Brad Pitt Is Drinking Again, Updated

From the New York Times, in an article titled "The Planets, the Stars and Brad Pitt," and dated September 4, 2019:

Was "Ad Astra" a way to work through some of the loneliness he may have been experiencing? "The fact is, we all carry pain, grief and loss," he said. "We spend most of our time hiding it, but it's there, it's in you. So you open up those boxes."

It was reported that the final straw in Pitt's 11-year relationship with [Angelina] Jolie came in September 2016, when they fought about his drinking while aboard a private plane. Now, Pitt is committed to his sobriety. "I had taken things as far as I could take it, so I removed my drinking privileges," he told me. After she filed for divorce, Pitt spend a year and a half in Alcoholics Anonymous. 

His recovery group was composed entirely of men, and Pitt was moved by their vulnerability. "You  had all these men sitting around being open and honest in a way I have never heard," Pitt said. "It was this safe space where there was little judgment, and therefore little judgment of yourself."

Astonishingly, no one from the group sold Pitt's stories to the tabloids. The men trusted one another, and in that trust, he found catharsis. "It was actually really freeing just to expose the ugly sides of our self," he said. "There's great value in that." Read the entire article here. 

From Esquire magazine, in an article titled A Monday with Brad Pitt and dated August 10, 2026:

We pull down the little Perriers pretty quick, and I point out that he offered me wine earlier. At an  awards ceremony in 2020, he thanked his friend Bradley Cooper for helping him get sober and talked more deeply about his sobriety on Dax Shepard's podcast, Armchair Expert, last June. I ask him if the wine is something for guests?  

"No, I got--I was sober for seven years. And then I got back off the wagon." Little laugh. He raises his famous opposing-diacritic eyebrows and holds a finger up: "In a more restrained manner. I got overconfident a couple times, went, Yep, nope, not good for me. Not in big quantities." 

"You can have a glass of wine."

"Yeah. Well... I can have a few. But I can't have a lot. I have to be professional about it."  Read the entire article here. 

That Esquire article got a lot of attention, no surprise; here's what The Hollywood Reporter has to say, in an article titled Addiction Experts on Brad Pitt: “Alcoholics Are a Horrible Source of Information About Themselves":

Brad Pitt's admission that he's consuming alcohol again after seven years sober and attending Alcoholics Anonymous for 18 months has set off some strong reactions within the recovery community. 

The 62-year-old star revealed to Esquire that he's "off the wagon," but says he's only drinking "in a more restrained manner," claiming, "I can have a few [glasses of wine]. But I can't have a lot. I have to be professional about it." 

The comments drew some skepticism online, including in recovery-minded forums like Reddit's r/stopdrinking. "'I can handle a few'--same thing every alcoholic in the history of the world says when they relapse," wrote one user. "If I could moderate I wouldn't need to think about moderating," noted another. "If you have a healthy relationship with alcohol, it is something you just do--no need to make rules and be disciplined." Another wrote, "'I have to be professional about it'--oh honey, I'm four years sober and there's no being professional about addition."

But recovery experts who spoke to The Hollywood Reporter had a more nuanced take on the subject, essentially noting that not everybody who turns their life around needs to follow AA's abstinence-based model.

Clinical social worker and policy advocate Joe Schrank--who has worked with addicts for more than 20 years and was a founding member of the first recovery program in a New York City public school--first agrees that Pitt's comments about his moderate drinking should be viewed with some degree of skepticism. 

"When he said he's drinking moderately after seven years of abstinence, there's a bunch of different things going on there," he says. "Typically speaking, alcoholics are just a horrible source of information about themselves. Matthew Perry walked aroung reeking like booze telling people he was sober. But maybe [Pitt] is [drinking moderately]. The World Health Organization says that this is possible--that with moderate drinking, even after long periods of abstinence, there are lots people who find success of clinical significance and life improvement. The AA morality police takes this stuff as red meat for their need to finger wag and shame. Not everybody needs to spend the rest of their life totally abstinent with a cup of shitty coffee in a Styrofoam cup regurgitating platitudes. Some do--I'm one of those people."

Continues Schrank: "The truth is, for most people, their recovery is a living, breathing thing that is evolving over time and it's a spectrum. He's a big movie star and he's been very successful in a tough business over many years. But are your children upset with you? That's the kind of question I would pose to him." Note from your blogger: yes, there are stories out there that say Brad's children are very upset with him, and I admit, I had been wondering why.   

Keith Humphreys, a professor of psychiatry and an addiction researcher at Stanford University, similarly notes there are important unknowns when it comes to Pitt's journey, but that he might fit the profile of somebody who is more likely to successfully transition from absinence to modest amounts of drinking. 

"Certainly if you talk to AA members, they would say [Pitt's comments are] a delusion and it's going to end in tears," Humphreys says. "But it's pretty clear from the evidence that people who are able to, after having a drinking problem, eventually get back to moderate drinking, tend to have a few things in common. One, they don't have high dependency--and I don't know how bad [Pitt's] alcohol problems were that led to this seven-year sobriety. Number two, they tend to have high social capital--educated, a job, somebody who loves them--which he does. And three, that they do not have serious psychiatric problems. Those are the predictors, with no guarantees either way. I wish him the best. There's clearly some risk here, but it may be manageable depending on how he did on those other dimensions."  

Adds Schrank: "I think it's important for people to understand that this is a common recovery story. Most people who have this problem ebb and flow out of various levels of improvement and safety. Recovery is not going to go in a straight line. I don't think this deserves the moral panic it got and the freaking out is actually harmful to him. When you have diabetes or obesity and lose 50 pounds and then gain back 20, you don't freak out. You say, 'OK, well, what are we going to do?' Because you did pretty well for a long time and sustained change is really hard. So I hope he finds his way, whatever it is."

That said, Schrank also points to the headlines we've all seen over the past few years. Evidence increasingly suggests alcohol is so toxic  that no amount is truly risk-free--regardless of whether somebody is an alcoholic or not. The World Health Organization announced this "no level is safe" conclusion three years ago, and since a review of the current literature in the medical journal Herz stated that when it comes to alcohol, none is better than a little." This is the article in its entirety. 

Here are two People covers featuring Matthew Perry, 10 years apart. Will Brad Pitt's story end in tears or worse? I think it's possible.  

Speaking of People covers, most of the time I don't play the Guessing Game anymore, but right now, a cover about Brad Pitt's drinking would be very high on my list. Stay tuned.   

Update on Sunday morning:

From MS.Now: "Katie MacBride is a health and medical writer whose work has appeared in New York Magazine, Slate, The Daily Beast, Vice News, Buzzfeed News, Rolling Stone, and Longreads, among othe publications. Her newsletter,  Ask a Sober Lady, answers questions and explores essays about substance abuse and recovery." 

In an article posted this morning, MacBride ponders whether or not a person who has identified themselves as an alcoholic can safely resume drinking, saying that in Pitt's case, there are some important concerns worth considering:

[After Angelina Jolie filed for divorce in 2016] Pitt spent the next seven years telling outlets like The New York Times that he was committed to his sobriety and had “removed my drinking privileges.” When Rolling Stone published its story about the FBI investigation, Pitt reportedly hired the crisis manager for stars like Johnny Depp, Matthew Hiltzik, to help his “divorce narrative,” which “emphasized contrition and sobriety over scandal.” Just last year, Pitt told Armchair Expert podcast host Dax Shepard (whom Pitt credits with helping him find his way into Alcoholics Anonymous) that, following his split from Jolie, he was “desperate” and came to AA “on my knees…really open…trying anything anyone threw at me.”

So it was understandably jarring to read the following exchange in the Esquire profile. In it, Pitt stresses to Esquire writer Ryan D'Agostino that moderation is his goal:

Pitt: [I can have wine] in a more restrained manner. I got overconfident a couple of times, went, Yep, nope, not good for me. Not in big quantities."

D'Agostino: "You can have a glass of wine."

Pitt: "Yeah. Well... I can have a few. But I can't have a lot. I have to be professional about it."

(In a discordant echo from that 2017 GQ piece where he claimed, "I could drink a Russian under the table with his own vodka. I was a professional," "professionalism" in the Esquire profile now refers to the opposite behavior: moderation.)

So to answer the question asked of me so often, yes, it is possible for some people to drink in moderation after identifying as an alcoholic and maintaining sobriety. But in Pitt's case, I have concerns. If Jolie's allegations are true (no criminal charges were filed as a result of of the alleged incident), it's hard to view Pitt's renewed alcohol use as inherently innocuous. 

When a box office mega-star and allegations of abuse are at play, the equation isn't quite as simple as "recovery looks different for everyone." Alcohol-induced behaviour isn't magically remedied by a period of sobriety, which is something people following his high-profile journey might want to keep in mind. If alcohol was the catalyst for Pitt's alleged actions, that's usually a bigger issue than a seven-year time-out.  Read the entire article here. 

The Esquire article has more than 5500 words. Early on, the writer explains that promoting Brad's new movie is the reason Brad agreed to be interviewed and invited the writer to his home. Was Brad prepared for a handful of sentences in the middle of a very long article to explode into the zeitgeist, putting his drinking, his sobriety and his alleged abusive behaviour in a very bright spotlight? Is he surprised, maybe annoyed, possibly volcanically pissed off about the fact that no-one, but no-one, is talking about the movie the article was supposed to promote?  

 My guess? Yes.  

Prince Harry... and The Queen

 

"Feelings Aren't Facts"

In an article in British newspaper The Telegraph, titled "Harry and Meghan's 'truth' has been exposed for what it is and I feel vindicated," and subtitled "Strip away the grievance, the victimhood and the drama, and what remains? A couple of former royals with a fading brand," Associate Editor Camilla Tominey shares her thoughts about Prince Harry and Meghan:

Confirmation that the Duchess of Sussex is in the UK, after all, with her children Archie and Lilibet arguably tells you everything you need to know about the world according to Harry and Meghan. After a huge drama over accommodation and security, the family, who have been in Europe, have just met with the King at Highgrove despite Harry’s well-documented security concerns.

Meghan did not attend yesterday’s Invictus Games event with her husband in Birmingham as originally planned. Buckingham Palace insists no imagery will be released of the royal reconciliation but don’t be surprised if carefully curated footage eventually emerges of the family of four, perhaps visiting Princess Diana’s grave at Althorp, the Spencer family seat.

The Sussexes thrive on drama. It’s the only real currency they have left, which goes some way to explaining Harry’s endless will-he-won’t-he Buckingham Palace invitation saga. I wouldn’t be surprised if behind-the-scenes footage is already being shot to appear on a television near you in the not too distant future.

Having been on the receiving end of Harry and Meghan’s “truth”, I admit to feeling rather vindicated following Mr Justice Nicklin’s judgment in the Prince’s case against Associated Newspapers Ltd. Dismissing all 97 claims made by seven claimants, including Harry, Sir Elton John and Liz Hurley, that the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday had carried out unlawful information gathering against them between the late 1990s and 2015, the judge was unequivocal.

In his devastating 436-page ruling, he rejected not only the most lurid accusations, but also concluded that the claimants had failed to prove any unlawful activity at all. Accepting the denials of Associated Newspaper journalists “who gave lawful explanations for the sourcing of the disputed articles and incidents”, he added: “Suspicion, even understandable suspicion, is not proof.”

What the judgment effectively said is that feelings are not facts; there is only ever one version of the truth – the one that can be proved, with evidence.

The court defeat leaves Harry et al potentially facing a £50m legal bill which may or may not be covered by the estate of Max Mosley, a man with a well-documented history of fascist politics and orgies. But the reputational cost for the Sussexes could be even greater. The judgment drives a coach and horses through their carefully cultivated narrative of victimhood.

Harry has long maintained that he and Meghan were hounded in the same way his late mother was. During the trial earlier this year, he became emotional while describing the impact of the coverage on those closest to him, saying Associated Newspapers had made Meghan’s life “an absolute misery”.

So why, then, did the couple’s media team allegedly provide Charlotte Griffiths, editor-at-large of the Mail on Sunday, with details of a meeting between Sussex representatives and a senior royal aide in 2025?

Griffiths says a close adviser arranged lunch with her at The Ivy in London during the summer of that year. She maintains information shared there led to several stories about the couple, including front-page reports suggesting efforts were underway to repair relations with King Charles.

If true, Harry and Meghan were doing precisely what they accuse others of doing: briefing the press.

Then there was last week’s accommodation saga. How exactly were reporters learning about rescinded palace invitations if not from Sussex sources? This, from a prince, who once grandly told his ITV chum Tom Bradby that members of the Royal family got into “bed with the devil” if they tipped off the media “to rehabilitate their image”.

Griffiths’ evidence also seems to suggest another uncomfortable inconsistency. Harry has long claimed to have had little to do with journalists. Yet the trial revealed flirtatious Facebook messages exchanged with Griffiths in 2011 and 2012, referring to a hedonistic weekend spent with Harry and his friends.

In those messages Harry happily disclosed personal details, including that he was “stuck in Cornwall doing Army stuff”. Again, Harry’s words to Bradby come back to haunt him. “If you need to do that, or you want to do that, you choose to do that. Well that is a choice,” he explained. Yes. Harry. If only you’d taken your own advice.

As I recall, when he wasn’t complaining about invasions of privacy, he and his friends were voluntarily sharing extraordinary amounts of their lives on public social media. They also kept returning to the same London nightclubs – Boujis, Amika and others – only to express outrage when photographers captured them stumbling out in the early hours.

In Spare, Harry never named me but described me as someone who “always made me ill”, adding: “She’d always, always got stuff wrong.” In reality, I got two rather significant stories right. First, that he was dating Meghan Markle, an exclusive I broke in October 2016. Second, that there had been an altercation between Meghan and Kate during a bridesmaid dress fitting that left Kate in tears.

Until that second story, I had enjoyed a perfectly good working relationship with Harry. Even after revealing his romance with the American actress, he personally invited me to cover parts of his Caribbean tour that weren’t open to other journalists. The truth – the whole truth, not the Sussexes’ version of it – is that they have always been entirely comfortable with publicity, provided it is flattering. Write a negative headline, even an accurate one, and suddenly it becomes a media witch hunt.

The reality was summed up perfectly by Paul Dacre, editor-in-chief of Associated Newspapers, after the verdict, which echoed South Park’s now infamous World Privacy Tour parody about the couple.

“There isn’t a laundry in the cosmos big enough to wash all the dirty linen he has aired about his own family. For him to complain about HIS privacy being invaded takes not just the biscuit, but the whole tin.”

He has a point. Harry and Meghan haven’t simply aired their family’s private business without offering anyone a right of reply. They have turned it into a lucrative business model.

And they will continue to do so. Because strip away the grievance, the victimhood and the drama, and what remains? A couple of former royals with a fading brand.

That, surely, is the real truth. (This is the article in its entirety.)

Some Thoughts From The BBC

In an article titled "Prince Harry and Meghan: Will they or won't they, and will we care?", Sean Coughlan of the  BBC ponders the Sussexes upcoming trip to the UK:  

If coverage of the Royal Family can seem like a soap opera, it's never more so than when Prince Harry is in town. Brother against brother. A son seeking reconciliation with a father. Competitive sisters-in-law. A grandfather wanting to see his grandchildren. And now, will they or won't they be here?  

We can expect to see all those storylines when Prince Harry and possibly his wife Meghan and their children Archie, aged seven, and Lilibet, aged five, return to the UK this week. A detailed plan of the visit was initally issued which included the Duchess of Sussex - but because of concerns over security, she and the children won't be at the start of the trip in London, but might be elsewhere in the UK later in the week.  

The purpose of the trip is to get ready for the Invictus Games and to attend charity events. There are five days of engagements which begin on Tuesday in London before moving on to Birmingham, which will host the games for injured military veterans next year. Whether fairly or not, the focus will be on family tensions and whether there are any signs of bridges being built between the returning Sussexes and their royal relations. 

This latest chopping and changing over whether they are coming won't have helped that cause of reconciliation. You can almost imagine Palace officials rolling their eyes and muttering, "Nightmare". But Harry has always been intensely sensitive around the safety of his family. But if the security concerns can be overcome, and Meghan and the children do come for part of the visit, it will be the first time the Sussexes will have all been together in the UK since Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee in 2022. That seems like another era, as well as another reign. From inside Team Sussex, the mood seems determined despite the uncertainty. It's understood Prince Harry is looking forward to seeing his friends and family and that nothing is going to sour his chance to support his Invictus "second family".  

But there always seems to be drama, not to mention psychodrama, wherever the Sussexes go. This time round, while they're in the UK, we're expecting the result of Prince Harry's court case against Associated Newspapers over allegations of unlawful information gathering. The outcome could add another flavour to events - although Meghan will not now be in the UK when the ruling is published. That will be followed by the cliffhanger of whether Meghan appears later in the week - and whether the King will meet his grandchildren. On Prince Harry's previous solo visit, in September 2025, the attention was on his meeting with his father, King Charles, held privately at Clarence House. 

Now the speculation is about whether there will be a meeting that brings together the King, Prince Harry, Meghan and the children - and whether there will be a family photo to capture the moment. From the Sussex perspective, a picture would be a sign of their legitimacy as part of the family. But you can also imagine Palace officials worrying about how such a photo might be used. They don't want to see it boosting jam sales in Montecito. 

David Yelland, former editor of the Sun and presenter on BBC Radio 4's When It Hits the Fan, says "the politics around that photo are so complex that it almost certainly won't happen. The photo we really want to see is the King with the grandchildren," he says but he thinks there would be too many arguments about who was in charge of the picture and how it was set up. "You start to think about the negotiations between the two sides. Who stands where? Is Meghan in the photo? Where's the King? Is Camilla going to be in the photo? It would be easier to get a photo of Putin and Trump together after a meeting than it would be to get photos of these people in the same room at the same time," Yelland says. 

Even without a photo, a meeting seems likely if the children do come to the UK, not least because King Charles, with his own health challenges, would want to see his grandchildren. Prince Harry will want to reconnect with his family on his mother's side too - and there has been speculation about a stay at the Spencer estate at Althorp. This would also mean the possibility of a poignant visit to the grave of Princess Diana, bringing his children to the island burial site of the grandmother they never had the chance to meet.  

Inevitably, much attention will be on Meghan, who hasn't been seen in the UK since the late Queen's funeral - and whose involvment in this trip seems to be in the balance. How the public would respond to her is a question that might never really be answered, as even if she does apper, it's likely to be within the confines of a pre-planned event. She remains a figure that polarises opinion. According to a recent YouGov survey, 20% of the public have a favourable opinion of her, the lowest point in her popularity in a survey going back to 2017. "There's definitely a sharp drop. I think she's also in the past talked about how she's one of the most trolled people in the world," says PR expert and When It Hits the Fan presenter, Farzana Baduel - which means Meghan has to contend with the "level of hate that is directed at her". 

Winning round the UK public is going to take more than a summer visit but a return might be a tentative start. Meghan has campaigned on issues that would likely connect with the public, such as trying to tackle online harm to young people. But royal commentator Pauline Maclaran says the UK public remains unsympathetic and "probably somewhat unfairly" blames Meghan for the couple's departure from royal life. 

Everything she has done since the famous Oprah interview and the Harry and Meghan Netflix show seems only to fuel dislike of her," says Prof Maclaran. "I believe she was always in a very difficult position, coming into the Royal Family as a bi-racial American and an independent woman." 

Fans of Harry and Meghan will be enthusiastic about the trip, but there is also an inescapably negative side to the fascination with the couple, particularly on social media. 

"We talk about the amount of money that Meghan makes making jam, but a lot of people on social media on the west coast of the US are making a lot of money out of hate," says former tabloid boss 

A rapprochement between Prince Harry and Prince William seems even less likely. They remain on very different trajectories, with William's life heading remorselessly to the point where he will take to the throne. 

"My sense is that the King wants to have a relationship with his grandchildren and so there is a reasonably good chance of some sort of family reconciliation on the back of this visit," says royal commentator Richard Palmer.  

"But it's still a very different matter when it comes to Harry and William. I don't believe there is any relationship whatsover between the brothers at the moment and little prospect of one developing," says Palmer, who has been on trips with both brothers.

"People close to William used to talk hopefully about time being a great healer. But time has moved on, William has become more unwilling to reconcile with Harry. He tells his friends he just doesn't think about his brother."   

Buckingham Palace isn't saying anything about Prince Harry's trip. It seems to approach such visits with a sense of wariness, like when an unpredictable neighbor is calling round. They'll be politely welcoming, while not being devastated when they leave. 

There might also be an eyebrow raised at how much Prince Harry's trip to the UK resembles a royal visit - like the events that Harry and Meghan seemed so keen to escape. 

They went to the US and stopped being working royals, but they are now returning and seem to be working at being royals.  

Take Me Home, Country Roads, Updated

I admit, this made me cry. I know I'll age myself by admitting that John Denver was one of my favorite singers when I was in high school and college, and I've always loved this song. 

Did you grow up listening to John Denver?  I did.  

Update on July 6: It turns out the man who co-wrote Country Roads with John Denver was also the writer of another 70s hit, "Afternoon Delight." Very cool. 

The Washington Post explains; read it here.  

And one more thing: I wish John Denver had lived to see this happen.

Prince George Turns 13

 

Carolyn and Diana

They were both tall, very attractive blonde women; they each married the man considered to be the "most eligible bachelor" in their respective countries. 

They instantly became as famous as it's possible to be in this world. They wore great clothes.  

They struggled in their relationships with their high profile, high maintenance husbands, albeit for different reasons.  

They both died young, in stupid, unnecessary accidents caused by the bad decision-making of the men around them. 

That's my take on the similarities between Princess Diana and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy. Now, in advance of a book titled The Kennedys and the Windsors, People magazine has a new cover story featuring Diana and Carolyn: 

 

Read the cover story here. 

How's Donald?

According to his page at The Lincoln Project, "Rick Wilson is a renowned political strategist, infamous ad-maker, writer, speaker and a political commentator. In December 2019, Rick co-founded the Lincoln Project, a political action committee whose goal is to hold accountable those who would violate their oaths to the Constitution and would place their loyalty to others before their loyalty to the American people and democracy."

In a Substack post dated yesterday, this is what he had to say about the currrent president:

Let me say what the White House press corps cannot bring itself to say, what the Sunday shows have agreed to murmur around rather than at:

Donald John Trump is dying. 

He is dying in the ordinary biological sense, the sense in which you and I and every warm-blooded creature on this rolling flying through space and time are dying. 

He is seventy-nine. He turns eighty next month. He went to Walter Reed today, his thrid visit in thirteen months ("Totally normal! Just a third checkup in a year!"), and the White House would like you to believe this is a wellness influencer's self-care routine rather than what it obviously is: the late-stage management of a long-abused body breaking down in public.

Sure, it's fun to speculate on what we'll all do when The Day arrives, but Trump's death isn't just physical. 

But more importantly, more lastingly, he is dying as a force in our politics, as a presence in our culture, and as the dark gravitational center of the American right. The only people who can't see it are the ones whose paychecks depend on pretending the corpse is still doing pirouettes and burpees. 

The man's own physician diagnosed him last summer with chronic venous insufficiency, the swollen-ankles, blood-pools-in-the-legs condition you generally see in your great-aunt who needs the recliner kicked up before Wheel of Fortune. He has been photographed repeatedly with hand bruises the size and color of rotten plums, slathered in concealer that doesn't quite take. The official explanation is "frequent handshaking and aspirin." 

Of course. Every septuagenarian I know who shakes hands has a hand that looks like he caught it in the door of a Buick. 

Then there's the gait. The slowing shuffle to Marine One. The right-handed lean. The drifting into associative word-salad that, on Biden, would have launched a thousand Fox News chyrons in sixty seconds. 

He has become, there is no way to say this without saying it, MAGA... doddering. Unsteady. Tired. A man whose physical envelope is visibly insufficient for the job he claims to be doing. 

Evil ages you. Sin rests as heavy as lead on the bones. Cruelty and malice corrupt and destroy their bearers. You can see it in him now, the way you could in Mobutu, in Mugabe, in the gangsters of history who used the state as a punishment and piggy bank for too long.  

Compare this with the saturation coverage of Biden's decline to the lullaby around Trump's.

When Biden trailed off, it was a three-day national emergency: cable hits, op-eds, anonymous-source pieces about West Wing concern. The 25th Amendment got more name-checks in 2024 than the Bill of Rights got in a decade.  

Trump goes to Walter Reed for the third time in a year, with bruises hand-painted out of existence and a diagnosed circulatory disorder, and the coverage is what? A polite CBS write-around. A Washington Post nothingburger story detailing the drive up to Bethesda. A few brave souls noting that "independent physicians say the White House hasn't answered keey questions." No Jake Tapper special. No glossy Original Sin book proposal. No "ten Republican senators speaking on background." Just the press doing what the press always does in the presence of an authoritarian project: flinching. 

This is the most dishonest White House about the President's physical condition since Edith Wilson was forging her stricken husband's signature behind the curtains in 1919. The parallel is not casual. The memos, the "excellent health," the "sharpest president in American history," the careful staging... the cover-up of Trump's diminished physical and mental capacity isn't coming.  

The cover-up is already running. Karoline Leavitt, Stephen Chung, and the rest of the White House noise machine have lied to the media for years about Trump's condition, and never once been held to account. 

Here is where the second death becomes impossible to ignore. 

Trump is winning nothing. Trump is holding nothing. He is narrowcasting to a withering, contracting MAGA base dying off at a rate that will soon reshape the political landscape again... and mistaking the cheers in ever-dwindling crowds, in ever-smaller halls for sound of a country still living in 2016.

Pew, last month: 34 percent. The lowest of his second term. Fox News... Fox News... has him down 24 points with Republicans since March 2025. Rural white voters, the base of the base of the base, have gone from +27 net approval to -6 in twelve months. Among his own 2024 voters, approval has slid from 95 percent to 78. 

The MAGA coalition is not growing. It is not holding. It is shedding, paycheck by smaller paycheck, grocery receipt by grocery receipt, slowly creeping away from cultlike adoration with every trip to the gas pump.  

The cable hosts and the Truth Social cheerleaders do not understand this, because they have marinated for a decade in a closed informational system: winning a MAGA primary is not winning the country. The cheers inside the tent get louder as the tent gets smaller. That's not strength. That's the acoustic property of a shrinking room.  

Which brings us to the ballroom, the arch, the White House glitter bukkake redecoration, the urgent desire to slap his name on every flat surface. Add those out-of-touch moments to the pardons, the no-bid contracts, the crypto scams, the $1.7 billion slush fund, and the snake-pit of grift the second term has become. 

The conventional read is that this is power... the dictator phase, the strongman unleashed. 

I want to suggest the opposite. Strongmen at the at the height of their game don't need the ballroom. They don't need to rename the Kennedy Center after themselves. They don't need the gold leaf, the fake portraits, the rebranded monuments and memorials.  

That's the behavior of a man who knows the clock is running and is grabbing what he can while the grabbing is good. That's Marcos in Manila in 1985. That's Ceausescu in 1988, before he and the missus were lined up against a wall. 

Genuine power doesn't need to be advertised this loudly. The frantic escalating, almost pornographic self-celebration is the tell. It's a confession in plain sight. The man building his mausoleum while he's still alive is the man who knows he's running out of road. 

So here we are. A 79-year-old man, swollen of extremity and bruised of hand, looking like the victim of a zombie bite by denying it until he turns, shuffling between Walter Reed and a half-built ballroom nobody asked for, with an approval rating in free fall, a base finally asking quiet questions about grocery prices, a press corps too cowed to say out loud what they all know, and a clock, biological, cultural, and political, that he cannot bully into stopping. 

He is not coming back from this. There is no third act. There is only the long, undignified, makeup-smeared decline of a man and a movement whose moment has passed, narrating itself ever more loudly into an ever emptier hall, a frowzy barfly of a man, replaying past glories that never happened and hoping you won't notice the bad wig. 

Trump is dying. 

Say it out loud. It will feel strange the first time. Less strange the second. By the tenth, you'll wonder why it took the rest of the press corps so long to catch up. 

And yes, when The Day comes, I promise you that my better angels will be taking PTO. 

Update: Tina  Brown weighs in. In a post on her own Substack, dated May 27, titled "Trump's Sweet Vengeance," and subtitled "Democrats are getting it wrong again," Tina presents an opposite view of the world:  

Democrats are getting it wrong again. After Trump’s 11th-hour endorsement of Texas attorney general and all-in Trump sycophant Ken Paxton, who was impeached for multiple charges of abuse of office, investigated on felony security charges, and dogged by adulterous sexual imbroglios, the slippery MAGA sleazebag still went on to pulverize Senate old-timer John Cornyn in the Republican primary on Tuesday. And yet, liberal cableheads deconstructing the results keep recycling the point that, somehow this was good news. Millions of dollars, they chortled, will now have to be diverted from other imperiled Republicans to defend a Senate seat that, for four terms, had been occupied by the beloved party elder Cornyn and now will be in play against the Democrats’ latest Texan mirage and Colbert candidate James Talarico. When has Trump ever found it difficult to raise millions of dollars, especially against a Senate candidate who tweeted in 2021 that his office was “the first in the history of the (Texas) Capitol to put pronouns on their business cards?” Paxton was already on a roll in his victory speech, immediately branding his Presbyterian seminarian opponent “James Talafreako,” “Six-Gender Jimmy,” and “Tofu Talarico” (“Soy boy!” yelled out an inventive Paxton supporter in the crowd).

Of course, as all the pundits tell us, Trump’s base loves him but, in using that term, I suspect they still subliminally conjure dated images of a Viking-horned, bare-chested QAnon shaman storming the Capitol. Today, that same lawless horde is now not only pardoned, but about to have access to Trump’s new $1,776 billion “Anti-Weaponization” slush fund. The fact that the comatose turtle, former Senate leader Mitch McConnell, has finally emerged from political hiding to denounce the outrage of a cop-bashing mob getting a financial pay-out is no threat to Trump. McConnell can exhume some principles because he isn’t running again. Trump’s resident House weenie Speaker Mike Johnson, with his own re-election looming, was so fearful of losing the slush fund vote that he sent lawmakers home early for a week’s recess to avoid it.

Don’t expect House members to return emboldened when Trump has just gone four for four in the primaries, whacking, not just Cornyn, but his Epstein Files Transparency Act foe Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Georgia GOP gubernatorial candidate Brad Raffensperger, who committed the ultimate crime of failing to “find” 11,780 more Trump votes in Georgia in the 2020 election. Sorry, not sorry about Senator Bill Cassidy from Louisiana also hitting the bricks. He’s the physician who oversaw a nationally-recognized vaccine campaign in his home state, but later revealed his inner worm by casting the deciding vote to confirm RFK Jr. as HHS Secretary. Trump punished him anyway for having voted in 2021 for his second impeachment. So long, mofo.

Every liberal commentator now bangs on about an assured mid-term shellacking for the POTUS party over rising gas prices, thanks to the Trump-created catastrophe of the Strait of Hormuz closure and the universally unpopular Iran war. I suspect they and the polls are wrong again. It’s not just the creeping success of Republican redistricting creating more seats than Democratic efforts to do the same. Trump has found a diabolical way to separate his personal charisma from the destruction he perpetrates and the corruption he normalizes. He’s the angel of sabotage, freed from the shackles of his own malign deeds by the Supreme Court, the GOP’s moral turpitude, and the universal glint of greed from the Wall Street honchos, Silicon Valley bros, and Palm Beach plutocrats who see that the presidency is open for business. As last week’s Brennan Center newsletter put it, “There is a zone of lawlessness around the Oval Office.” In Trump’s first term, he was restrained by the need for a second, and by advisers schooled in the now-quaint ethos of governing by accepted norms. But then, he learned something transformative. Speaking to the NYT in January about prohibiting his family from profiteering overseas from proximity to official business in his first term, Trump said that, “he got no credit for it.” He then added a killer kicker that made less news at the time but has stayed with me as a rare moment of truth: “I found out that nobody cared.”

If there is any message that crystalizes the 250th anniversary of the U.S., it is not that America has changed but that Trump has changed America. There will be no snapback when he’s gone. Even as his approval ratings tank and the country is hurting, it feels as if his base has become wider and deeper and represents a new national state of mind. Tuned out on our phones, mesmerized by money porn, high on the idolatry of the big flashy win, we are getting used to the erosion of the rule of law, the threats to free speech, the banishment of government watchdogs, and the chasm of inequality. After ten years of Trump bludgeoning the first principles of the American experiment (ten because I don’t count the disappearing ink of Biden’s lame tenure when every headline was a new Trump indictment, scandal, or toxic blast from exile in Mar-a-Lago), Trump has refashioned the country in his image.

In the comments below the post, Tina says several times that she hopes she's wrong. I do too. 

"An Impeccable Force For Good"

"There's no denying that everyone concerned has been missing the princess's star quality. She is a huge draw wherever she goes."

"She is glamorous, she is beautiful. She is warm and approachable."

"She is an impeccble force for good, a fantastic standard-bearer--not just for the royal family but for the country." 

Wow. That's just a few of the comments in the hagiographic cover story about Princess Kate in People magazine this week. (Is someone in Montecito hurling dishes at the wall? Possibly.)  

Just three weeks after the "on the one hand, on the other hand" cover story about Harry and Meghan's current place in the world, Kate is in the spotlight this week, although "adoring glow" might be more accurate. "Teachers wiped away tears after she left," we're told, referring to Kate's recent visit to a school in Italy. No "other hand" here, this is a love letter.

Read the article here. 

Where Is Everyone?

I haven't been paying much attention to Meghan's trip to Switzerland, but I'm struck by this picture. To be blunt, the optics are terrible. A quick Google search tells me that, straight line, it's almost 6,000 miles from Los Angeles to Geneva. That's a long, long way to go to speak to fewer than 20 people. It might be the camera angle, there could be 100's of people on Meghan's left side, or behind her, but still. This picture is brutal.  

Food

“Carb addict” is a catchy phrase, but it collapses a complicated neurohormonal system into a moral failing wrapped in snack food language.

People like me, on GLP-1s aren’t discovering some secret weakness. We’re discovering that appetite, reward, satiety, and impulse are… https://t.co/v7XmZ5Oje6

— Dr Terry Simpson (@drterrysimpson) May 10, 2026

This is Dr. Simpson's post in its entirety:

Carb addict” is a catchy phrase, but it collapses a complicated neurohormonal system into a moral failing wrapped in snack food language.

People like me, on GLP-1s aren’t discovering some secret weakness. We’re discovering that appetite, reward, satiety, and impulse are biologic systems — and when those systems are altered, the noise changes. That’s the point. Nobody says a patient with hypertension is a “salt addict” because a medication lowered their blood pressure. Yet somehow obesity still invites this strange Victorian need to turn physiology into character judgment. Also, if carbohydrates were uniquely addictive in the simplistic way internet nutrition tribes claim, then cultures built around rice, beans, lentils, fruit, and bread would have collapsed centuries ago into universal metabolic ruin. They did not. The problem is not “carbs.” The problem is hyperpalatable, engineered, calorie-dense food environments colliding with human biology that evolved for scarcity, not DoorDash at midnight. GLP-1s did not create discipline in people. They revealed what appetite feels like when the volume knob is no longer stuck on maximum.

A Constant Hustle...

"Without the palace platform, it takes a constant hustle to keep yourself in the spotlight." Thus sayeth Tina Brown, referring to Harry and Meghan in her 2022 book The Palace Papers, and note that I'm paraphrasing from memory. I thought of Tina's pithy words last Wednesday morning at 7 a.m. central time, when this appeared front and center at people.com:

People magazine cover dated dated May 11, 2026, posted April 29

I also thought of reporter Paula Froelich's advice to Harry and Meghan, published on New Year's Eve Day, 2025: 

Next year, when your father and brother make state visits to the US, LIE LOW. As in, no social media posts, no interviews and above all, no competing engagements. I know this will be hard for you, but trust me. You and your wife look petty and spiteful when you try to hijack the attention. (Who can forget your flashy Remembrance Day visit to Canada in November at the same time your brother was trying to promote his Earthshot Prize in Brazil?) Getting in the way of actual royals trying to maintain the family business, which includes diplomatic duties, makes you look vengeful and jealous. (Read Paula's entire post here.)

I know, from reading many books about the royal family, that Paula's advice is correct. When senior royals, i.e., the King and Queen or the Prince and Princess of Wales, are on high-profile foreign tours or other important engagements, the rest of the family are absolutely expected to lie low. Stay out of the spotlight, stay out of trouble, don't do anything to outshine or upstage the more important members of the family. 

Last week, Charles and Camilla were on an official state visit to the United States, trying to charm (and not get drooled on by) Donald Trump. Wednesday, April 29th, also just happened to be William and Kate's 15th wedding anniversary. Either of those events could have been the focus of a People cover story. How did we end up with Harry and Meghan front and center, smiling up a storm with a headline that says they're Making Their Own Rules? 

Now, obviously, Harry and Meghan have no control over what People magazine chooses to put on the cover each week. On the other hand there's no way I believe the timing of this story is a coincidence. This is almost certainly the result of an intensely targeted, and very effective, pitch by Harry and Meghan's experienced (and expensive) publicists, Sunshine Sachs. In a story posted January, 18, 2026, and titled "Meghan Markle and Prince Harry Reteam with a Familiar Hollywood PR firm amid Staffing Shakeup," people.com reported this:

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are returning to a familair firm as they restructure their professional team at the start of othe new year. 

PEOPLE confirms that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are once again working with Sunshine Sachs Morgan and Lylis (SSML), with the bicoastal public relations firm supporting Meghan's lifestyle brand, As ever, as well as the couple's U.S.-based efforts. The firm is a major Hollywood player, representing A-list talent and leading entertainment projects. 

The firm is working alongside the Sussexes' internal team, which includes LIam Maguire, their U.K. and Europe director of communications, w ho remains in  his role and has primarily overseen Prince Harry's communications.  (Read the entire article here.) 

This is what Sunshine Sachs (SS) says they can do for you: "In today's quickly changing media and digital landscape, there is no one way to tell your story. It doesn't have to be a million-dollar idea (but we have those too!) - it can be a well-timed social post or a small, simple connection. We use data and trend forecasting to help our clients connect with their audiences through bold and creative storytelling." Read more about Sunshine Sachs here.

I'd say SS earned their money this week. Did Harry and Meghan get their money's worth? Maybe. Were they pleased, even thrilled, by the article, and the timing? Probably, but overall I can't imagine it changed anything for them, and it may have royally pissed off the people around Charles, Camilla, William and Catherine, if not the actual royals themselves. The state visit was considered to be a royal triumph and by Wednesday evening, the Harry and Meghan story was completely gone from the people.com homepage, which tells us that other stories were getting more clicks. Would the story make readers rush to the As ever website to buy overpriced candles and jam? Would an event planner somewhere decide that they should pay low six figures to have Harry come and give a speech? Is Prince William saying to himself, wow, I forgot how wonderful my brother and sister-in-law are, let's get them back right away?  No, probably not, and don't make me laugh. 

Anyway, this is the article, in its entirety:

In January 2020, at what became known as the Sandringham Summit, Queen Elizabeth drew a firm line. After intense talks about what the future would look like for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the answer was clear: There would be no "half in, half out" role. They could not remain working members of the royal family while pursuing independent, income-generating ventures. The couple would step back--fully.  

When the Queen publicly confirmed the decision, making clear it was "not possible" for them to continue with the responsibilities that come with a life of public service outside the institution, Harry, 41, and Meghan, 44, pushed back with a statement of their own: "We can all live a life of service. Service is universal."

Six years on, that belief still shapes their path. During an unannounced visit to Ukraine on April 24, Harry was asked whether he recognized the label "not a working royal." "No," he said. "I will always be part of the royal family... I am here working, doing the things I was born to do." In Australia, where Harry's father, King Charles, is head of state, the Sussexes spent four day in April moving through engagements that echoed an offical royal tour, from hospital visits to moments of remembrance, while also embracing the independent, income-generating model that now underpins their work.

For some inside palace circles, that overlap remains deeply contentious. "They are pushing the envelope and making it much more difficult for reconciliation to happen," says Sally Bedell Smith, author of the Royals Extra Substack.

In Ukraine, Harry stepped into territory traditionally avoided by the royals. Speaking at the Kyiv Security Forum, he called for "American leadership" in the ongoing war--a remark that carried clear political weight. The moment came just days before King Charles's state visit to the U.S., a tightly choreographed trip that, sources say, left no room for any private meeting between father and son. While Harry emphsized that he was speaking "not as a politician" but as a soldier and humanitarian, the remarks were strking.   

Together, the two trips illustrate the space the Sussexes now occupy--outside the boundaries the institution has long sought to maintain. "The monarchy is meant to be above politics and commercial imperatives," says Valentine Low, author of Courtiers. "This is exactly what the late Queen wanted to avoid." Insists a source close to Harry: "This idea that he's going against the wishes of the Queen by being half in, half out is nonsense. None of this is being done in the name of the institution."

On the ground in Australia, the response told a different story. "There were joyful, smiling people everywhere they went," says Kylie Walters, a royal correspondent for WHO magazine there. "People wanted to see them." The visit began April 14 with a stop at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, where patients and staff lined the halls to greet them--almost eight years after their last visit to the country, in 2018, when they were newly married and firmly within the royal fold.

The impact of the latest trip was immediate. "I gave Harry flowers, and he said 'Thank you' and told me to 'keep on being brave,'" says Novalie Morris, 12, a patient who met the couple. "It cheered me up a lot--I'll keep thinking about that."

At a war memorial in Canberra, Harry laid a wreath, his military medals pinned to a suit--including those from his late grandmother--a quiet reminder that since stepping back from being a working royal, he is no longer permitted to wear his military uniform. When he was barred from doing so at Queen Elizabeth's funeral in 2022, his spokesperson said that "his decade of military service is not determined by the uniform he wears." 

Meghan, meanwhile, spent time at a women's shelter, serving food and speaking with families. and on Sydney Harbour they joined Invictus Australia team members and veterans for a sailing event. "Harry was completely relaxed--Invictus is where he belongs," Walters says of the international adaptive sports tournament for wounded, injured and sick service personnel and veterans that Harry founded in 2014. "People gravitate toward him, and he knows how to make them feel special. The royal family really misses out on that. It's a sad reminder of the global platform he could have had. It's the closest he's going to get to continuing to serve on his own terms."

But alongside those traditional moments of service was something far less familiar. Harry delivered a ticketed keynote speech at the Melbourne InterEdge Summit, where seats initially ran into the thousands, while Meghan made a surprise appearance as a guest judge on MasterChef Australia and a paid appearance at a women's retreat, where $3,199 VIP packages included a group photo with her. The outing came a year after the launch of her lifestye brand As ever, with guests receiving products in swag bags. "They have a big security bill and a lifestyle to maintain, so it's not surprising they're taking on money-making ventures," says Walters. 

Meghan's fashion choices were also linked to an AI-powered shopping platform, OneOff, allowing followers to purchase the looks she wore during the trip--many by Australian designers. Through the partnership she earns a commission. Her page drew more than a million views withing the first three days, with several items selling out. 

"The royals are influencers, but the mystique is that they are not promoting themselves as such," says Bethan Holt, fashion director at The Telegraph. "Meghan is lifting the veil." Adds Bedell Smith, "It was shocking to see her go to the hospital and then sell the clothing she was wearing. I've never seen anybody in the royal family do that. I can't imagine it went down well at the palace." 

For critics it raises a broader question about where public service ends and personal branding begins, yet those close to the couple push back on that characterization. "They're not reliant on Harry's father or taxpayer-funded money," says an insider. "They pay their own bills and make their own money while continuing to support a lot of causes that might otherwise go unseen. It enables them to do what they love doing." 

Adds another source: "They're trying to live their life, raise their children [Prince Archie, 6, and Princess Lilibet, 4], do meaningful work and earn a living." 

Palace insiders say it is more likely to deepen tensions with the royal family. "It won't help Harry's case or promote good relations," says Queen Elizabeth's former press secretary Ailsa Anderson. 

For Prince William, the issue is especially firm: "What Harry and Meghan are doing is a nonnegotiable for William," Anderson says of the future King's view within the royal family. "He wouldn't countenance any acceptance of it." 

After years of distance--strained by Harry's legal battle over security and the fallout from his memoir Spare--there has been some renewed contact between him and his father, 77, in recent months, though they haven't seen each other since September. But the divide remains most acute with his brother William, 43, with some questioning whether the rift can ever heal. "William is over all the drama," says Robert Jobson, author of The Windsor Legacy. "He doesn't need it, and he doesn't want it. He's too busy and focused on his own family." For now, adds Bedell Smith, "they're at a standoff." 

Those close to the Sussexes, however, describe a more measured reality behind the scenes. "Meghan lets him lead on all royal matters and dictate what needs to happen," a friend says. "But it would never put them at odds--they're on the same team." 

Says another source: "It remains very emotional. Harry and Meghan are both realistic. They're not approaching it with the expectation of a quick resolution. It's about taking small, manageable steps and seeing where things land. This remains very important to Harry, with Meghan supportive. 

While Harry has long spoken of hoping for reconciliation, he's still reckoning with his upbringing. At the InterEdge Summit in Melbourne he reflected on the loss of his mother, Princess Diana, and the years he spent resisting the role he was born into. "I was like  'I don't want this job. I don't want this role--wherever this is headed, I don't like it,'" he said. "It killed my mom, and I was very much against it." Over time, though, "I realized... how would somebody else make the most of this platform?" he said. "And what would my mom want me to do?"

At home in Montecito, Calif., work is scheduled around school hours; weekends are for family time. "Archie and Lilibet are their life," says a staffer who has worked for the couple since their early days in California. "There's a real warmth and a sense of normalcy."

Both have built tight-knit circles. Harry maintains a close group of friends, many of them fellow dads. "He really thrives on those friendships and values that sense of connection," the close source says. Meanwhile, Meghan keeps a small, loyal group of longtime friends, often meeting for workouts or quiet nights out together. "They're very careful about who they let into their lives," a friend says. 

That loyalty runs deep. "No matter what she has going on, she always makes time for her friends," says Meghan's friend Kelly McKee Zajfen, who recently welcomed son Jack after the loss of her son Georgie, 9, in 2022. "She really shows up, and not just when it's easy." 

It's a side of Meghan that is often overlooked. At an April 16 discussion with Batyr, an Australian youth mental health charity, Meghan spoke candidly about online abuse. "Every day for 10 years I have been bullied and attacked," she said. "I was the most trolled person in the entire world... and I'm still here."

Her resiliance is hard-won, sources say. "They both try to focus on staying as positive as possible," says a source. "But people forget they're human beings, especially Meghan. There's only so much a person can handle." Still, that same source says their focus remains steady: "They wake up every day focused on being the best parents they can be. No matter what comes at them, they pick themselves up and keep moving forward." 

Nearly eight years after their wedding, Harry and Meghan's bond remains central. "They are the biggest champions of each other," says the staffer. "The more adversity they face, the more they come together."

That partnership propels their next chapter, even as scrutiny persists. "This is the shape of things to come," says Anderson. "There is nothing to stop them from doing this."

Adds Low: "The palace might not like it, but they can do it. The question is whether it's sustainable." 

For their future to hold, their ventures will need to succeed. While their widely reported $100 million Netflix deal wasn't renewed, the relationship has evolved into a first-look arrangement, with several projects still in development, including a scripted series set in the world of polo. A documentary they backed, Cookie Queens, has also gained traction on the festival circuit and is now set for a theatrical release. 

Meghan, meanwhile, is focused on building As ever into a lasting business. The brand continues to roll out new products, including a Mother's Day collection featuring candles inspired by the couple's children. "It is still in test-and-learn mode," says the close source. "She wakes up thinking about new ideas and works on it all the time." 

While reports of high staff turnover have raised questions about the couple's working environment, others who remain describe a different experience. "There are quite a few of us who've been here a long time," says one six-year staffer. "Much of her company is made up of young women, and she really champions them. She's always saying to me, 'Just speak up'--that's one of her biggest things." 

Those close to the couple believe their trip to Australia set a new blueprint. The late Queen herself once recognized the positive effect Harry and Meghan could have across the Commonwealth--and supporters say their influence has not disappeared. "They're very aware of the impact their presence can have," says the longtime staffer. Walters adds, "A lot is forgiven when you're on the ground and you show up and do good work. That magic and allure of a royal doesn't necessarily come down to a title." Click here to see the story as posted.  

Note: the other cover story dated May 11 featured Goldie Hawn; Rita Wilson and Marilyn Monroe are the cover stories dated May 18.