once again, the royal family's press woes

on the kate middleton rumors

Ok, it's been enough time: let's discuss those Kate Middleton/British royal family rumo(u)rs.

(Before we get started, and yes, this will be a lengthy parenthetical but you can scroll if you hate me, I wanted to quickly apologize for my slightly less frequent posts this month. My birthday is this week and the run-up to the day always makes me feel some type of way. I don't mind aging one bit, but I do spend the weeks surrounding my birthday thinking what am I doing what have I done what will be my legacy in a frantic way oddly reminiscent of Selina Meyer's post-presidential journey. It is a humbling period but I am almost past it, so things will soon be back to normal.)

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You all know this, but to lay it all on the table: on January 17, Kensington Palace announced that Kate Middleton, former Duchess of Cambridge and current Princess of Wales to the purists, would undergo a "planned abdominal surgery," after which she would remain in [the] hospital for 10 to 14 days and then — shock of all shocks to royal watchers and nosy people everywhere — would spend the next two and a half months out of the public eye, in recovery. 

It took a few weeks but the rumors about Middleton's whereabouts and the true state of her health did their job and spread. It is odd, is it not, wondered an increasing number of people, for one of the most popular members of the beleaguered royal family to be out of commission for almost three months with nary a warning? The same woman who thrice left the hospital in smiles within hours of giving birth now needs two weeks in the hospital and months in recovery? The same family who gave us this truly unhinged photo of Philip, the late Duke of Edinburgh, to prove (with understandably fledgling success) the then 98-year-old consort was alive? Conspiracy theorists were on the case: What are they not telling us?

Now, are people on the Internet insane? Of course. Yes. It wouldn't be the Internet without them/us. It is not new (the insanity), and indeed is an assumption that press teams, these days, should always work into their strategy. I simply hate doing free labor, but here’s a question the royal family should be asking and answering every single day: If we say nothing about the princess that too many people are overly invested in — such investment one of the few reasons we can keep justifying this institution’s survival — then what is the most deranged thing these people can say and how can we temper it?

Obviously, I hope Middleton is well, or on her way to it. At the same time, I find the hand wringing from certain royalist and royalist-adjacent circles going on about oh let's leave Catherine alone, does she not deserve her privacy just like any woman would a bit disingenuous and acontextual. Like, this is the same family that when Meghan Markle was pregnant and having serious mental health issues, allegedly told her, oh drats, that sucks for you, unforch there is nothing we can do :(. One, being human and having an awareness of history, cannot help but compare comparable events.