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Richard Johnson: Prince Harry’s book creates strange bedfellows

  • Benedict Cumberbatch at the AFI Awards Luncheon in Beverly Hills,...

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    Benedict Cumberbatch at the AFI Awards Luncheon in Beverly Hills, Calif., on March 11, 2022.

  • Mayor Eric Adams

    Shawn Inglima/for New York Daily News

    Mayor Eric Adams

  • Stacks of Prince Harry's new book "Spare" on display at...

    Luiz C. Ribeiro/for New York Daily News

    Stacks of Prince Harry's new book "Spare" on display at a Barnes and Noble bookstore in Manhattan. (Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Daily News)

  • Robert Iger at the world premiere of "Star Wars: The...

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    Robert Iger at the world premiere of "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker," in Los Angeles, on Dec. 16, 2019.

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Mayor Eric Adams believes too many parents are pushovers who are mollycoddling their spoiled kids.

Interviewed by Arthur Aidala on The Power Hour radio show on AM 970, Adams said:

“I think parents are trying to be cool and not be parents. People criticize me for saying it, but my mom was 5’5?, and any sign of disrespect that 5’5? woman would knock me on my ass. She took no mess at all. She raised four boys, and I was a knucklehead.”

He continued, “We need to go back to some good old-fashioned parenting and just really do the lines of what is acceptable and what’s not. And I think we’ve lost that. Our children are confused.”

Mayor Eric Adams
Mayor Eric Adams

Aidala, whose guests included Megyn Kelly and Bill O’Reilly, also got Adams to talk about dyslexia.

“I recall how bewildered I was and was bullied and picked on, called the ‘dumb student.’ They used to write it on the back of my chair. I was always fearful when the teacher called on me and I had to read because … all the letters were sort of convoluted and mixed together.”

The dyslexia, and the way he conquered it, explains how Adams can speak so eloquently without any notes.

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One good thing to happen from the publication of Prince Harry’s book “Spare” is that Queen Consort Camilla and Princess Kate have bonded.

The wives of Charles and William are both savaged in the book. Harry calls Camilla “dangerous” and “the villain.” He blames Kate for making Meghan cry in the days before their wedding.

But now both women are united as fellow victims of the spare prince.

Stacks of Prince Harry’s new book “Spare” on display at a Barnes and Noble bookstore in Manhattan.

The bad blood makes it less likely Harry will attend his father’s coronation in May.

“Harry has no role there, and his family doesn’t want him there,” said my source. “He chose cash over class.”

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Benedict Cumberbatch can breathe a sight of relief.

The actor won’t be hounded for reparations by the government of Barbados because his family owned 250 slaves there before they were freed in 1833.

“To date, neither [the Caribbean Community’s reparations commission] nor Barbados has officially leveled a Reparations claim against a European family,” wrote David Comissiong, a Barbadian politician, activist and member of the commission, in an op-ed in Barbados Today.

Comissiong added that it is easier for the task force to focus on legal entities such as governments or companies, rather than a family.

Benedict Cumberbatch at the AFI Awards Luncheon in Beverly Hills, Calif., on March 11, 2022.
Benedict Cumberbatch at the AFI Awards Luncheon in Beverly Hills, Calif., on March 11, 2022.

Cumberbatch called slavery a “scar on human history” in an interview in 2007, where he lightheartedly admitted, “Cumberbatch — it sounds like a fart in a bath, doesn’t it?”

“What a fluffy old name. I can never say it on a Monday morning. When I became an actor, Mum wasn’t keen on me keeping it. ‘They’ll be after you for money,’ she used to say.”

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Bob Iger, who’s back in charge at Disney, is wondering what to do about Dana White, who heads the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

White got into a drunken fight with his wife Anne on New Year’s Eve in Mexico, after she slapped him first.

Disney owns ESPN which airs the UFC matches.

“The UFC’s deal is up for renewal, and Disney is saying we won’t renew the deal unless Dana White is suspended,” said a source.

Robert Iger at the world premiere of “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” in Los Angeles, on Dec. 16, 2019.

White, who has repeatedly apologized for losing his cool, said, “There’s a lot of things I’m going to have to deal with for the rest of my life that are way more of a punishment than what, I take a 30 day, 60 day absence. That’s not a punishment to me. The punishment is that I did it, and now I have to deal with it.”

White is said to earn $20 million a year from the UFC, and will continue to collect even if he is suspended.

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Daniel Boulud and Thomas Keller will be among the culinary luminaries wishing Dr. Bruno Goussault, the chief scientist at Cuisine Solutions, a happy 81st birthday later this month.

Dr. Goussault has trained 80% of the world’s Michelin-starred chefs in the art of sous vide cooking, which he perfected. The company’s sous vide products are used in over 26,000 restaurants worldwide, including Starbucks.

His birthday coincides with International Sous Vide Day, which will be celebrated with parties around the globe on Jan. 26.

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Harlem-based artist Guy Stanley Philoche will celebrate Black History Month with a show opening Feb. 1 at Cavalier Galleries on W. 24th St.

The painter will feature portraits of iconic Black visionaries including Lena Waithe, the star of “Master of None,” baseball legend Jackie Robinson, and James Baldwin, who wrote “Go Tell it on the Mountain.”

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Jeff Lima has been busy guest-starring on NBC’s “Chicago Fire” with Joe Minoso, was in HBO’s “Show Me a Hero” alongside Winona Ryder, and on CBS’s “FBI” opposite Missy Peregrym.

But the actor will present his fifth annual Jeff Lima Production Award to a graduate student or alumni of the NYU Tisch Film School where Lima studied.

The award will come with a $10,000 grant for the emerging filmmaker to shoot a short film that “advances the Latinx presence on screen,” Lima said. Applications open later this month.

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Chef Jamie Oliver — in town promoting “ONE: Simple One-Pan Wonders” — headed south after a book signing at Union Square Barnes & Noble. Oliver was spotted at Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s Tin Building dining at House of the Red Pearl.

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Bethenny Frankel and her daughter Bryn shopped on Arthur Ave. and Madonia Bakery in The Bronx, and the former Real Housewife of New York tweeted, “Some girls are on the market. We are always AT the market.”