As we’ve described for months, Carole and Michael Middleton have been in hiding since the collapse of Party Pieces in the late spring. Party Pieces had been badly mismanaged for years, although I genuinely believe that PP was never as financially successful as the Middletons claimed in their heyday. Following PP’s collapse into insolvency, vendor after vendor came out to speak about how Carole Middleton personally screwed them over, that she was on the phone with them, begging for extensions and promising to pay PP’s bills eventually. Credit was always extended because, hey, she’s the mother of the future queen. Carole was also the face of the company, and she even went to New Jersey to showcase PP’s “expansion” into the American market. Then PP was sold for pennies on the dollar to James Sinclair, and now Sinclair has been trying to push a false narrative about how PP’s collapse wasn’t Carole’s fault and there’s no reason why she should ever pay off the £2.6 million in debt. Sinclair previously gave an interview to the Telegraph a few weeks ago, and now he’s been trotted out to give another interview to the Sun. Some highlights:
Party Pieces’ collapse: With such royal links it was a shock in June this year when the company went into administration with £2.6m debts, leaving suppliers unpaid and the 30 plus workforce in fear of their futures. The company was bought for £180,000 by entrepreneur James Sinclair and continues trading. James stepped in to save the brand because he recognised its legacy. Under the terms of a deal known as a pre-pack administration however, James was not liable for the debts that had already been incurred.
New company boss, James, a former kids entertainer, tells Fabulous: “Carole has a huge emotional attachment to the business, even now. She spent three decades building it, literally from the kitchen table up and the whole family was involved. She built into a very successful business. It was a wrench for her to see it start to fail. It’s no secret that she’s part of a family that is busier than most and she wanted to retire. She sold half of the company to investors, a new team came in, and she stepped away from the business.”
James says that even though Party Pieces struggled during the pandemic, it was still in a healthy position when Carole stepped away but believes, however well intended, that the new management team overstretched and spent too much money.
“In November last year they asked Carole to come back in and she tried to steady the ship. She was like a lifeboat and a force of personality, but it was too late. In my view all she was guilty of was trying to retire. Everyone thinks she came out of it with a big fat cheque but quite the opposite is true, she came out of it with nothing. People expect her or her family to foot the bill, but they haven’t got the kind of the money people think they have.”
For his investment James got around seven lorry loads of stock, the brand, some of the staff, the website and the infrastructure.
James says that Carole desperately tried to avoid creditors being place out of pocket but in the end that wasn’t possible. “She wanted the business to be successful after I bought it because there were staff there who she cared about and she wanted to make sure their jobs were secure,” says James, who ensured staff were relocated from Berkshire to the new offices in Essex. When you start a business from scratch and run it for 30 years, you care, you want it to carry on. It’s very much like a baby. It’s part of who you are, part of your brain and your imagination, and you don’t want it just to end. None of the family did because they all worked there. It would have been a crying shame.”
[From The Sun]
Well well – “Everyone thinks she came out of it with a big fat cheque but quite the opposite is true, she came out of it with nothing. People expect her or her family to foot the bill, but they haven’t got the kind of the money people think they have.” A fate worse than death for the Middletons – Clever Carole isn’t so clever after all, and after “selling” half of PP, she didn’t make any money? And she’s broke as hell now, too broke to pay off the £2.6 million? The answer for a reasonable person would be “selling that giant manor house, paying off the debt and downsizing.” But Queen Carole wants all of the trappings, even if she never earned any of it. Where IS dodgy Uncle Gary anyway? And whatever happened to that pot farm adjacent to the Middletons’ property?
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Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Party Pieces’ IG.
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