What did Andrew whisper to William? Just ask the lip-readers

Nina Dellinger realised in high school she could read lips but didn’t know what to do with the skill. It was only after downloading TikTok during Covid that she saw an opportunity.

Now 29 and living in Belize, Dellinger is one of the internet’s leading celebrity lip-readers, with 1.6 million followers and a talent that reveals the modern relationship between celebrity and privacy.

In recent weeks, she has “read” everyone from Kylie Jenner and Jennifer Lawrence chatting about “resharpening” their lipstick and Meghan Markle laughing at a model at a fashion show to Trump trying to charm Jeffrey Epstein in a video from the Epstein files. Dellinger said she “doesn’t know” if her readings are accurate and enjoys her followers “debating” the veracity of her analysis.

Lip-Reading the Royals, a Channel 5 documentary that aired last week, interviewed people who work full-time analysing monarchic mouths. It showed a video they decoded of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor trying to apologise to Prince William. “I’ve learnt from what I’ve done,” Mountbatten-Windsor allegedly said, “but before I forget, and if I can, I’d like to ask you if you can forgive?”

Most popular lip-reading videos deal with less serious topics. Jackie Gonzalez, the other most successful lip-reading influencer on TikTok, who has 1.2 million followers, recently posted a video of the Oscars. She overlaid herself translating director Chloé Zhao telling Oscar-winner Jessie Buckley that she loved her, and the inaugural winner of the best casting director award, Cassandra Kulukundis, saying that her Oscar is “heavy as fuck”.

Celebrities have begun to find ways to avoid their lips being read. Professional footballers cover their mouths while talking to one another. Taylor Swift brought a fan to the Grammys to cover her mouth after being caught gossiping with Selena Gomez about Chalamet at the Golden Globes in January.

“Celebrity lip-reading shows us that internet culture is driven by a desire for more. We want more information, more insight, more knowledge, quicker and quicker, and exactly on our terms,” said David Philpott, head of strategy at the influencer agency Goat. “It’s not enough to see them – we want to know exactly what they’re saying.”

Dellinger knows that some may accuse her of “invading privacy” with her videos. But she makes sure she only lip-reads celebrities or public figures at “public or work functions” and tries her “very best to stay respectful”.

Photograph by Samir Hussein/WireImage