From Harry’s love life to the Prince Andrew scandal, the 2010s were a mixture of highs and lows for the Royal Family
IN the last part of our series looking back at this momentous decade, our writers reflect on the changes to the monarchy, TV, music and fashion.
We also bring you some of the new buzz words since 2010.
Royals
By Arthur Edwards, Sun Royal Photographer
FOR the royals, the decade began as it ended – with Harry’s love life at the centre of controversy.
In 2010 he had split up with his girlfriend Chelsy Davy after five years.
On the rebound, he was seeing a relatively unknown TV host, Caroline Flack — who at the end of the decade was still making headlines.
Talking of alleged bad behaviour, two years later Harry was pictured naked in Las Vegas playing strip billiards after inviting people he didn’t know to the party.
He got caught out, but in those days he could do no wrong. He was a young Army helicopter pilot about to go off to fight in Afghanistan, so people happily forgave him.
Just before he set up the Invictus Games, I went with Harry to Colorado Springs for the Warrior Games and took a great shot of the Prince high-fiving a disabled woman soldier who had just scored a goal.
At the end of the day we all went off to the pub, where Harry chatted to everyone and paid the bar bill.
But as the decade ends, he has managed to drag the Royal Family into yet more controversy, following his marriage to Meghan Markle.
And people’s patience is wearing thin after a year of the couple spending millions of taxpayers’ money for very little in return, apart from hypocritical eco lectures.
But there were many memorable moments during the past decade for the royals, with weddings and births that brought great gladness.
None was more joyful than Kate and William’s wonderful wedding at Westminster Abbey in 2011, where bridesmaid Pippa Middleton became an instant star.
Later, as William and Kate kissed on the Buckingham Palace balcony, the nation took this young couple to their hearts.
Over this past decade I have seen Kate grow from a shy young woman into a confident future consort and amazing mother.
Two years after their wedding, following a pregnancy plagued with illness, she gave birth to George, the third in line to the throne and the first in a new generation of heirs.
The young couple were really, really happy and they shared their happiness with us all.
Although the Queen made her last long-haul flight in 2011 after a successful final tour of Australia, it was baby Prince George who grabbed all the headlines on his first royal tour Down Under in 2014, especially with the animals at Sydney Zoo.
Then came Princess Charlotte and little Prince Louis, who already seem to have taken to life as royals like ducks to water.
And like Diana before her, Kate seems determined that, despite their great privilege, they will have lives that are as normal as possible while they are growing up.
I have also watched William develop from a helicopter pilot into an international statesman the country can be proud of.
He was the first member of the Royal Family to make a state visit to Israel, where he did not put a foot wrong in one of the world’s potential flashpoints.
And just a few months ago he and Kate went on a five-day visit to Pakistan. As their plane was being tossed around in a horrendous thunderstorm, William came to the back of the aircraft where the Press were sitting and asked: “Has anyone got any clean underwear?”
For me, the highlight of the decade was when the Queen went on a state visit to the Irish Republic in 2011 — something no one ever thought would happen.
And who will ever forget the Queen’s meeting in 2012 with James Bond, followed by the “jumping” out of a plane above the Olympic Stadium at the opening ceremony of the London Games?
It was also her Diamond Jubilee, when she celebrated 60 years on the throne.
Thousands crammed into The Mall to watch the world’s biggest names perform at the tribute concert in her honour.
At the very last moment Prince Charles kissed the Queen’s hand on the stage and called her Mummy. It was such a lovely thing to say.
Those moments when the royals lower their guard and you can see the real them are rare.
Sadly, the Duke of Edinburgh’s health was never the same after he stood for four hours in the pouring rain during the jubilee river pageant on the Thames.
But just three months after his retirement in 2017, Philip was on the balcony with the Queen on Remembrance Sunday, though he was in terrible pain from his hip, which surgeons later replaced.
That was the last I saw of him, apart from briefly at Harry’s wedding in May 2018, when he got out of a car and disappeared into the church at Windsor Castle.
The incredible wedding saw centuries of tradition fused with US evangelism. Sadly, the only member of Meghan’s family to attend was her mum Doria, and the Sussexes’ total control over the wedding photos was a disappointment for me.
While the birth of their son Archie Harrison was one of the highlights of this year, the couple still managed to take the edge off it by hoodwinking the world into thinking Meghan had just gone into labour when in fact the baby had already been born.
I was in the Scottish Borders in 2015 when the Queen overtook Victoria as Britain’s longest-serving monarch.
On that historic day she said no one expected to reach a great age when they set out.
Next April the Queen will be 94 and she desperately misses Prince Philip by her side, day to day.
Throughout this decade I have watched as Charles’s approval ratings have gone up and up as he becomes at ease with himself. He — along with William, Kate and Princess Anne — has already taken on many of the Queen’s engagements.
It was significant that Charles sat beside the Queen at the State Opening of Parliament before Christmas.
As we approach 2020, the Royal Family cannot escape the unprecedented turmoil caused by Prince Andrew’s friendship with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, a scandal that has been going on for a decade.
After his ill-advised car-crash interview with Newsnight, Andrew is unlikely to return to royal duties in the near future — if at all.
The monarchy will be under great scrutiny and increasing pressure to meet its commitments at home and abroad in the coming years.
But whatever happens, William and Kate’s children will be the true rising stars of the next decade.
Telly
By Andy Halls, TV Editor
I CAN’T think of a decade in which our TV habits have changed as drastically as the past ten years.
If you had said “streaming” to me in 2010, I’d have assumed you were talking about my eyes at the end of the New Year’s Day Gavin & Stacey special.
But now the buzzword is at the centre of everything.
We were spoilt for choice in terms of channels and things to watch, but the 2010s gave the viewer the power to decide their own schedule.
You can count on one hand how many shows mass audiences now sit down for at a given time.
Instead, the decade brought on the culture we now know and love with the all-night binge overtaking the weekly watch.
Streaming giants such as Netflix have brought much-needed competition to the likes of ITV and BBC, forcing them to improve.
They are not just streaming services but production giants in their own right.
Look at some of the great shows of the past ten years.
Netflix gave us House Of Cards, Orange Is The New Black and The Crown. Amazon Prime provided a home for The Grand Tour.
HBO gave us the biggest TV show of the decade, Game Of Thrones.
These are programmes that either would not have been made, or the likes of Netflix would have to bid just to show them.
But it is not just who makes the content that has altered. The biggest change is where we watch it.
We use phones, tablets and our computers – not just our tellies. The idea you could watch a box set on your way to work or on your phone during your lunch break would have been inconceivable five years ago, let alone ten. The decade has also given us more personality-led telly.
Let’s be honest, no one really knew who Richard Madden was before Bodyguard.
Stranger Things has created a starlet in Millie Bobby Brown. Fleabag became an overnight sensation, taking its writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge to Hollywood.
It has also seen the rise and fall of reality TV.
A ten-year period which started with the likes of Big Brother at the forefront has finished with programmes such as Love Island and the now-axed Jeremy Kyle Show shrouded in controversy.
Cheap to make, easy to repeat and full of stories, the reality format once seemed like heaven for producers.
But “nasty” television no longer feels like it has a home. A focus on the aftercare of contestants’ mental health has changed the landscape of telly for ever after the tragic deaths of Love Island’s Mike Thalassitis and Sophie Gradon.
And The X Factor, built on the concept of laughing at the wacky contestants, has seen its ratings drop.
Whereas the shows regularly pulling in millions? Family shows The Great British Bake Off, I’m A Celebrity . . . Get Me Out Of Here! and Strictly Come Dancing – whose original host, entertainment legend Bruce Forsyth, sadly died in 2017 aged 89.
It speaks volumes that Gavin & Stacey neatly bookended the decade.
After finishing on New Year’s Day in 2010, the comedy returned ten years on to pull in the biggest festive viewing figures since Wallace & Gromit in 2008.
A tidy conclusion to the ’10s.
Music
By Jacqui Swift
IT has been a decade in which the big names in music spoke to The Sun’s Something For The Weekend section.
Here, we celebrate some of pop and rock’s biggest stars – and their words.
ADELE: “Before I started making 21, I was thinking, ‘I can’t write about air miles or hotel rooms and stuff like that – everyone’s going to think I’m an egotistical bitch’. But then I met my ex. Inspiration usually comes when I go to get a glass of water or go for a wee in the night.”
PHARRELL WILLIAMS: On his single Happy, the decade’s biggest hit, he said: “I didn’t expect this. I just wanted to make something feelgood and celebratory.”
RIHANNA: After the assault by singer Chris Brown, she said: “When the unexpected happens, you just have to handle it"
KYLIE: Five years after she was diagnosed with cancer, she said: “I don’t spend much time reflecting . . . But cancer had a profound effect on me, especially the exile.”
NICK CAVE: “We’re always angry about everything but it doesn’t mean we can’t have a sense of humour to go with it.”
PAUL McCARTNEY: The Beatle said: “If this wasn’t my job, I’d still do it just for the fun of it . . . I love playing.”
STEVIE NICKS: About album In Your Dreams, she said: “I was very affected and touched by the film Twilight – the story and what happened to Edward and Bella hit me hard so I wrote an essay.”
ED SHEERAN: Discussing his debut single, The A Team, he said: “I got on national radio with a song about a homeless prostitute . . . In two weeks we’d sold 200,000 copies.”
MILEY CYRUS: Of album Younger Now, she said: “I have got credibility. I don’t drink or smoke dope now . . . I need to be clear-headed.”
NOEL GALLAGHER: Worrying about his first solo tour, he said: “Around the 12th gig, I’ll be thinking, ‘I’m easily as good as Elvis – hey, I’m up there with The King!’ Or I will be going, ‘This is sh*t and I don’t even know why I left Oasis.’ ”
KEITH RICHARDS: “I don’t know if I got fed up with booze . . . or if booze got fed up with me.”
ROBBIE WILLIAMS: “I only did heroin once and never got addicted – but there is still a lot of me that is mad for all that.”
KENDRICK LAMAR: “I was born in a crack epidemic . . . moms were strung out, dads went to jail.”
ROD STEWART: Of 2013 “comeback” album Time, he said: “It has been the longest writer’s block ever, I should be in the Guinness Book Of World Records.”
AGNETHA FALTSKOG: Abba’s Agnetha said: “Abba was very much an up-and-down time for me but, as time goes by, I just remember the happy times.”
ROBERT PLANT: “I do alienate people because I can be a bit of a control freak.”
TAYLOR SWIFT: She has dated Harry Styles, Jake Gyllenhaal, John Mayer and Calvin Harris – but she said: “Relationships stress me out . . . I’m taking a break from boys.”
COLDPLAY: Lead singer Chris Martin told us: “I know I am in a band that is famous and my private life is famous – I get it and it’s fine.”
ELTON JOHN: “It’s up to others to judge me but I know the piano-playing on my new record is pretty f***ing special.”
FOO FIGHTERS: After frontman Dave Grohl fell 12ft off a stage and broke his leg, he said: “After I bust my leg, I didn’t play for six months and I fell into a real depression.”
LIAM GALLAGHER: “People go, ‘You need to grow up’. Well, get your f***ing pipe, on with your slippers and your hot cocoa and get to bed. I am going the other way. F*** growing up.”
OZZY OSBOURNE: On turning 70, he said: “I’m not retiring.”
Fashion
By Gabriele Dirvanauskas
THE decade began sadly, with Brit designer Alexander McQueen dead at 40.
Also in 2010, Lady Gaga went to the MTV Awards in a meat dress.
In 2011 Kate Middleton wed Prince William in a McQueen dress and Cara Delevingne did her first catwalk.
She and Kendall Jenner, who made her modelling debut in 2014 are two of the names of the decade.
The Meghan effect took hold as she dated Prince Harry from 2016.
Another death, Chanel’s Karl Lagerfeld, began 2019.
New lingo
SOME new words from the past ten years . . .
BREXIT: Departure of the UK from the European Union.
VAPE: Electronic cigarette.
SELFIE: A photograph taken of yourself with a smartphone.
FAKE NEWS: Deliberately wrong info, propaganda and hoaxes spread on social media.
ON FLEEK: Extremely good, attractive or stylish.
TWERK: To dance in a sexually provocative manner, involving thrusting movements and a low, squatting stance.
MOST READ IN FABULOUS
BANTS: Playful teasing or mocking remarks, as in banter.
SNOWFLAKE: Over-sensitive, easily offended person.
WOKE: Alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice.
CHATBOT: Computer program that stimulates conversation.
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