The idea that you could be coronated King in a lavish ceremony involving a horse-drawn carriage worthy of Cinderella, and several costume changes, with 20 million people watching … and still be regarded as a relatively demure chap is one we didn’t anticipate. And yet here are the stark results of the voting: Donald Trump, 40.1 percent; George Santos, 22.8 percent; King Charles III (see above), 15.6 percent; and Marjorie Taylor Greene, 10.2 percent; followed by Taylor Swift and Matty Healy, Yevgeny Prigozhin, Juan Carlos, and Larry Page. So Charles, who is not unfamiliar with long, long waits, settles in and gets comfortable in anticipation of an A.W.I. crowning that, based on the evidence, might never come. Time for an impromptu rant about modern architecture?
The nominees in this week’s edition of the Attention-Whore Index Poll are …
1.
PRINCESS KATE
Played the piano for a few seconds in a video from Windsor Castle to open the Eurovision Song Contest finals. Photos everywhere, and cue the gushing. But really, such an elegant and tasteful presentation, given the occasion! All of her mesh catsuits and neon latex must have been at the royal dry cleaners.
2.
RUDY GIULIANI
Was sued for $10 million by Noelle Dunphy, a former assistant, who claims that Giuliani “often demanded oral sex while he took phone calls on speaker phone from high-profile friends and clients, including then-President Trump” and that he told her he “enjoyed engaging in this conduct while on the telephone because it made him ‘feel like Bill Clinton.”’ There are reportedly texts, e-mails, and audio recordings. Giuliani denies the allegations, and a spokesman said, “Mayor Giuliani’s lifetime of public service speaks for itself.” Who knew there was a sub-basement to rock bottom?
3.
YEVGENY PRIGOZHIN
“Putin’s chef,” the Wagner Group mercenary-army head, is lately displaying a Marjorie Taylor Greene–like compulsion to make bizarre headlines. The Washington Post reported that in January, with his troops in deep trouble in the fight for Bakhmut, Prigozhin proposed through his contacts in the Ukraine military that “if Ukraine’s commanders withdrew their soldiers from the area around Bakhmut, he would give Kyiv information on Russian troop positions, which Ukraine could use to attack them.” Vladimir Putin was unavailable for comment.
4.
JA MORANT
In March the N.B.A. suspended the Memphis Grizzlies guard for eight games without pay (that’s $669,000 in his case) after he was seen holding a gun in an Instagram Live video. Morant apologized for a “terrible mistake” and said that the gun wasn’t his. Last week another, similar video surfaced, featuring a gun. Morant was suspended (again) while the league investigates (again).
5.
DONALD TRUMP
Posted “Happy Mother’s Day to ALL, in particular the Mothers, Wives and Lovers of the Radical Left Fascists, Marxists, and Communists who are doing everything within their power to destroy and obliterate our once great Country. Please make these complete Lunatics and Maniacs Kinder, Gentler, Softer and, most importantly, Smarter, so that we can, quickly, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!” when a simple card would have sufficed.
6.
Harry And Meghan
The objects of all the attention: shy, retiring public figures who nevertheless crave certain kinds of publicity and had flown to New York to collect an award. Then, a supposedly “near-catastrophic car chase” with photographers that “could have been fatal” thanks to “relentless pursuit, lasting over two hours.” But witnesses, observers, and participants gently suggested that some hyperbole is at play here. New York traffic at its best is a crawl. The cabbie who drove them said he didn’t feel they were being chased. Photos surfaced of Meghan in the back of the taxi, wearing a smile (but not a seat belt). When the Sussexes’ legal team “demand[ed]” that one photo agency hand over all its snaps, the agency replied, “Perhaps you should sit down with your client and advise them that his English rules of royal prerogative to demand that the citizenry hand over their property to the Crown were rejected by this country long ago.” So: sickening tragedy-in-the-making barely avoided? Or—as the accumulating evidence was starting to suggest—more like routine Midtown traffic slightly exacerbated by obnoxious photographers? Your call.
7.
RECEP TAYYIP ERDOĞAN
Turkey’s supposedly vulnerable president secured at least two more weeks in the international spotlight when a May 28 runoff election was announced following a close vote last weekend. Who’s your money on? The challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a candidate agreed upon by six opposition parties? Or the autocrat grown ever more attached over two decades to absolute power, with another fortnight to figure out how to absolutely keep it?
8.
Nicolas Sarkozy
In what one can’t help hoping will be a precedent for former presidents, France’s onetime leader saw his 2021 conviction on corruption and influence-peddling charges upheld. Sarkozy will be under house arrest for a year, and in the event that he has any influence on fashion trends, we can predict that what they’ll be wearing in Paris next season are electronic ankle bracelets. —George Kalogerakis
George Kalogerakis, one of the original editor-writers at Spy, later worked for Vanity Fair, New York, and The New York Times, where he was deputy op-ed editor. A co-author of Spy: The Funny Years and co-editor of Disunion: A History of the Civil War, he is a Writer at Large at AIR MAIL