The Queen was the talk of the town yesterday, partly because of her mental eye-bulging storming-off tantrum at a photographer and partly because she didn't really have a mental eye-bulging tantrum at a photographer at all.
Promos for the Queen's new reality TV series A Year With The Queen showed the Queen apparently losing her shit with photographer Annie Leibovitz during a photoshoot before stropping off in a huff and grumpily mumbling to her servants. However, it quickly emerged that the trailer had been misleadingly edited and at no point did the Queen ever run away from the shoot. Now the BBC has been forced to issue an embarrassing apology to the Queen and Annie Leibovitz, although it has restated that the scene where the Queen puts on a hoodie and happy-slaps a pensioner for her chips in the street while Prince Philip records it on his phone is completely true.
The BBC is one of Britain's most trusted corporations, but every now and again it gets things wrong, like when it pays Davina McCall to make chat shows or when it makes promos featuring a million decapitated heads floating around talking in one voice in the most nightmarish way imaginable. Or when it falsely edits promos of TV shows about the Queen to make the Queen look like some sort of deranged lunatic who suddenly turns violent if you ask her to take her crown off.
Yesterday newspapers, TV shows and the internet were abuzz with chatter over a promo for forthcoming Queen-based reality TV show A Year With The Queen where the Queen, when asked by noted celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz if she would take her crown off, has a batshit spaz-attack of such magnitude that it made Elton John look like a pussycat in comparison. Sadly, though, it was too good to be true, and now the BBC has been forced to apologise to the Queen for misleadingly editing the promo, as The Times reports:
After Ms Leibovitz told the Queen to remove her crown during a photoshoot, [BBC One chief controller Pete Fincham] told reporters that the Monarch walked out. "Annie Leibovitz gets it slightly wrong and the Queen walks out in a huff," he said… However today, the BBC Trust was forced into a humiliating apology to the Queen and Ms Leibovitz, admitting that its promotional trailer for the programme had been edited in the wrong order and had been aired by mistake. As a result, the scene which purported to show the Queen storming out of the room was, in fact, a shot of her walking into the photoshoot – and that the alleged walkout never happened.
This news has left us slightly disappointed, since losing her mind and walking out of photoshoots is exactly the sort behaviour we want in a Monarch. We don't want to see the Queen pleasantly sitting so Rolf Harris can paint her, we want to see the Queen lurching out of The Hawley Arms at kicking-out time after having a messy drinking contest with Amy Winehouse and barfing all over the paparazzi. We want to see the Queen having a nervous breakdown and shaving off all her hair. We want to see the Queen repeatedly getting out of cars without any knickers… OK, that's maybe going a bit too far.
But can you blame the BBC for editing the promo of A Year With The Queen so unfairly? It's the Queen for God's sake – the BBC could have followed her about for a million years and still only got about two seconds of footage where the Queen isn't being stiffly stoic in the face of whatever she's presented with – what was it expecting, the Queen to reveal a sudden love for ghostriding the whip? We think that the BBC would have been better off making a show called A Year With Prince Harry. Sure, with all the titty-squeezing and falling over it'd basically just be an unbearably posh version of Booze Britain 2: Binge Nation, but at least it'd be sort of exciting. Wouldn't it?
Read more:
BBC Chief At Centre Of Blunder Over Leibovitz Photoshoot With Queen – Times
Wadey says
Following the German Royal Family for a year never seemed very exciting and a complete waste of our money. Seen one tree planted seen them all. However the Beebs latest wheeze of showing films backwards to the Worlds media making the subjects look bonkers is a great idea ‘cos the story dominates the news for 24 hours and then the BBC blames the teaboy and adjourn to the pub with our money. Fucking get rid of the cunts ASAP
JoelB says
It was obvously just a beat up. The Queen, HRH would never storm out of a photo session.
Not when she could just say “Off with her head!” in an imperious tone when Annie was pissing her about.
Phsyt says
Unbelievable where our Tax money goes and what our television licences fund.