Category: James Middleton

Last year, James Middleton’s faux-memoir was released. It was called Meet Ella: The Dog Who Saved My Life. It was James describing his life and mental health through stories about his dogs, with a dash of fairly unbelievable royal gossip throughout. By “unbelievable,” I mean that I do not believe that James and Ella were given free rein of Highgrove or Sandringham or Clarence House, but James definitely wants to leave the impression that he was regularly invited everywhere. Well, anyway, the book is coming out in paperback, which means it’s time for James to give more interviews about his family and his dogs. He recently spoke to the Times, and here are some highlights:

On the Middleton family: “Well, I’d say we’re honest. The thing my parents taught us all to be was honest,” he says of the Middletons. It was a big family value? “Very much. Being grounded and being honest was something instilled in us right from the start. And I think those are the values I want to instil in my son — that and having confidence in who he is, whoever he turns out to be.”

He was suicidal in 2017: A few days later, sitting in his car outside what was then his business (personalised marshmallows by post), he called his family doctor who quickly found him a consultant psychiatrist who was open to having Ella attend their sessions. Middleton was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and clinical depression, and began cognitive behavioural therapy in combination with medication to control an irregular heartbeat and help him to sleep. For a while he also took antidepressants, of which he and his parents had been initially wary in case they dulled his emotions in entirety. Now he is taking no medication, and thanks two years of therapy for reintroducing him to himself.

Credit to William and Kate: “And you know, credit to my sister and brother-in-law [Kate and Prince William] for what they were doing with Heads Together at the time.” Did that campaign for the open discussion of mental health influence his decision to ask for help? “I was aware of what they were doing. It was sort of the general message of, you know, it’s OK to not be OK.”

On Kate’s cancer: “WhatI think is that, as a family, you learn to see and process and understand things. For her and her family it was a challenging time, and I know for us and our bigger family it was a challenging time, but I think it’s about communication and it’s about offering support and help where you can. Being there for someone is such an important part, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be on your terms and it shouldn’t be on your terms. It should be on their terms; unconditional: ‘I’m not doing it for something in return. I’m doing it because I love you.’ And that’s the simplest way of really demonstrating love. You can do it in all these various fancy ways but actually, you know, it is just generally being there.”

Whether he felt like a failure for his many failed businesses: “I spent the vast majority of my life being told I was a failure because I wasn’t passing exams. If you don’t pass, you fail and I failed almost every exam under the sun. So I was never really told anything else.”

When he felt like a success: “I think it was at the point that I became James Middleton again. Once that changed, so many things started falling in place. Ella recognised it too. I wasn’t looking to start a relationship and then, lo and behold, Ella has found me a wife!”

What it was like to publish a memoir: “I think I was most terrified that when I wrote about having depression I would be called a fraud; that people would say, ‘You’ve had a privileged upbringing. You’ve had everything, essentially. No real struggles.’ That sort of feedback. But depression doesn’t select like that and, anyway, I think I’ve learnt to accept criticism. I recently turned 38 and I was thinking, how do I explain where I am right now? Actually, I think I’m where I am meant to be. I still have life challenges: we’re remortgaging this year, we’ve got bills to pay. But we embrace it all, trying to look at the positive. It’s not like I’m cured of depression; you can never cure mental health because it exists consistently, all the time, like our physical health. We have to continue looking after it. But I think it was the right time to write that story. I wasn’t prematurely writing the ending. Ella had done her job. She had looked after me, she really had — and in many ways she still does.”

[From The Times]

He also suggests at one point that the book sold better than he expected, and when I tried to find any numbers to back that up, a tumbleweed rolled by. I mean, maybe they didn’t expect much from the book, but I can’t imagine the sales did more than meet already low expectations. As for all of this… as he says, he has bills to pay. He found a way to tell “his story” with some dashes of royalist fan-fiction and none of the British outlets will both questioning any of this much deeper. Also: the Middletons are not known for their honesty, and it’s offensive to claim that. Was Carole honest as she was racking up millions in debt? Was Kate honest when she lied for years about Meghan making her cry? Was Pippa honest about her ass of lies??

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images and James’s IG.

We haven’t talked about James Middleton in months. He went to his sister’s Together at Christmas concert, and that was the last time I wrote one word about him. Before that, James spent much of last September on a promotional trail. He was promoting his very odd memoir about his dog Ella, and he ended up giving interviews and book excerpts to a lot of outlets. There were some really odd headlines, like James claiming that QEII personally invited him and his dog to Sandringham (???) and how the Princess of Wales’ kids have spent so much time with his son Inigo. Well, I think James’s memoir sank without a trace, but he’s still trying to make himself into some sort of dog influencer? Like, he’s famous for having dogs and that’s his whole thing. Which was enough to get him yet another exclusive interview with Hello Magazine.

You couldn’t find a happier looking man than James Middleton as he shows the HELLO! team around the grounds of his farmhouse in the Berkshire countryside. In an exclusive interview the entrepreneur, who turns 38 this month, opens up about his busy life with his wife, Alizee, their 18-month-old son, Inigo, and their beloved pooches.

With his six dogs bouncing at his heels, the younger brother of the Princess of Wales is in his natural environment as he piles the pack into the back of a red tractor, throws in a few bales of hay, and heads off to a grassy meadow bathed in sunshine as we follow behind. James’s four cocker spaniels, which range in age from 14 to four years, are all related to Ella. He also has two golden retrievers. They are all impeccably behaved – quick to obey commands and trained to look straight into the camera when photographed.

Theirs must be a lively household… James smiles, ruefully: “Yes, getting up in the morning trying to feed six dogs and get Inigo fed and off to nursery is a challenge.”

“He spent the first year of his life thinking he was a dog,” he adds. “He’d crawl around on all fours, which was entertaining to watch. His first word was ‘woof’,” he jokes. “But he loves dogs, particularly Isla – he puts his arm around her neck and squeezes. He loves chatting to the animals – he shouts at the chickens and knows what noise a cow makes. He shares many of my loves – which are tractors, sheep and dogs.”

Luckily Alizee, a French financial analyst whom James first met in 2018 when Ella approached her table while they were both in meetings in a London club, is also a dog lover. When James darts back into the house to fetch his wife to meet us – they walk towards us holding hands – the dogs excitably greet her like a long-lost friend. “Over the years she’s built her own relationship and often goes out for walks and runs with them.”

Being a dog-owner helped James develop his nurturing skills when Inigo arrived.

“I’m less bothered about changing nappies as I’ve cleared up enough poo over the years!,” he admits. “And you have to have patience, you can’t rush anything. I often look at Alizee and say, ‘What did we do before we had Inigo? What did we do with all that time?’ But it’s like anything in life – you evolve and change. You can look back at the past and enjoy the memories, but not chase them today as it’s a waste of energy.”

[From Hello]

Question: what are we doing here? None of James’s moves have made much sense to me, including the whole “memoir about a dog, full of lies about the Windsors” thing. I assume this Hello exclusive was because his birthday is coming up AND he needed some money? I really do wonder if his poor wife is supporting this “country squire” cosplay. His dogs are well cared for, I will give him that. Is the arrangement, like, James is a stay-at-home husband who takes care of the baby and the animals while Alizée (hopefully) works to support their family?

Photos courtesy of James’s IG, Avalon Red, Cover Images.

James Middleton is still promoting his memoir, Meet Ella: The Dog Who Saved My Life. He has received absolutely zero negativity for the book or its promotion. No one in the British or American media has called him a grifter or a scammer peddling a tawdry tell-all. No one has questioned the tackiness of the Princess of Wales’s brother writing about his time at Sandringham with Queen Elizabeth, or his time at Highgrove with King Charles. It’s absolutely bizarre. And now James is even talking about his sister’s health in American interviews:

James Middleton is sharing an update on sister Catherine, the Princess of Wales, following news that she completed her cancer treatment.

James Middleton, the younger brother of the former Kate Middleton who is releasing a new book, “Meet Ella,” briefly spoke about his oldest sister’s health during an exclusive interview with NBC News’ Kelly Cobiella.

“She’s doing OK,” he says during the interview, which aired on TODAY Sept. 26.

He continued, “It’s not for me to share on her behalf, you know, how everything’s going. But she’s getting all the right support and focus that she needs. And like anything, it takes time to process.”

James Middleton’s chat with TODAY took place in the English countryside, where he grew up with his two sisters.

“We’re very lucky to spend time here. It was always my dream to move back,” he shares.

“Catherine and William had both been involved in mental health charities and works of which I got help from. They were a fantastic bridge for the family, for me to be able to translate how I was feeling,” James Middleton shared. He added, “The whole process has brought us closer, in many ways.”

[From Today]

I keep thinking back to how James and Pippa were moving earlier this year – Pippa was lounging around St. Bart’s with her husband and kids, meanwhile James took several ski holidays, all while Kate was “recovering from abdominal surgery” and learning that she has cancer. In fact, James and Pippa’s vacation schedule convinced me, back then, that Kate was fine. I also wonder how close-hold the information was overall – it’s possible that only Carole and Michael knew what was really going on with Kate back then. Oh well. James is staying on Middleton-message, that’s for sure. My guess is that Carole scripted most of this.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

The first excerpts from James Middleton’s pseudo-memoir Meet Ella: The Dog Who Saved My Life came out last weekend. The Daily Mail published the first excerpts that I saw. It feels notable that the Mail is suddenly not scandalized at all by a memoir written by someone with royal connections, and someone who is explicitly writing about those royal connections. While I haven’t read anything which is “bad” for the Windsors or James’s sister Kate, the whole thing is very tacky. You’d think that there would be outrage, right? Instead, every British outlet is doing the most to act like all of this is totally normal and uncontroversial.

Hilariously, James didn’t give the Mail the sole exclusive for the book’s excerpts. He also gave People Magazine an exclusive look too. As GB News wrote, “Meet Ella by James Middleton is being serialised in People Magazine, an outlet known to have close ties to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.” LMAO. It couldn’t be any more obvious that the Middletons and the Windsors are simply obsessed with America and “winning over” Americans. Anyway, here are some passages of the book published by People:

James adjusts to life in the royal spotlight:


There was no official guidance from the Palace about how we should behave, but William would make useful suggestions. And his constant mantra was, ‘Be careful.’There were times when I got things wrong. I posted a photo of myself wearing a polka-dot dress one Halloween, and someone somewhere got it into their head that it was Catherine’s dress. It wasn’t. It belonged to a friend. No harm was done on that occasion, but I started to be more circumspect about the photos I shared. And I realised how even the most trivial stories assumed disproportionate importance.

Bonding with Queen Elizabeth.


All the way up to Norfolk I’d been rehearsing my lines, muttering ‘ Your Majesty’ for the Queen; ‘Your Royal Highness’ for the Duke of Edinburgh. But in my blind panic I blurted: ‘I’m so sorry we’re late, Your Royal Majesty.’ I heard a snort of laughter from William and looked past the Queen to see him sniggering. ‘Oh, how lovely to see you, James,’ she smiled. I’d met her several times, notably at my sister’s wedding, of course, and she was always welcoming. ‘You must be hungry. Make sure you have something to eat,’ she went on serenely as she continued her regal progress out of the room. I blushed fiercely and peered into the drawing room to see the whole family grinning at me

James introduces his newborn son Inigo to his family:


My sisters both have huge grins on their faces. It takes them back to the days when their firstborns were as tiny as their new nephew. ‘Welcome to parenthood,’ they say. We are an affectionate and close-knit family and there are lots of hugs and laughter. Catherine and Pippa bring two big suitcases of hand-me-down clothes, so Inigo’s cupboards are full of sweet little outfits his cousins–even the girls–have worn. We look at them and think, ‘Aren’t they enormous? It’ll be months before he’s wearing these.’ We don’t realise that he will grow so fast he’ll fit them in a blink. We’re deluged with advice from my sisters, but we muddle through in our own way, sometimes getting things right, sometimes wrong.

During this first visit to my parents’, I’m keen to show Inigo where Ella lies in the garden with Tilly and Mini. So we wrap him up snugly and I take him to her grave. It is a tender moment–and its poignancy still catches me–because I think back again to how far I have come. My life was once so full of torment I felt suicidal. Only Ella gave me cause to keep living. She brought about this wonderful transition in me, from despair to hope. Today I have a wife and son I adore because of her. I never thought such a transformation could happen in my life–and it is all because of my Ella. I touch the picture of her in my pocket and blink away tears.

[From People]

Every excerpt I’ve read from this book, I’ve come away feeling really sad for James. He keeps crashing businesses, he was a bad student, he was treated as the family f–kup, and it was like no one in his family thought to get him some academic or therapeutic help until he was well into his late 20s and early 30s. I love animals too and every dog is a good dog, but the framing of this book is still so… strange. That’s all I’ll say.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.