It’s obviously not very easy being a prominent member of Britain’s royal family. Aside from wealth, privilege, and noble status, life in a fishbowl can’t be all that enticing, your every move and non-move the point of discussion and debate among tabloids and a public seemingly insatiable for news of the royals. And not just news, any news, pedestrian news. They want the salacious stuff, the gossipy stuff, the stuff that scandals and conspiracies are made of.
So it is with Kate Middleton, former Duchess of Cambridge and now Princess of Wales, a queen in waiting and wife and mother to future kings.
It wasn’t long ago that Middleton emerged the “victor” in a contest that pitted her against Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, a contest based upon the competing notions of which duchess means more to the royal family, which duchess is more authentic, and which duchess had the appropriate reverence of the Crown. It may or may not have been a contest of their own making, but regardless, if the British tabloid press wants a contest, then a contest will be had, and it will play out on the front pages of the papers every morning. We have to remember that the British press operates according to a long-held journalistic maxim: if you haven’t heard a rumour by 10 AM, then start one.
But now it’s 2024, Meghan has fled to sunny California with her husband and children, and despite a rocky couple of years, has managed to find a life for herself and her family that, at least at face value, appears to be be full of freedom, opportunity, contentment, and marginal headlines in the tabloids. When Meghan makes the news these days, it’s because of her involvement with jams and jellies, hair, clothing and makeup, voice-overs for animated films, or causes like the Invictus Games, a passion she shares with her husband Harry, Duke of Sussex.
But Kate? Well, truth be told, she just disappeared. Not from the headlines, mind you, because she’s currently the centre of a media feeding frenzy, one that’s based upon that “disappearance.”
Some time ago, Kate underwent an abdominal surgery. Her first problem was spending two weeks in the hospital post-op, which apparently is much longer than the norm. To the press that screams complications of some sort, and in the absence of any information from the palace, the British tabloids are going to go bonkers filling that informational gap. And so here we are.
Is Kate dead? Did she die in surgery or from a surgical complication? Did the surgery find something else, like cancer? Remember, her father-in-law the king had a recent surgery as well that uncovered prostate cancer, so maybe it’s something like that. King Charles, though, put out a statement about his medical status, which makes nothing coming from Kate look mightily suspicious to the boys and girls on Fleet Street.
What if it’s, gasp, domestic turmoil? What if the marriage is on the rocks, with Kate finally rebelling against the fishbowl, a-la-Meghan a few years back, only this time featuring the mother of a future king. Maybe that’s where the stories of Rose Hanbury suddenly surface, with the British press wondering aloud if the Marchioness of Cholmondeley (Hanbury) and William, Prince of Wales and husband to Kate, were having an affair. I mean, really, his father Charles did while married to William’s mother, Diana. Why not like father-like son?
Perhaps it’s because William’s temper, ego, emotional instability, and just plain rottenness have caught up with the couple. We hear bits and pieces about William’s personality from several sources, including his own brother Harry, some of it likely true but a lot of it, at least I assume, patently false.
What has not helped is the ham-handed release of an “official” photograph of Kate with her children, apparently taken by William, to commemorate British Mother’s Day. As it turns out, major media companies have determined that the photo was “manipulated,” as in fake, in whole or in part. Then, to make matters worse, the palace issued a statement, attributed to Kate, saying that, as any amateur photographer would, the Princess of Wales does, from time to time, experiment with “editing” her photography. Once upon a time, editing a photo might mean cropping it, playing around with the lighting, colour, and brightness, those sorts of things. No big deal, such a photo would still be considered original and authentic. But when you drop yourself or others into a context that’s not real, into a background independent of the cut-out foreground involving the main subjects, then that’s photo manipulation. When it’s done to intentionally mislead the viewer, then that’s incredibly suspicious. I mean really, if all is well, why not a real, legitimate photo?
Who uses an AI-generated photo of themselves and their children when the perfectly good real people are right there for a photo in the correct time and place? Unless things aren’t perfectly good, and if that’s the case, what things aren’t perfectly good? In the good old days, we taught emerging editors how to cut, or extract photographic subjects from their original background and place them on an entirely different background. It’s done all the time in media and marketing with really no questions asked. If you’re going to be disingenuous, why not just do this, rather than use AI with its mangled fingers and cuff lines that don’t match up? At least in the old manner, everyone’s ears and fingers looked to be in place, assuming the editor didn’t chop some of them off in the extraction process. But even that’s not a good idea because professional photography people would still be able to tell the photo was doctored.
It just comes across as dishonest, and now the general public has an increased distrust of the Wales family, and of the entire royal family as a whole. Aside from Meghan and Harry, that is, who appear to be doing just fine.
Kate was allegedly spotted in a car with her mom. There’s a paparazzi photo that proves it, although paparazzi are sleaze-bags in their own right. What if that photo’s a fake?
As for me, I’m just going to leave the poor woman alone. I was cheering for Meghan during the Meghan-Kate wars, and Kate won. But now, a coupe of years later, I’m starting to wonder if Meghan has, in fact, emerged with the better hand.
Whatever’s going on, there’s a person, a wife and mother, a daughter and sister to others, who is struggling, perhaps with health, but now with a host of other things to add to that. I don’t care how royal they may be, I don’t want to see her, her kids, or anyone else hurt.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 