Last Friday, The Princess of Wales made an unprecedented move for the British Royal Family: she personally addressed the public to announce that she has been undergoing treatment for cancer.
In a video shared to The Prince and Princess of Wales’ official social media accounts, Kate Middleton first thanked the public for their “support” and “understanding” as she recovered from abdominal surgery (announced back on January 17th). She then revealed that “tests after the operation found cancer had been present,” and that she was now “in the early stages” of preventative chemotherapy.
It was news that rocked the world after nearly a month of speculation regarding Kate’s whereabouts. What had started in January as questions born out of concern had, by late February, turned into conspiracy, accusation…and yes, memes.
The week before Kate’s sensational announcement, the conversation had landed in a truly bizarre place; we were discussing whether images of Kate had been staged or made out of repurposed photos. But we were also considering the possibility of complete misinformation coming out of the Palace. Discussions of AI-generated images and even body doubles were taking over social media users’ feeds.
I say “discussions,” but this moment really amounted more to hysteria and frenzy. Complete disinformation also ran rampant, with some people looking to garner attention via dishonest, nonobjective framing.
And look, I completely understand that asking the masses of social media to adhere to objective reporting standards is a fight lost from the very beginning. But reader, it was as if people had legitimately lost their minds. Some of the most intelligent women creators that I follow, and whose content I have watched for years, even went off the deep end and started posting that the Kate Middleton being presented to us in pictures wasn’t actually her.
I just need to say now, though, it absolutely was her. My thing—always—with conspiracy theories is that the bigger the lie (and the more people required to keep it a secret), the more likely we are to learn the truth. If the Palace really had orchestrated a Fake Kate to stand in for her, there’s no way they were going to pull that off, especially while under so much scrutiny, without someone spilling the beans. They couldn’t even release a Mother’s Day photo of Kate that could successfully evade detection, okay?
But when Kate became the first member of the British Monarchy to directly address us, the very people who had been virtually hounding her for a month, and tell us of her cancer diagnosis, the dialogue took an immediate shift.
Actually, two.
First, “supporters” of the Princess of Wales (and by this I mean a hodge-podge of royalists, fans, and sympathetic players in the British press) cried “Shame!” on those who had been asking questions about her whereabouts. In doing this, they lumped everyone into the same category, even though many (including myself) recognized the oddities in Kate’s sick leave and had questioned the Palace’s overly defensive strategy without resorting to conspiracy.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was one of these; he devoted nearly a paragraph of his official statement regarding the Princess’ cancer announcement to decrying the way that Kate had been “subjected to intense scrutiny and…unfairly treated by certain sections of the media around the world and on social media.”
In reaction, social media users largely pointed out that they hadn’t been scrutinizing Kate, but rather the outdated and bewildering strategies employed by the Kensington Palace communications team speaking on her behalf. There has been almost total agreement that, in Sunak’s words, “like everyone else, she must be afforded the privacy to focus on her treatment with her loving family.” No one is arguing against that.
And yet.
You can wholeheartedly wish someone a full return to health while still recognizing that they occupy a central position within a 1000 year-old institution, and certain information about their person are matters of public interest. Two things can be true at once.
We can also recognize that the Princess of Wales is being afforded the benefit of boundaries that were denied her sister-in-law, the Duchess of Sussex, when she entered the Royal Family. The same British Press that once demanded Meghan give a photo op with her hours-old royal baby…is now curiously steadfast in the belief that royal women don’t owe us anything regarding their health that they don’t want to freely reveal.
The same British Press that told Meghan that her struggle for mental health treatment was all for show is now lauding Kate for prioritizing her physical recovery.
And don’t even get me started on the “privacy” angle.
For years, we’ve heard that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s request for privacy for their young family is absurd—they’re public figures, and therefore, every facet of their lives is “fair game.” And just where do they get off demanding privacy while still attending premieres and releasing exclusives to American media?
Kate was granted her request for privacy from minute one of her 2024 health crisis—before the “C” word even entered the discussion. The British Press fell in line with remarkable quickness and synchronization, never asking questions and even mounting a defense of the Princess against anyone “poking holes.”
Is Kate to blame for this disparity in treatment? Absolutely not. Again, it’s the institutions in play here that can (and should) be rightly questioned on the double standard.
And should the fact that The Princess of Wales is undergoing cancer treatment act as a shield defending the choices of the entire British Monarchy from public discussion? Absolutely not.
I think it’s also possible to respect the Prince and Princess of Wales’ request for privacy while still looking a bit closer at how this health crisis has been framed by the Palace. The fact that Friday’s announcement concerned a woman facing a cancer diagnosis shouldn’t prevent us from recognizing that there is still strategy at play here. Everything the Palace does is intentional, and unfortunately, that also goes for a cancer announcement.
The words “strategic” and “intentional” have become somewhat taboo in royal commentary. They are lobbed at the Duchess of Sussex like insults, meant to imply fakeness or deceit. With that context as a backdrop, I understand that me using those words here might raise some hackles as I talk about the Princess of Wales. But I mean “strategic” here in the purest sense: desiring a specific outcome—which of course the Palace does.
The framing of Kate’s announcement piqued my interest almost as much as the information she was conveying to us. Even the choice of timing—6pm UK time, on the Friday evening before Easter break—coincides with what many call the “Friday news dump.” This is a deliberate practice meant to downplay news that may have negative implications, by dropping it at a moment when many of us are distracted and the news cycle is winding down for the weekend. As a result, we saw only a small snippet of the commentary that we may otherwise have if the announcement had been made on a Monday or Tuesday. It would have led the news coverage all week in that situation.
Then there was the structure of the announcement itself, in the form of Kate’s video. Outwardly, it was courageous and refreshing, acting as a reset amidst the frenzy that has accompanied any discussion of her this year. But that was, of course, by design. And it’s okay to admit that.
There were lovely touches, like the choice to position Kate among a garden of daffodils at Windsor Castle. Daffodils are a universal symbol of rebirth and resiliency, as they bloom each spring without fail. They are also a symbol of hope and courage used by numerous cancer organizations around the world.
The very words that Kate spoke—no doubt carefully crafted by a professional team—were no less intentional. Positivity and optimism underlined every single sentence. The Princess of Wales bookended her statement with gratitude, thanking the public and telling them that their “love, support, and kindness” mean “the world” to her and Prince William.
Even the way that the word “cancer” entered the conversation was strategic, probably in an effort to soften the blow. Kate didn’t say that she currently has cancer or even that she was diagnosed with it; she said instead that “cancer had been present” when she underwent an operation in January. It’s a subtle difference, but one that is deliberate. The statement, as worded, gives no concrete indication of whether the cancer was removed at the time of Kate’s surgery or whether it’s something that her medical team is still treating as a present threat.
I don’t need (or even want) to know the specifics, but I think we can recognize that some wordsmithing has been put into play. Not to mislead or to deceive, but to give an uneasy public as little cause for alarm as possible, and to avoid further hysteria.
We saw the same thing with King Charles’ own announcement of cancer in early February. The Palace did not directly advise on his prognosis beyond emphasizing that he was “optimistic” about his treatment. At the time, I discussed this decision quite openly and was met with absolutely zero demand to “respect Charles’ privacy” or to stop “hounding” him.
Multiple things can be true at the same time, and I know that if you’re a longtime follower of mine, you’ll already know this to be my perspective. The saga of “Katespiracy” has been a mentally exhausting time to be a royal commentator, though, because so many folks want to pretend that any critical conversation about Kensington Palace (the entity) at this time is a personal assault on the Princess of Wales. That’s not my M.O., nor is it most peoples’ when we embark on these discussions of how the Palace handled the past several weeks.
When put under pressure, Palace Communications officials got defensive, demanding, and downright salty. Most people who asked questions about Kate merely wanted to be reassured that she was okay. And for many, that was only a concern because of the Royal Family’s previous track record with handling women’s health issues. Both Diana, Princess of Wales, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, are on record discussing the abysmal ways that they were treated during health crises—not by the public, but by the Palace teams that were meant to support them.