OLIVIA & JASON: WHAT WENT WRONG?
With royal protocol and one public relations nightmare after the next coming between them, Harry and Meghan are in dire straits
The eight-year engagement of Olivia Wilde and Jason Sudeikis is off after it was revealed the couple have gone their separate ways. Friends say the 36-year-old actress, who was spotted without her engagement ring last week in LA, and the Saturday Night Live funnyman, 45, have already fleshed out a custody arrangement and “are ready to come out as single parents”.
An insider tells Woman’s Day, “They’ve been living in separate houses for a few months now and the kids [Otis, six, and Daisy, four] are getting used to the routine so it’s time to come clean. They’re both ready to date again after growing apart.”
Friends are convinced the straw that broke the camel’s back was Olivia directing Jason in Booksmart. “She got pretty bossy and can be a control freak at the best of times,” adds the insider.
“They were already like ships passing in the night, but when she became his ‘boss’, a lot of problems came to the surface. At the core are his insecurities and his belief that he holds her back. It’s very sad, but they’re both much happier now – and better parents as a result. It’s for the best.”
Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas are no more, according to friends, as sources reveal the Bond girl called time on their romance “over a month ago” – sparking the heartbroken Batman star to stop eating.
“It caused problems between them when her 007 bosses told her he wasn’t ‘good optics for the Bond franchise’ and not welcome on the red carpet. She kind of saw him differently after that and he sensed it – it’s why he started to obsess about going to the gym. It got a bit too clingy for her and her career is her priority right now.”
Ben, 48, and Ana, 32, who fell in love on the set of Deep Water in New Orleans last year, have had a whirlwind relationship, reportedly moving in together during lockdown.
“He’s not saying much but friends think it’s over, since he’s so miserable. He’s stopped working out properly and stopped eating,” adds the friend. “The biggest fear of all is that he might relapse. Everyone’s rallying around him, including Jen [Garner, his ex-wife], but he’s really heartbroken.”
Moving to the US was supposed to be the triumphant return for the Duchess of Sussex – the prodigal daughter coming back more iconic than she could ever have hoped to be as a TV actress. And while she did come back to California the most famous woman in the world, it may be for all the wrong reasons.
Meghan, 39, and Prince Harry, 36, are hitting headline after headline worldwide for their eyebrow-raising behaviour, slammed for being
social climbers whose actions are nothing more than a slap in the face to Britain’s longestreigning monarch.
ROYAL BREACH
Woman’s Day can exclusively reveal that after the duchess was busted recording a political video for anti-donald Trump organisation The Lincoln Project – involving herself in an election is the ultimate royal etiquette no-no – the palace is in further turmoil over what palace aides have begun to call “the Meghan problem”.
In a further blow to Meghan’s reputation, late last week she admitted to feeding information to the authors of her biography, Finding Freedom, which she had previously denied in her privacy case against the UK’S Associated Newspapers.
In a backflip that’s bound to only increase tensions with the royal family, Meghan said she spoke to a third party who had been approached by the authors but only to ensure the “false” narrative about her abandoning her father, Thomas Markle, was not repeated in the book.
The court revelations come as the crushing pressure of trying to rehabilitate her and Harry’s image – both Stateside and in the UK – takes its toll on their marriage. Now royal sources have confirmed the couple are at breaking point, with their Californian honeymoon well and truly over.
“Harry and Meghan are almost always fighting,” says a source. “She thinks she knows everything and won’t take advice from Harry. Every time she pulls a stunt, she gets it horribly wrong and they cop a battering in the press again. Harry has lost so much because of this – his family, his military connection, his homeland.”
The tension is only set to get worse, with the pair accepting a $180 million cheque to work exclusively with Netflix – the same production company that’s plunged Harry’s family into disarray by dredging up and dramatising the failure
of Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana’s marriage in The Crown season four.
“The Netflix deal was Meghan’s idea – Harry went along with it because he figured as an actress, she knew best,” says our source. “Now he’s very much between a rock and a hard place. I imagine they’ve had blazing rows over it all.”
KEEPING UP WITH KATE
Meghan, meanwhile, is said to be focusing her fury on the fact that her rival, the Duchess of Cambridge, has never been more popular, in the UK and abroad.
“Kate is being celebrated for all the work she’s been doing. It’s also 10 years since she and William got engaged, which has made the public very nostalgic about her entry into the family. It makes Meghan’s blood boil.”
In a last-ditch attempt to rejuvenate her image, she’s hired two new US publicists – and Harry has hit his limit.
“He can’t bear the thought of yet another meeting with another PR flunky to talk about ‘positive engagement’,” says a source.
“This move was meant to get him away from the press. Harry’s told a few friends he misses the UK and a cameo on England’s Strictly Come Dancing is his way of reconnecting, even though Meghan can’t see why he’d bother. The marriage may implode if they don’t start to see eye to eye.”