Speculation over the health of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s marriage, triggered by the absence of a wedding band on Kate’s ring finger in her notorious Mother’s Day photograph, has been thrust firmly back into the mainstream after Stephen Colbert trolled Prince William in his monologue Tuesday with rumors of an affair.
Colbert astonished audiences Tuesday night by referring to 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.
A former royal staffer told The Daily Beast that Colbert’s comments would be “deeply annoying” as William and Kate’s office at Kensington Palace desperately tries to course correct after a tumultuous few days of headlines.
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The former courtier, who worked with William and Kate when employed at the palace, said, “It’s deeply annoying and unhelpful for the palace, but it’s not surprising that the affair rumors are being reheated. What else are people supposed to think when she sends out a photo not wearing her wedding ring?”
Another source, who is a friend of Kate and William’s, said 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.”
The 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.”
In public at least, William and Kate not only present a united front, but a telegenic one. Their family unit and camera-friendly genial bearing also represent the future of the royal family in microcosm—a more open, seemingly progressive, and at least more normal-looking and relatable one than the stiffer and more them-and-us royal models of the past.
Any threat, perceived or otherwise, to Kate and William’s marriage places an imperiling question mark over the royal institution itself—at a time when it is already looking smaller and more vulnerable than ever before, with both King Charles and Kate absent from public duties because of their medical issues.
The U.K. Mother's Day photograph Prince William reportedly took of Kate Middleton and their children that Kate later admitted she had doctored.
Prince of Wales/Kensington Palace/Handout via ReutersThe affair rumors go back to 2019 when The Daily Beast reported on palace lawyers’ attempts to suppress reporting of the alleged affair by issuing stern legal notices to British publications, cautioning them not to write about the rumors.
At the time, official sources in Kensington Palace told The Daily Beast that the allegations were “totally wrong and false.” Royal law firm Harbottle and Lewis issued letters to the British media stating that the stories were “false and highly damaging.”
British newspapers instead reported that there had been a terrible argument between former friends Kate and Rose without giving a cause.
Colbert said in his opening monologue that “internet sleuths” were guessing that Kate’s absence “may be related to her husband and the future king of England, William, having an affair.”
Colbert, who mocked the fact that Rose’s married name, Cholmondeley, is pronounced Chumley, said there had been “rumors of an affair… since 2019.”
Speculation about Kate and William’s marriage sparked into life again in mainstream British newspapers after Kate and William were photographed in a car together Monday with Kate looking, apparently glumly, away from her husband.
Prominent columnist Liz Jones wrote in the Daily Mail that the picture rang “alarm bells” because it suggested “that Kate is not co-operating and that she didn’t have a hand in photogate but took the rap for it.”
Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, accompanied by their parents Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, arrive for a settling-in afternoon at Lambrook School, near Ascot in Berkshire, Britain, September 7, 2022.
Jonathan Brady/Pool via ReutersSarah Vine, a politically connected columnist in the same paper, wrote that her missing wedding ring was “concerning,” saying it seemed, “deliberate, a statement in its own right. If it’s not there, could that be because she doesn’t want it there? It doesn’t bear thinking about.”
She added that the miserable atmosphere of the “snap of them leaving Windsor” was “less than encouraging.”
The problem with the picture, Vine wrote, “is that it is, in effect, a lie. What’s worse, it now looks like a lie conceived to hide other lies, a classic example of that old adage: it’s not the crime that gets you, but the cover-up. And there’s only one way to put an end to it: Come clean about what’s really going on—or risk drowning in a quagmire of their own making.”
Kensington Palace did not respond to a request for comment.
