Dear Queenagers,
Good morning on this soggy Sunday. The rain didn’t make me want to leap out of bed and I have even forgone swimming … I confess to feeling uncharacteristically knackered. The weeks around International Women’s Day are full of speaking engagements, which is great for spreading the Queenager message (thank you BP, Shell, LockheedMartin, BMW, National Grid, EY, AJ Bell, the University of Chicago, WealthiHer, GWR for having me to speak!). But also takes its toll. My book Much More to Come was also finally announced last week which was also thrilling but busy (it is published by Harper Collins on August 1st, if you’d like to pre-order a copy here are the links Waterstones https://bit.ly/49IfQXL, Amazon https://amzn.to/3wTfmj3,WHSmith https://bit.ly/3VhzeGv Bookshop.org, https://bit.ly/49Ta6dI.) I could never have written it without all of your input, support and stories, so thank you!
Now I thought about giving you a potted summary of the Queenager speeches I have been giving, but the truth is that everywhere I have been for the last week the question I have been asked over and over again is: Where’s Kate in that Mother’s Day picture? What’s going on? What’s the real story?
Ever since ‘that’ Mother’s Day photo was launched (and then ‘killed’ by the world’s most trusted picture agencies) anyone who is a journalist or is seen to be ‘in the know’ is being asked this constantly. It’s a national obsession fuelled by the vacuum of information from the Palace about her condition – which has been unnecessarily thrown into relief by the glaring discrepancy between King Charles being open about his ‘prostate issues’ and ‘cancer treatment’ while Princess Kate keeps shtum about her ‘abdominal surgery’. The silence, followed by the panicked release of a doctored family snap – a failed attempt to quell the conspiracy rumours – has just made the situation worse.
So what is really going on? Well the truth is no-one knows. I had dinner with a woman whose best friend DOES know, but she isn’t telling. So what follows is what I know from 30 years of being very much inside the News bubble: and that is – it’s a shambles and it’s not good.
I read Prince Harry’s memoir Spare last year: whatever you think of him and Meghan, the most interesting aspect of that book is the portrait it draws of the over-cosy relationship between the newspapers and the Palace, and the constant internecine and vicious rivalry between the different palace press officers, all pushing their ‘principal’s agenda. Harry complains bitterly that stories about him and eg Chelsy Davy were being leaked to the tabloids in exchange for them pulling (not running) unfavourable stories about Camilla Parker Bowles (our current Queen). This was widely condemned as Harry spin when the book was published, but has now been vindicated: Harry received hundreds of thousands of pounds in damages from the publishers of the Mirror for running just these stories. After Diana’s death, William and Harry made a pact, in her name, never to spin tales or leak about each other to the media. That is of course dead and buried now. And Harry’s book paints a sad portrait of the deterioration in his relationship with his brother and Kate. What this shows is despite palace denials as stories unfold, the truth will out in the end.
This matters because the difference in the way that King Charles has handled his health issues, compared to the way that Kate and William have decided to handle her’s shows at the very least a difference in approach (and probably a deeper divide) between the factions representing the King and those representing his heir and wife. King Charles looks modern, open, honest and down with the people (I admire his honesty in talking about an embarrassing subject which he did to encourage other men to get their prostates checked). By contrast Kate’s silence, particularly since she has been outspoken on mental health, mothering and her own extreme morning sickness, looks strange at best.
The News cycle abhors a vacuum. British newspapers have been handcuffed by the way they are regulated (and their pact with the palace, the palace needs publicity, the papers need royals to sell papers, it is a very cosy club) into saying very little. Which by the way also reflects how much less important papers they are becoming in the dissemination of and discussion of news – because the real energy in the Kate story, where the ghouls are getting their kicks and the speculation is rampant – is online.
On social media – vloggers, tiktok, insta, youtube – the rumour mill is in overdrive. Some of the #where’sKate memes are hilarious. There’s Cilla Black doing Surprise, Surprise.. memes of Kate as a ghost and as all sorts of missing persons. There’s open season on all of this in the Vloggersphere, with much of the speculation focussed on why/how/what she did to the photograph she had to apologise for altering, some ridiculous theories have had 100s of millions of hits. The release of her photo-shopped Mother’s Day pic (which she had to apologise for subsequently) was a weird, basic, media-management mistake. In a world of AI and fake images, it has never been more important that images put out by the likes of PA or World Press or Getty are trusted as not interfered with, ie factual, real – ANY journalist or picture editor knows about that, which implies whoever is in William and Kate’s press office didn’t ask the most basic questions about provenance. Or – more likely – were so keen to get a ‘positive’ picture out to silence the online scuttlebutt they rushed it. Very amateur night for the palace. And a panicky change of strategy given they had originally decided to say nothing. Which was in itself odd.
The aspect of the picture which has fuelled the biggest rumours is Kate’s lack of wedding and engagement rings; this has led to huge speculation about the state of the marriage, something which has been going on for years in the US media who can report more lurid allegations of affairs etc – which the British media does not. Now, however, online it is open season on the Wales’ marriage. Some insiders say these rumours are what was behind the bust up, in which William knocked Harry over and into a bin, described in his book Spare and the subsequent rift between Wales and Sussex. These rumours have been circling in media/toff circles for years; the internet take is that Kate is on strike or in a coma, both of which sound preposterous.
The most likely truth is that she is, indeed, recovering from an operation and wants time and space in which to do so. Given the relentless scrutiny she is under and the endless pressure to be ‘perfect’ in all respects: as a mother, wife, fashion icon, future queen, it wouldn’t be surprising if she was stressed. We know the toll living in that world took on Princess Diana, and more recently Meghan. Kate sails along like a swan but it would be hard for anyone to survive all that scrutiny for so many years unscathed. Personally I think we should all respect that for whatever reason she needs to be left alone and let the poor woman – who lives in a goldfish bowl – have a couple of months off to recuperate. The speculation about what exact medical issues she has are really invasive of her privacy. Many of us Queenagers know the emotional knock-on from surgery or some unexpected health issue…everyone needs time to process. Even Princesses.
However, one insider shared a theory with me that does feel more possible: that the King is actually more ill than they have let on, meaning that Kate and William are going to be promoted to the big gig rather sooner than they expected. They implied that this is why Kate and William are taking some time off from the spotlight (William is also said to be taking off till April 17th when their kids go back to school). That makes some sense to me. Our late Queen always talked about how happy she and Prince Phillip were in the years before her father died, how they’d had a ‘normal’ life, (she’d been a Navy wife and out of the spotlight). And what a shock it was when George V1 died so soon and she had to accede the throne so young – with all that came with it. In that context, it would be entirely understandable that Kate is insisting on some time out – maybe because she knows this isn’t going to be possible for much longer so they are hunkering down with their kids while they can…. I hope for everyone’s sakes that isn’t true. But it does feel plausible.
What I do know from years in Fleet Street is that when it comes to the royals there is seldom smoke without fire. For years, the Palace tried to say that Princess Diana was happy and the Andrew Morton book was rubbish; or the Fab Four were getting on splendidly, when they were not on speaking terms. Or everyone loved Meghan and there was no drama, when she has admitted she had ‘suicidal ideation’. For that reason I am sure there is more to the Kate situation than the Palace are admitting and that it must be quite serious for them not to be following the King’s lead of being open about the medical issues. Indeed the difference in approach highlights more than anything some underlying schism. As they must have known it would cause speculation and continued on that course regardless.
I also think that the prurience with which female members of the royal family have their lives picked over is indicative of what society and the media obsess about in women: looks, family, feuds, health, relationships, some woman not coping with the hideous pressures being piled upon them (usually by the media!). Why do we expect women to be perfect? Why can’t Kate take time out without all the speculation? She’s a human being. The depressing this is is how the coverage ALWAYS reverts to some kind of woman v woman spat. Last week the media were once again pitting Kate against Meghan, because the latter launched some new lifestyle blog just as these stories were swirling. I hate that bitch-fight trope, but it is incredibly common – just look at the way women were pitted against each other to discuss eg Lily Allen saying her career had suffered because she had kids. That is such a non-story. Of course you can’t be a globe trotting pop star and be at home with your young children. That doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t do a job and be good mums, it is possible to be a fulfilled working mother. I mean FFFS – have we learnt nothing?
So -that’s my take on Kate. Something’s up, but it’s probably bigger than just her health…. Of course I could be totally wrong. But since I keep being asked what I think/know. There you are!
I’m looking forward to seeing lots of you for our Noon Book Club on Tuesday 7pm – with the wonderful Gaby Roslin. We’ll be talking about her book Spread the Joy and the power of positive psychology. Sign up here if you want to come. And next Saturday is our first Wasing Retreat of the year – that is fully booked but we still have a few spots for our Noon Purpose and Power Retreat at Broughton Sanctuary this May 24-28th – email Jackie@inherspace.co.uk if you’d like to come. She is in charge of the rooms.
Happy Sunday!
Much love
Eleanor
By Eleanor Mills
