Kara Kennedy | The Spectator columnists & writers

Meghan Markle’s meeting of the minds with Paris Hilton

‘I am kind, I have a big heart, I’m an Aquarius. I love animals and I’m shy. I’m a tomboy. I’m an undercover nerd. I love cartoons and I’m a girl’s girl,’ says Paris Hilton at the start of Archetypes, Meghan Markle’s podcast about ‘dissecting labels’. This time the label is ‘bimbo,’ and with an intro like that, it’s good to see that Paris doesn’t feel the need to play into the bimbo trope. Meghan helpfully adds that ‘you may not have quite picked up on my voice. It’s Paris Hilton, the real Paris Hilton, not the archetype that you’ve come to know for so long.’ Thanks, Meghan! The two aren’t alone – lucky us. This episode is joined by journalist Clare Malone and comedian Iliza Shlesinger, apparently to help Meghan ‘unearth who is really in on the joke.

How to live like a Parisian

I wanted to hate it. In the weeks leading up to my trip to Paris, I was told incessantly about how much of a dump it was, about how I'd be faced with overflowing bins and skilled pickpockets. I was even warned against drinking the tap water. Bloody French. To be properly British – to be spiritually Anglo-Saxon rather than the twee 'Keep Calm and Carry On', Union-Jack-cushions type of British – means hating the French. And who could help but hate them? Rude waiters, bidets, frogs and snails, deliberate incompetence in maintaining their side of the Channel crossing, awkward double-cheek kissing, obsessiveness about cheese, astounding corruption in farming subsidies. The French are weird, almost defiantly so. My trip to France had one rule: do not enjoy it.

No one wants to be Meghan and Harry’s neighbours

Neighbours make or break home ownership. Getting home from a long day and collapsing onto the couch doesn’t have the same ring to it as when you have John next door blasting loud music. Or Sally tottering over to reprimand you because your dog did the dirty on her lawn. Residents in Ranch Hope, an exclusive neighbourhood in California, are up in arms because they have two A-listers who want to join their community. You’d think that rich celebs would be welcomed, driving up house prices and bringing a certain prestige to the town. But this is Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. Fresh from losing their crusade to take over Hollywood, the pair are being driven out before they’ve even hired the moving vans. Rumours of their relocation, ten miles away from their current home in Montecito, have left residents scared for the circus set to come to town.

Where have all the cool girls gone?

How would you describe Kate Moss? Supermodel, bad girl, party animal, everybody's favourite plus-one? Well, after her latest announcement, you’d better add ‘wellness guru’ to that list. The 48-year-old has just unveiled her health and lifestyle brand, Cosmoss, which she has positioned as ‘self-care created for life's modern journeys’. The woman who once said her beauty regime consisted of 'three Cs and one V’ – cigarettes, champagne, coffee and vodka – has switched to the three Ss, trademarking the phrase 'soulful, sensual, self-aware'. Feels wrong, doesn’t it? My first reaction to the news was: great, another cool girl who’s been swallowed up into the mundane world of green shakes and yoga. But maybe this was inevitable.

Inside Meghan Markle’s Hollywood flop

What does it mean to be an A-list Hollywood power couple? Celebrity, yes, but also respect. Look at George and Amal Clooney, a high-powered heartthrob and his equally high-powered human-rights-lawyer wife. Or look at Beyoncé and Jay-Z, hip-hop royalty and dedicated philanthropists. You and your partner can buy a mansion in the right zip code, hang out with the right people and say the right things at the right charity events, but that doesn’t make you a Hollywood power couple. Modern-day stardom is about more than name recognition. It takes charisma, dedication and charm. For all their striving, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle just don’t have it. Britain has realised this — and Hollywood is starting to realise it too.

Is Britney Spears really ready for a comeback?

For the finale of the #FreeBritney franchise, it seems that the 2000s Queen of Pop is to return to music. Recent reports have claimed that Britney Spears will be collaborating with Elton John on a song titled 'Hold Me Closer'. As exciting as this is, I can’t help but think that – seeing as her conservatorship was ended less than a year ago by a court ruling – she may be biting off more than she can chew. I question if she is truly ready to return to the inevitable pressure that comes with being in the public eye. I’m no therapist, but the treatment that Britney has endured over the past 14 years surely has to have lasting mental effects on the star’s health. And her latest antics on social media imply that she is still dealing with the fallout of being controlled by her family members for the past decade.

Why shouldn’t men date younger women?

Toyboys are back, apparently. Over the past few months there has been a flurry of middle-aged women crowing about the joy of dating younger men. One author in her mid-forties extolled the virtues of having not one but three lovers half her age. In a piece explaining that ‘younger men are having a cultural moment’, a thirty-something writer described a first date apologising for his scruffy appearance because he’d ‘cycled straight from school’. These women claim it’s liberating, empowering, confidence-boosting and a lot of fun, and even brag about younger men being far better in bed than their older counterparts. And presumably all of this works both ways – so why are we less understanding when men choose younger partners? Leonardo DiCaprio has split with model Camila Morrone after five years together.

We haven’t heard the last of Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard

The last thing I wanted to do was write about the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard circus. Really. For months I’ve done everything humanly possible to avoid the social media cults, the TikTok clips and my mother – who was so enthralled by the case that she cancelled numerous plans so that she could watch the live trial, and was temporarily banned from Facebook for commenting that she would give Heard a slap if she ever came across her, which is probably unlikely. But after the latest development in the story, which happened after the judge ruled that Heard was in fact defamatory towards Depp, awarding him around £12 million in damages, I couldn’t stay quiet any more. And neither could a number of celebrities. It seems that Hollywood is wondering if it rallied around the wrong guy.

In defence of Fergie

My first reaction to anyone buying even a bog standard two-up-two-down terrace in London is a fake congratulations through gritted teeth. So when it was reported last week that the Duchess of York, ex-wife of disgraced Prince Andrew, had bought a £5 million mews house in Mayfair, I was surprised that I didn’t share the outrage of the general public. Sure, she does very little, spending her days lounging around in Royal Lodge, the Grade II-listed Windsor property she shares with her ex. But there’s a part of Sarah Ferguson that is totally relatable, and as she has tried – and often failed – to navigate the inner workings of the royal establishment, I have watched her with admiration. Since her marriage to Andrew in 1986, she has never been far from controversy.

Was Ghislaine an Epstein victim?

Let me start by saying that this is not a defence of Ghislaine Maxwell, the part-time girlfriend, part-time sexual fixer for the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. How could it be? The New York judge that sentenced her to 20 years in prison earlier this week said that she played a ‘pivotal’ role in supplying girls for Epstein to abuse. She was integral to one of the largest and most prodigious sex-trafficking rings in US history. Ghislaine was undoubtedly a perpetrator – but no one quite wants to admit that she might have been a victim too. The disgraced socialite, dressed in prison overalls and ankle chains, told the court: ‘My association with Epstein will permanently stain me. It is the biggest regret of my life that I ever met him.

The Price of being Katie

Katie Price has, yet again, avoided prison. She was up at Lewes Crown Court on Friday, this time for breaching a restraining order; from what I can work out from the asterisks-laden news reports, she had texted her ex-husband’s fiancée, calling her a ‘gutter slag’. As an avid Katie Price fan, I have watched the last few years of her life unfold through my fingers. In between her facelifts, numerous reality TV shows and her eight engagements, a week rarely goes by without her being in the headlines for something serious. Over the last decade she has been banned from driving six times and earlier this year she dodged prison after failing to repay £3.2 million in debt by declaring herself bankrupt. Where did it all go wrong? Although she has never been far from controversy, recently there has been a clear deterioration.

The thrilling misogyny of Love Island

The thought of Love Island starting tonight gives me that same fuzzy feeling I had as a child when I lost a tooth, aware that I’d be waking up a slightly richer woman. I realised after years of turning my nose up at the show that – once you get past the initial guilt – watching trivial nonsense is a bit of a sugar rush. All your friends are watching and, crucially, badmouthing, the young 20-somethings prancing across our screens each night. Love Island is a moral vacuum, one that much of the nation loves being sucked into. Good manners are cast out the villa window and what is frowned upon in the real world – infidelity, nastiness and misogyny – is amped up, even celebrated. If you aren’t familiar with Love Island, the show begins with bikinied women in high heels lined up like Barbies on a Toys 'R' Us shelf, stepping forward if they like the man brought out in front of them.

The rise and fall of the WAG

Why has the Wagatha Christie case – the libel trial between Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy – so captured the public imagination? Perhaps the answer is that it is a brief, exhilarating reminder of a bygone tabloid age – a time when footballers' wives really could dominate the news. Let's go back to the 2006 Germany World Cup, when an assortment of wives and girlfriends of Britain’s top footballers spent much of the tournament lounging by a hotel pool in Baden-Baden, south west Germany. The staff, wary of paparazzi attempts to snap their high-profile guests, decided to put up screens to protect their privacy. But these weren’t just any guests, and when the WAGs learned what had happened, they demanded the barriers be removed immediately.

Is Britney Spears OK?

In a society obsessed with labels, we are surrounded by amateur psychologists at every turn. Low attention span? ADHD! Social awkwardness? You’re probably on the spectrum. Had an argument with your partner? Maybe he’s a gaslighting narcissist. You’d be lucky to have a mid-afternoon drink without whispers that you're an alcoholic. The West's obsession with diagnosing disorders reveals a need to blame someone, or something, for our actions. And yet I can’t help but wonder whether we’re watching someone showing real signs of psychological distress and choosing to ignore it. Just look at Britney Spears. Her latest Instagram selfie shows her totally starkers, save for a small pulsating love heart emoji over her bits and pieces.

Criminalising ‘cyberflashing’ is a waste of time

It’s a fact of life that at any given time, a woman’s social media messages will be filled with three things. Young Ponzi schemers asking if you want to earn £500-a-month from the comfort of your own sofa; an unknown jewellery brand with 15 followers begging you to be their new ‘brand ambassador’; and blurry photos of a man’s penis. The men who send these pictures are weirdos, obviously. But if the government gets its way, soon they’ll also be criminals. The Online Safety Bill, going through parliament today, makes so-called ‘cyberflashing’ a criminal offence. According to the government, the new law will mean that: ‘Anyone who sends a photo or film of a person’s genitals, for the purpose of their own sexual gratification or to cause a victim humiliation, alarm or distress will face a maximum jail sentence of two years in prison.

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