In the Papers

It has been a tale of two cities for Riven Rock resident Prince Harry.

His New Year started with Condé Nast, the giant publishing company in New York and owner of the celebrity glossy Vanity Fair, publishing an excoriating 8,000-word cover story about King Charles III’s youngest son and his former actress wife Meghan Markle. 

But in London it was a very different story with the Duke of Sussex winning a substantial payment from the publisher of daily tabloid The Sun – $12,333,900 according to Reuters – with an unreserved apology to him and his late mother Princess Diana for intruding into their private lives.

Publishing tycoon Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers admitting to using private investigators to snoop
on them.

In a dramatic end to Harry’s long-running legal battle in a statement read in open court NGN “apologizes to the duke for the impact on him of the extensive coverage and serious intrusion into his private life, as well as the private life of Diana, Princess of Wales, his late mother, in particular during his younger years.”

Harry had previously chosen not to settle the six-year case out of court…

Post-Inaugural Visit

Former President Joe Biden and his wife Jill lost no time in revisiting the Santa Ynez Valley after the Washington inauguration of his successor Donald Trump.

A “no fly zone” was in effect in the airspace around the Vandenberg Space Force base signaling the duo’s arrival in a military Boeing 747, their second visit to the area in five months staying at the $37 million 8,000 acre vineyard and estate, Kiani Reserve in Los Olivos in the Figueroa Highlands owned by billionaire Joe Kiani, 58, founder of the medical technology company Masimo, which he established in 1989.

When they visited last fall, they were rumored to be purchasing the late singer Olivia Newton-John’s 12-acre estate, which runs along the Santa Ynez River, the rumor quashed by the realtor dealing with the sale. 

Play-ing Downhill

Gwyneth Goes Skiing, a musical comedy about the Montecito actress’s infamous Park City, Utah, ski accident and the ensuing courtroom drama, has made its New York debut.

Glee’s Darren Criss and drag queen Trixie Mattel are straddling the T-bar in the Off-Broadway show, which stars its writers Linus Karp and Joseph Martin as the Oscar-winner and her adversary, retired optometrist Terry Sanderson.

The show has already had runs in London and the very scene of the on-slope drama in Park City, Utah (the town’s Egyptian Theatre) before its debut last week at the Soho Playhouse in Manhattan.

When asked about what the impact was of her encounter with Sanderson, the Goop founder uttered the iconic line: “Well, I lost half a day of skiing!”

In 2019 Sanderson sued the actress for $300,000 claiming she’d left him with a brain injury after crashing into him in 2016 in the Deer Valley ski resort.

Paltrow countersued for just $1 in damages, plus legal fees, claiming Sanderson had crashed into her first. 

She prevailed.

Sightings

Prince Harry at the University Club… Actor Chris Pratt at Pierre Lafond… Author T.C. Boyle at Lucky’s.

Pip! Pip!