Lily's Birthday Cake Photo

Why are people critical of a cake?

Yesterday (Friday), Claire Ptak of Violet Cakes posted a picture of the birthday cake she made for Lily Sussex’s intimate first birthday last week at Frogmore. The post was the third photo the baker published of Lily’s cake in the last week. Over the course of three posts, she gave us various details—it was an Amalfi lemon with elderflower cake (the same one Ptak made for Harry and Meghan’s wedding), and it had a strawberry buttercream frosting, which was a twist just for Lily. These images have received a predicably mixed response. Fans of the Sussexes are delighted, while the more critical among us have raised eyebrows.

I have received a lot of DMs on Instagram asking why I have frowned on the pictures. One reader asked, “[h]ow is this not different from any other business that posts about what the royals wear, do, eat, or stay at? Strathberry has multiple posts about purses Kate wears. Why is it that this is the Sussexes trying to milk something.”  

It is different because the Sussexes have made much of wanting privacy and complaining about the invasion of their privacy. So when they green-light media about *private* moments, they come across as hypocrites.  Lily’s birthday was a “private” and “intimate” party, yet they are giving us influencer-esque peeks inside. Put another way, they are actively courting publicity and interest in their private, intimate lives. This is strange coming from a woman who sobbed to a camera that she was suicidal from the intense interest in her personal life and from a prince who literally went off the rails claiming he fears the public interest his wife and family receive could be deadly.  

In addition, people consider it to be “milking” the Jubilee weekend, because Harry and Meghan no longer have a public platform or job. They are not working royals, they don’t represent anyone, they are not elected officials, and they really have no area of traditional expertise on which to make money. Their platform is continuing to be “influencers” based upon the notoriety they both garnered as senior members of the British Royal Family. Add to that the fact they have lambasted the royals as racist and the institution as an oppressive prison, and these “intimate” pictures from Frogmore Cottage and throwback cake to when they were newly minted Duke and Duchess at a full-scale royal wedding, and people are going to raise lots of eyebrows.    

No one looks askance (or at least I don’t) at brands touting the fact that royals—either Meghan or Kate—are wearing their brands. In fact, I support that. If either lady wears a brand’s item in public, I certainly think that brand should get to promote it. I didn’t mind whatever company spotted Meghan’s pieces at Trooping and posted about it on social media. I think that’s completely fair to businesses. But that kind of promotion is fundamentally different from the breadcrumb, celeb type details the Sussexes like to share about their private lives. If you think Kate doesn’t organize darling and expensive birthday parties for her little ones, and they don’t order bespoke cakes and such, think again. She just doesn’t give the bakers permission to share when the order is for a private life event.

The pictures of the Cambridges baking made a big splash because it is so unusual. But even that was not really a private event. It was a public event. It was thought up and organized as an activity for public consumption in support of the Jubilee weekend. It is not unlike the Zoom calls William and Kate did during COVID, or the pictures we got of them phoning people from KP offices during COVID. William and Kate are the future king and Queen, and their children are senior royals. That was a “work” event.

When William and Kate give us a peek into their private lives, it is usually for a very big event—their tenth wedding anniversary or the Jubilee—and even then, it is quasi-staged. We know they walks on the beach and play in the yard, but that video was a professional shoot, made for public consumption.  

Even if the royals did start to give more influencer style tidbits, which I think is unlikely, but always within the realm of the possible as they try to balance monarchy with modernity, it wouldn’t feel the way the Sussexes’ posts do. The key is that people are most critical of the Sussexes because of the hypocrisy. The Sussexes say one thing and do another as it suits them. They demonize the royal family and bill themselves proudly as Duke and Duchess. They call the family racist and fly to the biggest party in the world, hat boxes and morning suits in hand. They claim Diana-level pressure and press release about an allegedly private and intimate birthday party for their child. They have the liberty to be radically inconsistent, but the public gets to critique the erratic choices…and muse on motives.