To put it mildly? This hasn’t been the best month of Prince William’s life (or, of course, Princess Kate, who continues to recover from the blow to the body of abdominal surgery and the blow to the soul as the world’s collective target of vitriol).
What started from the viral question “Where is Kate Middleton?” turned hateful and distrustful after Photogate; conspiracy theories continue after William and Kate were spotted at Windsor Farm Shop over the weekend (trolls claimed it wasn’t Kate at all but a body double, or AI, or, or, or). Then, the final blow—news broke this week that staff at The London Clinic, where Kate underwent abdominal surgery, had allegedly tried to access Kate’s private health data. (The Mirror reports that three staff members reportedly looked at Kate’s information after she left hospital on January 29.)
The Daily Mail’s Rebecca English wrote that William feels like he has the “weight of the world on his shoulders,” and his outrage has grown: “I know he is angry, frustrated, and, yes, deeply disappointed at what has transpired over recent weeks,” she wrote. “‘When will it all stop?’ he is said to have asked.”
English continued that William has been trying to protect his family—wife Kate and kids Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis—from the kind of intrusion that happened to his mother, Princess Diana. (Can you even imagine if Diana had been alive in the days of widespread internet and social media use? It would probably look a whole lot like this.)
“William has now learnt the hard way that this degree of control does not extend to the sump of social media—let alone foreign publications and even primetime U.S. television—which are simply not subject to a fraction of the same regulation as news outlets here,” English wrote.
Perhaps most worrying to William is the downward spiral into madness the internet seems to have gone down on behalf of his wife, English wrote. Nothing seems to quell public fervor—not a photo of Kate riding with her mother, Carole Middleton, in a car; not the Mother’s Day photo—probably released with the best of intentions—that turned nightmarish; not the Windsor Farm Shop video that has been scrutinized and picked apart and rejected, too.
“I know from the sources I’ve spoken to that both William and Kate have been pretty shocked and genuinely surprised by the wild rumors that are circulating on the internet,” royal expert Katie Nicholl told Entertainment Tonight. “I think there’s a sense of frustration, possibly even anger, certainly on William’s part.”
She continued “I think the suggestions that [Kate’s] had, well, anything as crazy as a bad haircut that she’s needed to grow out to cosmetic surgery that’s gone wrong or people speculating that possibly she’s in a coma—I think that has made the Prince of Wales frustrated, upset, and pretty angry as well.”
Nicholl said the couple are active on social media, and “They’ve got an Instagram handle, they’ve got hundreds of thousands of followers,” she said. “They certainly don’t have their heads in the sand. They are aware of what is being written and what is being said. And I think there’s a sense of frustration that they can’t bring an end to it.” She added “It’s been difficult for them. I think they’re trying to ignore as much as they can.”
Nicholl said she thought the recent sighting of Kate over the weekend would have “quashed all of the fevered speculation about the Princess of Wales,” she said. “You would have thought that the video, which showed her walking at quite a brisk pace, carrying a shopping bag, looking pretty healthy and happy, and chatting in a very relaxed way with her husband, would have just dampened out all of the rife speculation that has really been circulating on the internet for weeks now. But, unbelievably, many of those theories are still circulating on the internet.”
Through the firestorm, William has continued to undertake royal engagements as Kate prepares for her own return to public-facing duties next month.
