The Missing Wife Of Windsor, Act II
The Kate Middleton conspiracy gets a bit stickier, and a lot stupider.
Act I of this unintentional two-part look at the strangeness of this Kate Middleton situation can be found here: The Missing Wife Of Windsor.
This dispatch was meant to be an off-schedule Oscar recap, replete with some far-flung (some might say strained) comparisons between frivolous awards ceremony moments and various works of fiction. Instead, recent events have prompted a follow-up to yesterday’s look at the Kate Middleton body-double conspiracy. For a brief moment this weekend, it appeared that all the wild theories about the Duchess of Cambridge would be put to rest. Through their official Instagram account, the future King and Queen of England released a photo clearly intended to end the spiraling guesswork. No more grainy, telephoto lens paparazzi snaps! No more windshield or sunglass barriers! The Princess is here, in all her hi-res glory, flanked by her smiling, gleeful children!
What a difference a day makes! At least until the news broke of an AP kill order issued because that seemingly quotidian family photo appeared to have been doctored. “Oops!” offered the Princess, in a concise, supposedly first-person apologia on X: Despite her royal status, Kate is only human, just like the rest of us, and not immune to engaging in a little digital manipulation to improve a picture. Nothing to buzz about! Just a very famous woman who has not been seen in public in a meaningful way in months doing a little “experiment with editing,” like so “many amateur photographers.” Okay, then.
The swirl of speculation surrounding Middleton’s absence should have been easy to quell; employing body doubles and AI-image generation to keep a missing Princess out of the public eye is the stuff of Lifetime thrillers and airport novels. It’s not the kind of thing rational people are inclined to believe. But when you have somehow reached the point where your social-media damage control requires social-media damage control, it might be time for a strategy pivot. Car-photogate, Family-photogate and now, Vague-X-statementgate raise several questions. First among them: How are Kate and William (and their PRs) so very bad at this?
Monarchy is a strange and anachronistic concept, at least to most Americans. It’s a bunch of rich people (mostly rich via public-coffer largesse) in fancy hats and morning suits who wave from balconies and get to have their faces on money. While those balconies are nice, anecdotal evidence suggests that it’s a sheltered, siloed existence. But that’s no excuse for being weirdly detached from current-century reality. The internet has been a thing since well before Kate and William were in college. Sorry, university. And tragically, William knows better than most people the potential downside of stirring public curiosity to a fever pitch. Yet instead of reacting to this crisis in a manner reflective of such, Kate and William seem set upon an unhinged course of action – decreeing to the peasantry, albeit in polite language, that it’s none of their business, as if that will end the speculation. With each attempt to assuage public concerns the plot thickens, and the Waleses are the ones thickening it. The calls are coming from inside the Palace!
Of course, everyone hopes that Kate is on the way to a full, robust recovery. But whatever her condition, for her and William to bumble through their release of non-information in baroque fashion, like a set of tiara-sporting Amelia Bedelias, only intensifies the conspiratorial fervor while casting them as spectacularly out of touch. Despite the monarchy’s roster of ye aulde traditions, surely someone close to the Palace must have at least a loose grasp on the nature of social media. Perhaps it’s time to turn to a commoner for some guidance, or at very least, one of Fergie’s daughters (Eugenie and Beatrice have a digitally savvy vibe). The Waleses need help. The divine right of Kings cannot squelch earthly 21st century Instagram intrigue.