold workshops; there's even talk of a trip to Seoul to learn about K-pop. Senior academic lecturer Chris Fields said music education in Australia was catching up with long-standing industry trends. "So moving away from the Western classical system necessarily, especially amongst jazz curriculums." At a practical level, students explore core musical concepts through multiple, multicultural lenses. "Rhythm and melody, these things are kind of universal but the way that traditions deal with them can be vastly different," Mr Fields said. Huge populations, rising incomes and increased digital connectivity are all helping the music business across Asia grow. In 2024, 45 per cent of all global revenue from the physical sale of recorded music, such as CDs and vinyl, came from Asia, according to the International Federation of Phonographic Industry's Global Music Report. North America and Europe still remain the biggest regional markets once digital products, such as streaming and downloads, are included. The US is still the biggest single market but Asian countries have cracked the top 10, with Japan ranked second in the world, China fifth and South Korea seventh. Music labels such as Warner and Universal are investing in the region, while Western artists collaborate with Asian idols. In the past two years, Lady Gaga performed with Korean girl group Blackpink, Ed Sheeran with Singaporean singer JJ Lin and Usher with Malaysian artist Yuna. Several Australians or those with strong ties to Australia have also built careers in Asia, particularly in the K-pop scene. Rose from Blackpink grew up in Melbourne; Bang Chan and Felix from Stray Kids, lived in Sydney; and Jake from Emhypen moved to Brisbane when he was nine. Pop singer-songwriter Satsuki moved from Sydney to Osaka, Japan, almost a decade ago. Big cities and good transportation make touring much more economical in Japan and artists can also rely on a revenue stream that has dramatically disappeared in the West: CD sales. "I didn't have any CDs at the start because I didn't have any use for them," Satsuki said. "The fact that we still sell them, that we still have CD stores is, I think, incredible. "People love having physical media and physical cover art, lyric books and all that kind of stuff." Satsuki said Japan also had an "incredibly interesting and very diverse" music industry. "Take BabyMetal, for example," Satsuki said. "They're fronted by these three, very cutesy girls that sing in a cutesy way, but also have this very, authentic metal band supporting them. "That kind of combination, I don't think you really see in the West and I think it allows people to explore different types of genres and looks and images." Asia also has opportunities for those who want to build a career behind the scenes in the music business. The film and TV industry is blossoming in many Asian countries, and someone needs to compose the soundtrack of the latest K-drama or Bollywood hit. Mr Fields said there were also opportunities to write for video games. "And if you think about the diversity of environments, playing scenarios and all these types of things, having a global perspective on sounds and ideas and these other things is critical," he said. "I've done some session work for movies in India. I know people that compose here for movies being released in India, in the US, in Brazil. "Composition and performing is global now." First-year student Ivana Yue is looking to build a career in sound design, especially for musical theatre. Her cross-cultural work reflects her background; she grew up in Hong Kong but attended an Australian International School. "My favourite thing to do is to take patterns and melodic repetitions and themes from Asian-inspired music and put it into Westernised orchestral pieces. "I also love using different Chinese scales as well, and even Japanese scales." Finding success as a musician is rarely easy, regardless of whether you look East or West. Cultural barriers, language constraints and protectionist attitudes can make it tough to crack into a foreign market. And while some countries may be reluctant to embrace outsiders, cultural exchange helped shape one of the biggest success stories in the region: K-pop. University of Malaya associate professor Jimmyn Parc said when modern K-pop emerged in the 1990s, it incorporated many elements from Western music. "There were a lot of things from United States, hip hop and reggae, and people actually complained a lot," he said. "They said, 'This is not Korean. We should not accept these kinds of things.
