Kate Middleton’s return to public life will be marked with a “big bang” return to the limelight on Easter Sunday, March 31, friends of the royals have told The Daily Beast. Expectations are building that the Princess of Wales will walk to church with other members of the royal family on Easter Sunday and greet well-wishers in a show-stopping set piece, heralding her return to public life.
While her officials have been busily reminding journalists that they initially briefed that her return to public duties would come “after Easter,” with some suggestions that could actually mean “after the kids Easter holidays have finished,” a friend of Kate’s and a friend of King Charles told The Daily Beast that they expected and hoped respectively that Kate would attend church on Easter Sunday morning, in just under two weeks.
While Kensington Palace declined to comment on whether Kate would be walking to church on Easter Sunday, or indeed if she would be seen out and about privately before then after she visited a farm shop with husband Prince William this weekend, one friend said, “She is doing well. Everything is on track. Easter will be the big bang moment.”
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A friend of the king’s, meanwhile, told The Daily Beast that Charles “of course” hoped Kate would attend church at Easter. However they were also careful to point out that there was no suggestion of any pressure being put on Kate to do so, and that it would be ultimately up to her. (As for Charles himself, while there has been no specific guidance on whether the king will attend church on Easter Sunday, his attendance would be unlikely as the palace has said he is avoiding crowds while he receives cancer treatment. Queen Camilla will likely represent him instead.)
Another source, a former Buckingham Palace staffer, told The Daily Beast that Easter was “the natural choice” for Kate to make her return to the public sphere. The former courtier said that attending the Easter Day church service at Sandringham with her family would provide a “powerful dose of continuity.”
They said they understood it was unlikely that there would be a social media campaign featuring Kate—last seen in public on Dec. 25, 2023—or that her team would release any more images of Kate before Easter.
The former courtier added that she is now expected to delegate the business of photographing her family for media handouts to professional photographers, after another image taken by Kate of the late Queen Elizabeth II was struck out of official records by the photo agency Getty Images which declared it had been altered.
Queen Camilla, Prince William, Kate Middleton, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, Prince Louis and Mia Tindall attend the Royal Family's Christmas Day service at St. Mary Magdalene's church, at the Sandringham estate in eastern England, Dec. 25, 2023.
Chris Radburn/ReutersThe former courtier, who retains good links with current staff members said: “We won’t be seeing any more official pictures with Kate’s credit. It would just stir the whole story up again. The kids are older now anyway, so it is less of an issue.”
Asked if the reality was that the palace would have little choice now that major picture agencies have said they no longer regard Kensington Palace as a trusted source, the former staffer said: “They could continue to put her pictures out on social media but the point is, they won’t.”
The first test of this new regime will come on April 23, which is Prince Louis’ birthday. Kate and William have traditionally released photographs of their children on their birthday, which has proved an effective tool in curtailing demand for unauthorized paparazzi pictures of the children.
The positive mood music (including a report in the London Times) emanating from Kate’s camp about the possibility of an Easter “resurrection” came after a day in which Kate’s office seemed, finally, to have successfully established a narrative that Kate’s recovery is going well after she was captured on a phone looking well leaving the farm shop in Windsor this weekend. The footage was published by the Sun and TMZ.
Die-hard conspiracy theorists, including one BBC sports reporter who alleged the couple filmed by a member of the public were body doubles, were still making considerable noise, but they struggled, for the first time in weeks, to really get their messages out of their silos in any credible form. Notably, the BBC reporter soon deleted her post, according to the Mail.
While some of the recent feverish speculation may have been averted had Kate waved out of a car window once or twice, there is a sense within palace circles that the “Where’s Kate?” soap opera is now, if not over, winding up.
Indeed, on Tuesday, in another sign that Kate is indeed preparing to return to public life soon, William publicly invoked her name at an event at a homeless charity.
The Daily Mail reported that when the topic of childhood was raised, William, apparently referencing Kate’s focus on early years projects, said: “Venturing into my wife’s territory here. She needs to be sat here to hear this.”
The implicit promise, of course, was that soon she will be.
