Friends of Kate Middleton have blamed “intense stress,” including the fall-out from the various royal dramas involving Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, as being at least partly responsible for her absence from public life, and her need to spend several months recuperating from abdominal surgery.
One aggrieved friend said it was outrageous that Kate was being “harassed by the media over fuck-ups made by other people.”
They predicted that William and Kate would move to “clear out” Kensington Palace staff who had made mistakes later this year after an extraordinary meltdown in royal communications triggered by Kate publishing a photo in which she was not wearing a wedding ring. Kate subsequently admitted in a social media message that she had edited the photo, but the friend said it was wrong for her team to have permitted Kate to have been landed with the blame.
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The friend told The Daily Beast: “She has been under incredible pressure for several years, and is now being harassed by the media over fuck-ups made by other people. How her office could have put out a picture without her ring when it was clearly going to be one of the most scrutinized pictures of all time is just unfathomable. And she is to blame? Sorry, no. That was their failure and they should have accepted the blame. They will clear out all those people when the dust settles.”
The friend added that Kate’s office’s failure to properly vet the photo was also “to blame” for the resurgence of speculation over the state of her marriage to William.
On Tuesday’s Late Show, Stephen Colbert joked about an affair William is widely alleged to have had with his neighbor, Rose Hanbury, the Marchioness of Cholmondeley. The palace has repeatedly denied an affair ever took place.
Kate was last seen in public on Christmas Day last year; the palace says she is expected to return to public duties on an unspecified date after Easter.
Earlier this week, a source who is a friend of Kate and William’s, and part of their wider circle of friends, told The Daily Beast that that they and their friend group were “completely baffled” as to why Kate put out a picture which showed her without a wedding band when it seemed “guaranteed to get people asking questions about the state of the marriage.”
Queen Camilla, William, Prince of Wales, Catherine, Princess of Wales, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, Prince Louis and Mia Tindall arrive at the royal family's Christmas Day service, Dec. 25, 2023.
Chris Radburn/ReutersThe friend said: “They are often seen together at school events, and really it is remarkable how one and often both of them will always be at every match, every music concert and every prize giving. The relationship has always seemed incredibly strong despite the immense pressure they are under, so it’s fair to say we were all completely baffled when the picture came out with the wedding ring missing, especially as it was Photoshopped. It just seemed guaranteed to get people asking questions about the state of the marriage.”
Another friend of the family also told The Daily Beast that they believed the stress of the last few years around all the drama surrounding Harry and Meghan, and the pressure of a whole raft of changes that came when the queen died, had triggered a stress-related illness in Kate.
The source said: “She and William have been under intense stress ever since Harry and Meghan left the family. They spent three years just waiting for the next horrific media interview. On top of that they have moved house, the kids have moved school, the queen died, and she became Princess of Wales. It’s not surprising she got ill, and it’s not surprising she needs a break from it all to get better.”
Britain’s Prince William applauds during the Diana Legacy Awards at the Science Museum in London, March 14, 2024.
Arthur Edwards/Pool via ReutersThe extent of the ongoing rift between William and Harry was made evident again Thursday, when it was announced that a virtual appearance by Harry at Thursday’s Diana Legacy Award would occur only after William had left the event.
William had earlier visited a London youth charity and made what seemed like a bizarre comment given the debacle surrounding his wife’s ham-fisted attempts to edit the notorious photograph, saying, while decorating cookies, “My wife is the arty one. Even my children are artier than me.”
The ramifications of the “manipulated” photo continued to reverberate Thursday, with news agency Agence France-Presse saying images from Kensington Palace would no longer be automatically trusted, with its boss comparing the reliability of the palace to North Korea and Iran.
A former staffer told The Daily Beast that Kate and William’s priority would now be protecting their children.
They said, “The thing that will be absolutely top of both their minds right now will be the impact this is having on their children. They are very fortunate that other parents at the school are very loyal, but the reality is that keeping this from children these days is an impossible task. I imagine the Easter holidays can’t come soon enough.”
A friend of King Charles’ told The Daily Beast that he and the queen would be “wholly sympathetic” towards William and Kate over the debacle. “The only answer is for her to get better and get back to work,” the friend said. Riffing off a reputed maxim of the late Queen Elizabeth II, the friend said, “Now more than ever, they will have to be seen to be believed.”
Kensington Palace did not return a request for comment.
