'Fake Lilibet' Claims Ignite Online Backlash
Meghan Markle is facing a whirlwind of controversy once again, this time over claims that she may be using child lookalikes for publicity. Viral clips and eagle-eyed royal watchers are raising eyebrows about the appearance of her daughter, Princess Lilibet, during recent public outings. Some are now speculating whether Meghan has 'rented' a child for media attention, igniting a digital firestorm of opinions and outrage. With the British public and global royal fans deeply invested in the lives of Harry and Meghan, every move they make is scrutinized. But this latest theory, suggesting Meghan Markle swapped in a lookalike for her real child is breaking the internet. WATCH
Read More
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Hindustan Times
38 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
Trapped between two wars: The art of the Lost Generation
Sometime in the early 1920s, Gertrude Stein took her ancient Ford Model T from her home in Paris's Rue de Fleurus to a local mechanic. The car had been having starting trouble, and the young mechanic assigned to it was making heavy weather of it. Eventually, Stein deemed his efforts unsatisfactory and complained to his boss, who berated the boy, saying: 'You are all a generation perdue.' When Ernest Hemingway, a friend, next visited her home, she applied it to him and others of his generation. 'All of you young people who served in the war. You are a lost generation,' she said. Hemingway, who understood the value of phrases like that, used it as an epigraph for his first novel, The Sun Also Rises (1926), which follows the lives of a group of American and British expatriates in Paris in the mid-1920s, rootless people wounded physically and emotionally by the Great War, looking for, and not always finding, an anchor. The expatriates in Paris at the time, incidentally, made up a sort of who's who of the cultural icons of the first half of the 20th century. The poet Ezra Pound moved to Paris in 1921. Writer Ford Madox Ford in 1922. Novelist John Dos Passos in 1919. James Joyce came to Paris intending a two-day layover en route to London, and ended up staying until France fell to the Germans in World War 2. Sylvia Beach, the daughter of American missionaries, moved to Paris in 1917, and set up Shakespeare and Company, one of the world's most famous bookshops. F Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda Fitzgerald visited in 1921 and '24. (A year after that second visit, he would release his best-known work, set in this era, but in New York: The Great Gatsby. It is 100 years old this year.) Back to Paris, in the wake of the Great War, this was a city where people caught fish in the Seine for dinner, and toilets with aluminium containers were still emptied into cesspools that were cleared by horse-drawn wagons. But it was also the home of Picasso, Modigliani, Chagall and, on occasion, Salvador Dali. It was the city of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, of Coco Chanel and the singer Josephine Baker. It was a world of people who had been in the war young, were trying to build their own anchors — through art and sculpture and dance, stories and fashion and architecture — and didn't yet know another war was coming. *** The rootlessness was not restricted to Paris. In England, in 1922, TE Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, dissatisfied with life as a civil servant, applied to the Royal Air Force under the name TE Ross and was initially rejected, before people like Winston Churchill recommended he be accepted. The poet Robert Graves suffered so badly from shell shock that even the smell of flowers reminded him of the gas warfare attacks he had suffered as a soldier. Siegfried Sassoon, awarded the Military Cross, one of the war's highest decorations, became a poet and a conscientious objector. Wilfred Owen, generally considered one of the great poets of the war, was killed a week before its end, aged 25. What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? / Only the monstrous anger of the guns. / Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle / Can patter out their hasty orisons. / No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells, / Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, — / The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; / And bugles calling for them from sad shires… he wrote, in Anthem for Doomed Youth (1917). *** This was also the beginning of a new world for the Western woman. First, with the men off in the battlefields, they took up jobs in factories. Many lost their menfolk and breadwinners; the lucky among them received war-widow pensions, but others struggled. More women were forced to seek permanent employment. This, directly and indirectly, contributed to the movement for women's suffrage, and the right to vote was finally extended to them. Back to Stein's phrase, 'Lost Generation' soon began to be used beyond its original context of her inner circle of artists, poets and writers who flocked to Paris in the 1920s. It became the tag for anyone born between 1883 and 1900. Franz Kafka (1883-1924) would fit the bill, even though he never fought in the war, having been found medically unfit. The Trial (1925) and The Castle (1926), his best-known novels, deal with the sense of despair, alienation and fruitless search for meaning that would come to define the young adults of this age. But what about Hugh Lofting of Doctor Dolittle fame, or PG Wodehouse? Well, there never has been just one kind of art. This is a period that saw the rise, for instance, of the crime novel, with people essentially binge-reading the work of great British pulp-fiction writers such as Sax Rohmer (a former soldier and creator of the Chinese criminal mastermind Fu Manchu); Hermann McNeile aka Sapper of the Bulldog Drummond adventures (who was still serving when he began to write these tales, and would inspire authors such as Ian Fleming and Alistair MacLean); Dornford Yates, who alternated been funny stories of upper-class Englishmen dealing with declining fortunes, and hard-edged spy thrillers, with characters that moved between genres. It wasn't just the men. Three of the four Queens of Crime who dominated the Golden Age of Mystery: Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers in England, and Ngaio Marsh in New Zealand, were from this cohort. (The fourth, Margery Allingham, was born in 1904.) Christie served as a nurse with the Red Cross during World War 1, which left her with a vast knowledge of poisons (and a penchant for murderous nurses). Sayers, credited with popularising the statement 'It pays to advertise', also wrote the original advertising jingle for Guinness. Marsh toured as a stage actress during the war and would use her knowledge of stagecraft to great effect in her Roderick Alleyn books. *** Across the Atlantic, other Lost Generation authors were redefining the crime novel. Dashiell Hammett, an ambulance driver in the war, would define the 'hard-boiled' detective novel; a genre launched by Carroll John Daly's Three Gun Terry (1923). Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) would take up Hammett's mantle with gritty, hard edged crime thrillers such as The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely. The Lost Generation changed children's literature as well. The Australian-British Pamela Lyndon Travers created Mary Poppins in 1934. Antoine de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince (1943) remains one of the bestselling books of all time. The Englishwoman Richmal Crompton created that irrepressible schoolboy William Brown in 1922. Air Force pilot WE Johns (also the man who rejected Lawrence's application to the RAF) created Biggles. And there was, of course, Enid Blyton (1897-1968). *** World War 1 made Hollywood what it is today. The destruction of European cinema in the war saw a wave of actors and directors make their way to America. There were so many movies being made in the US after the war — 80% of all movies made worldwide — that the studio system evolved, as did the producers who would dominate the industry's golden age: Louis B Mayer, Irving Thalberg, Harry Cohn, Jack L Warner. All the great silent comedians belonged to this generation: Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, and Chico, Harpo and Groucho Marx. So did many of the great directors who would transform cinema: Ernst Lubitsch, Fritz Lang, George Cukor, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Jean Renoir, Rene Clair. And, of course, there were the actors. The South African-born Basil Rathbone crawled to the German side, across no-man's land, disguised as, of all things, a tree, to recover military intelligence that would earn him the Military Cross. He would go on to epitomise sneering British villainy in swashbuckling films, and is still considered one of the best portrayers of Sherlock Holmes. Claude Rains, who made every movie better just by being in it, and whose performance in Casablanca is still remembered, lost almost all the vision in one eye as a result of a gas attack. Within months of the war breaking out, Ronald Colman (A Tale of Two Cities, Prisoner of Zenda) had his leg shattered by a mortar shell, forcing him to crawl back to safety. The experience left him with an air of melancholic reserve that worked well for the characters created by another Lost Generation Englishman: James Hilton. His novels Lost Horizon (1933) and Random Harvest (1941) both featured world-weary protagonists scarred by the war. Colman played both men in the film adaptations. 'It was the war that made an actor out of me,' he would later say. 'I wasn't my own man anymore. We went out. Strangers came back.' (K Narayanan writes on films, videogames, books and occasionally technology)
Pink Villa
2 hours ago
- Pink Villa
Prince Harry 'Deeply Upset' by Princess Diana's Sisters' Reaction to Wife Meghan Markle: Report
Prince Harry was left 'so disappointed' after introducing actress Meghan Markle to Princess Diana's two sisters, according to royal biographer Tom Bower. In his book Revenge: Meghan, Harry, and the War Between the Windsors, Bower writes that Harry had hoped Lady Sarah McCorquodale and Lady Jane Fellowes would see similarities between Meghan and their late sister, Princess Diana. However, the Duke of Sussex was upset when they reportedly did not agree. The sisters allegedly believed Meghan would not fit into the Royal Family, causing further disappointment for Harry, now 40. Despite their concerns, Harry went on to marry Meghan in 2018. The couple now has two children. Bower wrote, 'Harry assumed that Diana's family and friends would see a similarity between Diana and his fiancée. He was so disappointed. No one agreed that his vulnerable mother had anything in common with his girlfriend.' However, Harry stood by his views and, in his 2022 Netflix docuseries, he said, 'So much of what Meghan is and how she is, is so similar to my mum. She has the same compassion, the same empathy, the same confidence. She has this warmth about her.' Meanwhile, Meghan has faced fresh criticism this week. According to reports, she lost the opportunity to appear on the cover of Vogue after allegedly making a list of unreasonable demands. Journalist Esther Krakue also criticised Meghan during a segment on The Sun's Royal Exclusive, saying the Duchess should 'lean into being a hot woman who married a prince' instead of trying to position herself as a global thought leader. Krakue also mocked Meghan's recent appearance on The Jamie Kern Lima Show, where the Duchess admitted she wouldn't know what to put on a resume. 'She's also never had to write a resume, let's be honest,' Krakue said. Meanwhile, Meghan continues to promote her new ventures even though opinions about her public image remain divided.
NDTV
3 hours ago
- NDTV
Italian Princess, 21, Crashes "Headfirst" Into A Wall On Motorcycle, Says She's "Lucky To Be Alive"
Princess Maria Carolina of Italy says she is "lucky to be alive" after getting into a horrific motorcycle accident. In an Instagram post, the 21-year-old daughter of Prince Carlo, Duke of Castro, and Princess Camilla, Duchess of Castro, shared what had happened, revealing that she had been hospitalised and is on the road to recovery as she suffered major injuries in the accident. "I'm incredibly lucky to be alive. I crashed headfirst into a wall whilst riding a motorcycle and ended up in reanimation in the Intensive Care Unit. Surviving this was nothing short of a miracle," she wrote on her Instagram post, which featured various photos of her lying in a hospital bed. "I wanted to share my own experience as I've realized now more than ever that motorcycles are powerful and thrilling but also unforgiving. Please ride with care. Wear full protection, especially a proper helmet. Mine saved my life," the 21-year-old royal added. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Princess Maria Carolina di Borbone delle Due Sicilie (@carolinadebourbon) Concluding her post, Maria Carolina, who is the Duchess of Calabria and Palermo in Sicily, thanked the hospital and medical staff who looked after her. "My deepest thanks to the outstanding team at Centre Hospitalier Princesse Grace for their expert care during those critical days, and to the emergency medical team and first responders on the scene, whose quick and decisive actions in those first moments made all the difference," she wrote. Days before the accident, the princess attended this year's Grand Prix in Monte Carlo. In an Instagram post earlier this week, she showed a photo of her with British F1 racer Lando Norris, who won first place this year, in addition to pictures with her mother Camilla and her younger sister, Princess Chiara de Bourbon. Prior to this, the 21-year-old royal attended the 2025 Cannes Film Festival opening ceremony on May 15, where she walked the red carpet. "An incredible honor to walk the red carpet at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival opening ceremony," she wrote on Instagram alongside several snaps from the glamorous evening. Notably, Maria Carolina is the eldest daughter of Prince Carlo, the Duke of Castro and his wife, Princess Camilla, the Duchess of Castro. Her younger sister, Princess Maria Chiara of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, is 20 years old and carries the additional titles of Duchess of Noto and Capri.
