Back in January, the Royal Family announced that Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales, would be stepping back from her duties to go under and recover from a planned abdominal surgery. Since then, there has been an incredible amount of speculation on Kate’s condition and her life with William on social media, thanks to prolonged silence from the palace and some badly edited photos.
My own attention was first caught by the edited photos. When I first saw the speculation on TikTok, I scrolled past it – Kate had abdominal surgery; there was nothing more to it. But then I saw the pictures. The photo for Mothers’ Day, of Kate with her three children, was so poorly cobbled together, that major news outlets pulled it. There were issues with hand placement, the stones they were standing on, and even their clothes. Then there was the photo with Kate and her mother in the car, in which the car had five tires, clearly a result of bad editing. Finally, there was the picture with Kate and William in a car, in which the brick on the building behind them was obviously not continuous the way it should have been, and Kate’s head looked like it had been taken from another, older picture. For me, this was it. I proceeded to watch all the theories I could find. Something wasn’t right.
On Friday, March 22, Kate announced that she had been diagnosed with cancer and was going through chemotherapy treatment. She didn’t say what type of cancer she’d been diagnosed with and asked for privacy and respect as she finished her treatment. My heart went out to Kate and her family, as this cannot be an easy thing to have to go through, and the frequently outlandish speculation from the news and on social media definitely did not make things easier for them.
That being said, the position of power that the Royal Family maintains makes it their responsibility to maintain a level of trust and honesty with their people, and the way this situation was handled showed little of either quality. Here in the United States, when the president undergoes medical treatment, we get details. In 2021, Joe Biden went for a colonoscopy, and we received updates about the procedure as well as his health afterward. While he may have wanted to keep that information to himself, his position of power and his obligation to his people make it something necessary to share.
As Prince and Princess of Wales, Kate and William have similar obligations to their people. They should have been more straightforward and honest about Kate’s health, and the palace should not have thrown out poorly edited photos as a band-aid solution to people’s questions. Those photos only invited more speculation and more questions.
Instead, had they been upfront about Kate’s condition when it was discovered and then asked for privacy, the wild guesswork would have been kept at bay, and I believe they would have gotten more respect and support from the general public. For example, King Charles’s cancer diagnosis was announced in a timely manner, and the palace explained he would be stepping back from his duties to recover and that he was looking for privacy as he did. While there was some speculation about what type of cancer he was diagnosed with, it was nowhere near as dramatic as what people wondered about Kate. Even if the Royal Family wants privacy regarding their health, a brief, straightforward and honest statement is all they need to maintain trust with their people. While this has been a messy situation, I hope we can all realize that the speculation was unnecessary and wish Kate good health and a speedy recovery.
Leave a Reply