Once again the Windsors have welcomed a baby—and nobody is more excited to celebrate than American magazines.
Royal coverage has long been a pillar of the gossip business; when George was born in 2013, the New York Times reported the happy event was a boon for celebrity weeklies and their websites, and regular coverage is now built into editorial strategy. Just recently, an executive at Meredith told AdWeek that they were leaning heavily into the subjects like “celebrity news and royals coverage” that resonate with readers. Print may be dwindling, but American women still buy magazines about the royals, a fact reflected in the covers at every grocery store check-out line across the country. Walk into an Ingles in rural Georgia, and there they are, the house of Windsor, reigning over the candy bars.
The women are the focus; insofar as the men of the royal family are covered, it’s in relation to the women, in their role as husbands, fathers, sons. There is an endless emphasis on the women—first Kate, now Meghan—and a relentless desire to ensure they are happy, thriving, and downright pastoral mothers. These royal baby bonanza covers are about Archie, yes, but also the fantasy of parenting without scarcity, with access to infinite resources—resources which are accessible to the average American mother only secondhand, in the pages of a gossip magazine.
The two biggest, most respectable celebrity weeklies—People and US Weekly—devoted their covers to the kid’s arrival. People painted the couple as the picture of California chill, a tranquility that’s downright aspirational: “They weren’t anxious at all,” Meghan’s friend Daniel Martin, who did the makeup for her wedding and apparently visited Frogmore in the days before the birth, told People. “They were hanging out in their backyard, just going about their daily lives. They’re both very calming personalities. There was no pressure. They were just like, ‘The baby will come when it’s ready.’”
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