Carole & Michael Middleton are being ‘targeted in a malicious poster campaign’

Soon after the coronation, the Middletons’ family business, Party Pieces, went bankrupt. Party Pieces had apparently been struggling financially for years, barely propped up by “new investors” throwing good money after bad into what sounded like a poorly managed company built on lies. For months, Party Pieces had been scamming small businesses and the company even secured millions in government and bank loans. The whole house of cards collapsed in early June, with PP basically going into a posh version of bankruptcy and being sold for about £220K. Carole and Michael Middleton owed creditors £2.6 million, none of which will ever be repaid. Those creditors were stunned and they spoke out to the Mail, the Times, the Telegraph. Story after story of how Carole had personally guaranteed that she would pay the debts, only to walk away and run back to her £5 million manor home in Bucklebury. She hasn’t been seen in months. Well, funny story – someone put posters up around Bucklebury, posters which called out the Middletons for their fraud.

Kate Middleton’s parents have been targeted in a malicious poster campaign over the collapse of the family’s party business, it was reported last night. Messages were posted on lampposts and trees around the couple’s home village of Bucklebury in Berkshire, where they have lived for several decades.

Kate’s brother, James, 36, who lives nearby with his pregnant French wife Alizee, 33, was said to have been enraged by the posters, and was reportedly seen tearing them down.

Suppliers have been left out of pocket by the closure of Party Pieces, which was sold by Kate’s mother Carole, 68, and father Michael, 74, shortly before it went bust earlier this year. The creditors have been calling on the couple to pay the outstanding sums out of their own pockets.

A source told The Sun on Sunday at the shock felt by villagers over the attacks targeted at the couple. ‘It’s unfair to do this in their home village, just yards from where they live,’ they added.

Party Pieces folded in the summer with £2.6 million of debts. The firm was started by the Middletons in 1987, selling decorations and party paraphernalia for children’s events from catalogues. Its business model was transformed by the internet revolution of the 1990s, which allowed the Party Pieces website to begin selling products to customers at home and abroad.

The company’s soaring profits are said to have helped the couple put their three children through the prestigious Marlborough College, where fees are £42,000 per year, as well as paid for their £5 million seven-bedroom Georgian manor house in Bucklebury. But the firm was badly hit by the pandemic, when children’s parties had to be cancelled, and then the cost-of-living crisis caused the business to slump further.

In June, after 36 years in business, Party Pieces went under, just a fortnight after it had emerged that the company had been sold to a Scottish businessman named James Sinclair, having collapsed into administration. Former British Airways stewardess Carole was said by a friend at the time to be ‘desperately sad’ at the company’s fate.

Other friends said that she was trying to make sure creditors were paid. However, suppliers have since criticised the couple, claiming invoices were left unpaid before the firm went bust. An administrator’s report revealed creditors were unlikely to be repaid cash they were owed.

[From The Daily Mail]

“It’s unfair to do this in their home village, just yards from where they live” – okay, Carole. What about all of the people you ripped off? What about the small businesses who took you at your word that they would get paid by the future queen’s mother, which is why you were extended credit in the first place? All of those years of hustling, lying and scamming, all to throw her daughters in the paths of royalty and wealthy men, and then when her house of cards collapsed, no one helped her. Like, where is Terribly Moderately Wealthy James Matthews? Where is Prince William’s inherited wealth? Her sons-in-law left Carole twisting in the wind. And it’s amazing, honestly. As for the posters… who put them up? Do you think some shady media people put them up to create a story? Or is some sh-t really going down in Bucklebury and this is just the tip of the iceberg?

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Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.