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Writer’s note: I know, I saw the video. The intention isn’t to bash the Princess or the Royal family. The purpose is to ~discuss~ their handling of the entire situation. We might have very strong feelings about the British Royal family (that could be on the opposite ends of the spectrum), but at the end of the day, Kate is a human going through something very real and dire. Now, how much you believe in it is up to you, but we all do hope she comes out stronger on the other end.
The beginning of the end
Now that that’s out of the way, I think it’s time to be slightly disrespectful because WHAT happened? I know the Royal family is ‘secretive’ and ‘private’, but this was… Sus, to say the least. Allow me to paint you a picture. Imagine if one post on a silly little app (run by a madman, by the way) got the public opinion about YOUR family down to the lowest it’s possibly ever been. What would your response be? You’d scramble to provide sufficient evidence instead of using one of your own as a scapegoat.
Yeah, that’s not what happened. So, on X/Twitter, a tweet went viral talking about how Kate hadn’t been seen since Christmas. The users picked up on it, and then we saw a barrage of posts discussing what possibly happened. In January, though, before any of it went out of hand, Kensington Palace issued a statement explicitly mentioning Kate’s abdominal surgery and when she’ll return (which was after Easter). So, why the conspiracies? A few days after the statement, it was revealed that many of Kate’s royal engagements and duties hadn’t been confirmed, leading to a growing concern amongst the royal insiders.
At the end of January, Kate returned home to recover, and the Palace assured everyone via another statement she was recovering well. The following month, at an event, William takes the time to thank everyone for their well wishes for his wife and father. If things are going so well, why was everyone so concerned? Good question. It’s because of the Palaces’ response to every question and extreme vagueness. William pulled out of attending his godfather’s memorial service for “personal reasons”, which is all that anyone was told. He lives right next door to where the service was held, by the way, so that raised red flags. And because we’re gen-z, we ignored them… for a while anyway.
The sea of conspiracies (yes, I wanted to use that rhyme)
The theories people came up with were, nicely put, wild. All while this was going down, we had the Willy Wonka experience, which is just another story in and of itself. But the two worlds did collide, I’ll tell you that for free. What were the theories? They ranged anywhere from Kate wanting to grow out her poorly cut bangs (relatable) to her getting a Brazilian Butt Lift. A new theory that has popped up is that the official video statement released by Kensington is deepfaked, and I won’t lie to you; it could be true, but I won’t comment on that. The wildest theory of all is that the Princess is Banksy. I think she’s Batman because I’ve never seen them in the same room, but that’s just me. We’ve had some darker theories about the Windsors’ marriage, but that’s all they are: theories. I won’t lie; all of it is pretty questionable to me. I’ve been invested in the Royal family since The Crown streamed years ago and had a phase where all I’d do was watch documentaries on their entire bloodline. When you take everything the Royal Family has done throughout the century, all of this starts to make sense while remaining incredibly suspicious. An amazing talent they’ve got there. I wish I could be mysterious but I’m the mayor of yapville.
And finally, a royal disaster
This is one of those things that you HAD to witness in real-time. Everyone on Twitter became an FBI agent. It was marvellous to witness, if I do say so myself. In early March, Kate Middleton makes an appearance. She’s in a car with her mother. It was seemingly normal, except it was a VERY grainy picture and the ONLY picture from that day. A few days later, Kensington Palace posted a photo of the Princess with her kids (supposedly taken by the Prince). One small problem. IT’S HEAVILY PHOTOSHOPPED. That photograph got a kill notification. The next day, Kate issued a statement on Twitter saying she was experimenting with editing and apologising for any confusion caused. Even more days later, there’s a video of the Prince and Princess at a farm shop where Kate seems to have miraculously recovered. And then, finally, the bomb drops. THE video of Kate’s announcement regarding her health is released. In that, she reveals she’s been undergoing preventative chemotherapy and needed to recover from the surgery to start the chemotherapy. She adds that she and her husband have been trying to deal with it privately for the sake of their young family. I’ll admit, It’s a lot to take in, especially for William. So now it’s done, right? The conspiracies should’ve stopped, and everything’s back to normal, right? Oh man, I wish.
Now listen, I understand it’s a tough time for the family. Charles has been diagnosed with cancer, and now Kate. It’s a lot for everyone to process. And yes, her medical records should remain private. The problem is shrouding everything in mystery and making a woman who is undergoing cancer treatment the scapegoat for the public flack. It also didn’t help that two appearances of the Princess DID NOT look like it was her, and when questioned, the Palace remained silent.
No other article really talks about it, but when I was watching this entire fiasco go down, there was a point where some of the statements were made by ‘Kate’s team.’ This raised further suspicions because The Prince and Princess of Wales don’t have different publicists. Rumours about their divorce started to fly around. BBC was on alert about receiving news from the Palace, which led to suspicions that it could be something dire regarding their marriage.
I understand the Royal Family’s policy of releasing information only on a need-to-know basis. Still, if you’re letting things escalate to the point where people are going from silly theories like “Oh, she’s just growing out her bangs” to “Oh, maybe she’s in ACTUAL danger,” I think you can let go of that policy instead of digging a hole six feet deep. This isn’t a scathing indictment born of hatred because of the family’s history; no, no, it’s an honest criticism of how badly it was handled. The public opinion was already dropping, and this was just the cherry on top. Will the family ever regain their popularity? Unlikely. Do I think punk bands should make a song about it? Yes. We used to be a society. I’m surprised we haven’t had a song about this yet.
Conclusion
You can have very strong ‘ethics’ (laughing so hard typing that), but occasionally, forget about them and do damage control. It wouldn’t have escalated to the scale it did if they’d initially come out with the truth. If anything, people would’ve been a lot more sympathetic and supportive. Kate is one of the most loved modern-day royals, so there would’ve been an outpour of support. And for William, too. But the secrecy has led to absolutely NO trust in the Royal Family. Even the video that’s been released is under scrutiny. I honestly don’t think people will stop speculating until they see the Princess physically standing on Buckingham Palace’s balcony. But even then, they might call her a clone; there’s no winning for the royal family anymore. You know what I’ll say. For a Royal Family, they screwed up royally.
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— Written by Shaurya, Trends Reporter at The Z Link
Connect with Shaurya on Instagram where she shares great content and lives her best influencer life as a fashion student in London. And she writes all of these great issues too. What can’t she do??? 🧐 Thank you for reading!