A controversial British royal commentator is under fire for a “disgusting” tweet ahead of Kate Middleton’s Friday announcement that she has cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy.
An hour before the Princess of Wales released the video announcement of her diagnosis, Omid Scobie posted a photo on X, formally known as Twitter, of his alarm clock being set to 6 p.m. GMT.
Scobie told The Daily Beast that hearing “there would be an announcement of some kind from the Palace” at that time, he tweeted the “visual of the time so followers could keep an eye out, something I have often done in the past.”
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In the video message, Middleton revealed that she underwent abdominal surgery in January for a condition she believed was non-cancerous. Tests after the successful surgery, however, revealed that cancer had been present and has since been in “preventative chemotherapy” since late February.
The message came after weeks of speculation about Middleton’s whereabouts after her surgery for an unspecified medical condition. The speculation then turned into an internet frenzy after Middleton and Prince William published a Photoshopped picture of her and their children on U.K. Mother’s Day. She has since issued an apology for doctoring the image.
“After the announcement was made, and I learned of the seriousness of the news, I removed the post to stop any speculation taking place underneath it and because the tweet no longer felt appropriate,” Scobie told The Daily Beast.
But the deleted tweet did not stop people from critiquing the Endgame author.
“Disgusting man. Literal shame on you,” one X user wrote on Scobie’s post. “What a scumbag Omid Scobie is!!!!,” another user wrote.
Amid the backlash, Scobie posted an explanation for his deleted alarm clock tweet, stating that he removed it “to stop any speculation taking place underneath it.” He added that it was “disturbing” to see the post being “portrayed as some sort of sick ‘countdown’” by media outlets.
“I try to shrug off the lies like this, but this one was too disgusting to ignore,” he added.
Scobie also told The Daily Beast that while he was not surprised to see certain outlets suggest “there is a more sinister story” behind his tweet, it was still “upsetting.”
The journalist is close with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, and published the biography Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family in 2020.
This is not the first time Scobie has faced backlash for his coverage of the U.K. royal family. Last year, a Dutch translation of his book named Kate Middleton and King Charles as the alleged “royal racists” who questioned Prince Harry about his unborn child’s skin color. The name drop sparked outrage, but Scobie insisted that the princess and the king were identified in error.
