Is Something Sinister Going On With Kate?

All the questions you should be asking.

When everyone around you is saying something is going on, it is natural to begin to feel uneasy. I have felt this way multiple times over the last two months, obviously with a concentration in the last few weeks. Each time I wonder, though, I stop and think through what we know, and each time it brings me back to a woman with a mystery illness who doesn’t want people to know the details of her health. The facts we know do not support the weight of any of the conspiracy theories. At the outset I will note that I don’t immediately dismiss conspiracy theories. I am happy to give all theories an open-minded hearing. In this royal drama, though none of them hold up. At least not yet. Let’s start at the very beginning.

There was a royal convoy that was spotted in Marylebone on December 28th. That could very well have been Kate. Although Kate’s surgery was “planned,” it was clearly planned as opposed to her being crash carted into surgery on an emergency basis. But it was a recent plan, since Kate had a full spring diary that had to be canceled when her health issue emerged. The royal convoy (not an ambulance) is in keeping with her having symptoms of some kind and seeking medical attention that triggered a mid-January surgery. There is nothing strange about this element.

The Palace said from the start that Kate would be out of the limelight until Easter at least. It is absolutely incorrect to assert that only a mental health issue or an eating disorder warrants such a long hospital stay. Multiple medical professionals have pitched scenarios that could require a prolonged stay, and many readers have messaged me on Instagram with their own accounts of illnesses that tracked Kate’s timeline. I think it is important to accept that we don’t know what we don’t know when it comes to her health.

William has told people Kate is doing well and is or was being attended to by two nurses at home. By late February, Kate was well enough to travel to Sandringham for a “stay cation” with her children, which was ferreted out and reported by the media. As I explained in this post, there is nothing strange about a royal who lives in Windsor Home Park and has dark SUVs and a private helicopter at her disposal being able to travel from one private estate to another without being spotted.

So far, so good. We know that Kate has or had something seriously wrong with her and that she wants to keep the health issue private. All the evidence tracks that.

Then, on February 28th, William pulled out of his godfather’s memorial service without an explanation. He merely cited personal reasons. I believe that triggered the conspiracies into overdrive. But based on what? William not showing up to a memorial service. Even if you think that is very strange, there is nothing there connected to any far-flung theory about Kate. We don’t need to know the reason, though. The burden is on those with a theory to make that connection. There are many innocent reasons William might have pulled out, from him being a thoughtless, entitled jerk to an injury with one of the children to Kate having a bump in the road on the way to recovery, etc. Maybe she got a bad report from some of her labs and needed him with her for emotional support. And there are other explanations I don’t know, because we don’t know what we don’t know about the Waleses’ lives outside the limelight. But William’s absence, while odd, doesn’t add much of anything to the debate.

After the internet exploded, though, Kate was spotted in a car around Windsor on March 4th. I wrote here why I thought Kate took a drive for the purpose of being papped. But for this analysis, it doesn’t matter if she deliberately put herself in that position or just got unlucky and was papped by an intrepid photographer. The Palace put signifcant pressure on British media to respect Kate’s privacy and not publish the picture. The British media agreed and did not publish it. This photo was taken by an independent paparazzi photographer and was sold to American news outlets that were willing to publish it.

So this photo was not distributed by the Palace. There is no allegation it is photoshopped. And to people who follow Kate, it is clear on inpsection that it is Kate. Pippa and Kate are visibly sisters, but they are not twins. Lines around Kate’s mouth look a little deep, and many have noted she appears a little puffy, but it is the Princess of Wales.

The social media analysis continued to ramp up, and on Mothering Sunday, Kensington Palace released the picture of Kate with her children.

Royal photos are routinely photoshopped without comment. The Waleses Christmas card for 2023 was photoshopped. Fans spotted some of the discrepancies. It was not a big deal. Kate and her family were out smiling on Christmas morning at Sandringham.

Some years ago, a picture of Queen Elizabeth with her grandchildren at Balmoral was photoshopped. Fans spotted it; no one wondered if Elizabeth or any of the children were dead or wrongfully imprisoned.

According to the photographer who took the picture, Harry and Meghan’s pregnancy announcement was photoshopped to add the willow tree in the background. That is a material edit.

The Danish royals released a birthday picture of their twins in the last year where they cut and pasted the two into a new frame from an old photo.

The picture agencies have a policy of not allowing any photoshopping. Obviously, this rule is not really enforced, at least against the royals. When the kill notice went out, I was alarmed. It was one of the several times I have wondered, could something else more sinister be going on here? So I wondered, what reason did the agencies give for pulling the picture? Is there something we don’t know. But the reason the agencies gave was the editing around Charlotte’s hand indicated the picture was materially altered contrary to policy. In short, it seemed that on this particular occasion, a few agencies decided to enforce the policy, and we can safely assume they did so because the discussion surrounding Kate’s absence and the theories that were spreading wildly were being fueled by the photoshopped image. That is to say, the fact the image was photoshopped was headline news, and the agencies could not let that slide, given their written standards. Once the first few pulled it, everyone had to pull it or look like they weren’t a serious news organization These things snowball. We do not know how edited the photo is.

It was after the first few agencies started pulling the picture that other photoshopping was broadly identified, including in the zone around Kate’s face.

It is very important to keep in mind that the royals frequently photoshop. If photoshopping were absolutely unprecedented, this would be far more suspicoius. But it is obviously something they do often. So maybe it indicates something is wrong, but it also could be quite mundane.

Kate clearly gets Botox or Dysport or some such product in her face. She has been getting it for years. Maybe (probably!) Kate, while convalescing, has not gotten those treatments and therefore airbrushed her lines away. Maybe she is puffy from steroids related to her treatment, and she copied and pasted a picture of herself from some other photo where she had a slim face and her botox was on the job? Maybe. (This is obviously not her Vogue image, though). That still doesn’t tell us much. A very likely scenario could be the following: The royals habitually photoshop the images they release themselves, Kate knew every wrinkle would be scrutinized, any puffiness examined, people would be saying she looks haggard, aged, rough, whatever, and so she photoshopped an image of herself from a better time onto the picture. She protected her privacy and her feelings from the online analysts. If this is the case, it might have been unwise and perhaps you think duplicitous, but it doesn’t get close to supporting let alone necessitating the wild theories we have been seeing.

The fact the Waleses won’t release the original is unremarkable. It would be too much of a concession to the press, and the photo probably is altered to make Kate look fresher faced, whether they airbrushed her face or pasted an earlier picture of her face on top.

Now let’s turn the question a little. If you are someone who thinks something must be up, what exactly do you imagine? I am not someone who thinks “conspiracy theory” is a bad word, but there has to be a reasonable argument.

There is no good reason I can think of for this to be some cover for Kate in a catastrophic state, like an ongoing coma or dead. Kate is not the heir to British throne. If she died tomorrow, it would be absolutely tragic, but it would not be some massive shake up. Kate isn’t the Queen of medieval England without an heir whose death will trigger a civil war as her barons battle it out to take the crown. They aren’t keeping her death a secret while they sort out the line of succession. Kate is not the dictator of a rogue state that will become destabilized if it is revealed she is sick and weak and prone to a coup. She isn’t Kim Jong Un.

Similarly, If William has had an affair with Rose Hanbury, and Rose is carrying his child (or however the story goes), and Rose is getting a divorce so William can dump Kate and I don’t even know what happens next in that theory, Kate would probably take some time away and then file for divorce. If the Waleses marriage hits the rocks and cannot be saved, I think they will file for divorce like anyone else who chooses to end their marriage. In what universe would this bizarre and ongoing charade be helpful? To what end? Are we supposed to think William has Kate imprisoned? Why? For how long? Forever? If not forever, what’s the purpose of starting at all? If forever, how is that going to work out? Will she never return to the limelight? I just truly cannot understand how this theory has legs.

In any of the sinister theories, are the Middletons supposed to be potted plants? Is Carole conspiring with William to keep Kate captive? Is Pippa holidaying at Eden Rock while Kate' fights for her life in a coma?

Keep in mind, all of these farther flung theories require the royals to have conspired with the London Clinic at the outset. Whatever board runs the London Clinic would have had to have agreed to an international lie—that Kate was admitted at the clinic for a planned surgery and would stay two weeks—while media camped outside and the world discussed the Princess’s health. If the secret is to be kept longterm, multiple other ordinary staff at the Clinic would need to keep mum about the lie...forever.

“But, Spanish media says Kate was in a coma!” Well, ok. It is clear she was very ill. Maybe she was in a coma (nothing to suggest she was, but let’s play this out, too). Maybe, down the road she will reveal she was far sicker than we were ever told, that she went to the brink of death and spent days in a coma while at the London Clinic, but it was all kept secret to maintain her medical privacy. The Palace said from the start, they aren’t revealing details. It would be a dramatic story, but it is not a nefarious and ongoing conspiracy we should be alarmed about.

If she was in a coma, she is obviously out of it now. Aside from the fact she was spotted in the car driving around Windsor with Carole, why would the Palace create a big lie? If she had been in a coma initially, maybe they would have kept it a secret. But if Kate were in such a dire health situation, like being in a coma for two months, why would the public not be told? Again, it would not destabilize the monarchy for the Princess of Wales to be struck with such tragedy. And are we to believe the London Clinic transferred her home while she was still in a coma and is going along with the ongoing lies that she is up and about? No. It isn’t a credible theory.

People get upset with me for saying nothing is wrong, but you can’t really wrap your head around these theories. We are down Alice’s rabbit hole with all this.

At the end of the day, there is a perefctly reasonable explanation for everything we have witnessed. It is reasonable and it is simple. It makes far more sense than any theory pitched to me yet. That’s why my gut isn’t setting off alarm bells. The most likely explanation just so happens to track with everything we have witnessed and the everything royals have told us.

I think that Kate is private woman. I think she has been very, very ill. They told us as much. Perhaps she is still very ill. At the moment, it is clear she wants to navigate her health issues in private. She may very well have pasted a picture of herself onto her Mother’s Day photo to protect her tired and possibly bloated features from examination and comment. I can’t condemn her for that. She is not the heir. She has birthed an heir and two spares. The line of succession is secure. She has every right to withdraw from the public eye and refuse to give us the evidence we crave to analyze her poor health.

The final question is, does Kate have the right to maintain her medical privacy and convalesce in seclusion? Because she is not the monarch or heir (or holding some public office that requires her good health and dutiful attention), I believe she has every right to withdraw entirely while she navigates her health issues.

The next landmark moment will be Easter. The Palace said initially that “she is unlikely to return to public duties until after Easter.” I am sure that if she is at all able, she will attend Easter service so she can be pictured alive and well. If she doesn’t, that will be concerning, even though the Palace said it might be after. Time will tell.

Due to the proliferation of theories about Kate, this post is free so that you may share it with anyone you think will find the analysis useful.

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