The ‘Where is Kate Middleton’ Conspiracies Have Gotten Very Uncomfortable

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Celebrity | March 1, 2024 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Celebrity | March 1, 2024 |

The joke about Catherine, the Princess of Wales who will forever be best known to the world as Kate Middleton, is that she’s pretty boring. She has to be. The future Queen has been in the public eye for well over 20 years, defined exclusively as the girlfriend and then wife of an heir to the British throne. Raised in a wealthy family and taught in private schools, she has grown up with a level of expectations around her that only grew in size once she became a royal. We know surprisingly little about her, given her level of fame, and have very little in terms of her backstory that could be spun into scandal. The Crown had to focus on her mother being an alleged scheming matchmaker to try and make Kate more interesting and even that didn’t work. This is all by design, of course. She’s carefully moulded herself into an inscrutable figure, smiling and polite but not especially intriguing. One can hardly blame her for creating a shield of boredom around herself when the British press is so notoriously cruel and marrying a Prince has historically led to nothing but pain and humiliation for the women involved. It’s Kate’s job to be dull, albeit with nice shoes on. So, how do you make her so fascinating that the world can’t stop talking about her? You make her disappear.

Last year, it was announced by the palace that Kate would undergo abdominal surgery due to an ‘undisclosed’ medical condition (although it was also made clear that it wasn’t cancer.) The palace announced that the surgery would take place at The London Clinic and that her recovery time would be long, potentially putting off public engagements until Easter. This all seems pretty standard, right? Someone has a medical issue, they get it treated and stay out of the way until they’re recovered. But it’s now been well over two months since anyone has seen Kate in public or heard a word from her, and that is weird. The Royal Family’s entire existence is dependent on them being public, on acting as so-called figureheads who cut ribbons, kiss babies, and pretend the 21st century still requires a constitutional monarchy. Around the time of Kate’s surgery, King Charles announced that he was being treated for cancer, and even he’s been seen more publicly in the interim weeks than Kate.

The internet has gotten feverish with theories, some of which are funny (she’s dating Pete Davidson? She’s joined the sad Wonka scam attraction in Glasgow!), and some of which are dangerously conspiratorial. I won’t delve into some of the nastier theories, which involve leering over a woman’s reproductive health or joking about botched cosmetic surgery. It’s no surprise that many on social media and some more tin-hat-heavy publications have reveled in this nonsense. One of the reasons I’ve been hesitant to write about this is because I didn’t want to add fuel to some gross fires. You know my stance on the monarchy (get rid of it all) and the ways that the Wales couple reportedly treated their sister-in-law (again, get rid of them), but I don’t think any of that is justification to gloat over the health of a mother of three. Too many people on this hellsite we call the internet think they can be as misogynistic as they please if they preface their screeds as ‘critiques.’

There is still a lot to talk about here, though. The gap between respecting someone’s medical privacy and the glaring PR errors of the royal business has only gotten bigger and people have started to take notice. As many have pointed out, it is telling that the Wales family has received nothing but respect and distance from the British press following this while Meghan Markle was all but banned from receiving help when she experienced suicidal ideation during her first pregnancy due to media invasiveness. The royal ratpack, more stenographers for the palace than actual journalists, have bowed their heads in silence for Kate’s treatment while they brayed in fury when Meghan did not offer a detailed plan for the birth of her son to them. The double standard is evident. This is not to say that Kate should have to get out of bed and prove to the world that she’s sick. One of the worst aspects of celebrity, in my opinion, is in how we strip away people’s right to privacy when it comes to making choices about their health. That should be a right we all have, to keep that relationship between ourselves and our doctors. But would the media be so eager to stick to the rules dictated by the palace if it were Meghan undergoing surgery? Admit it, you know the answer already.

I think the main reason a lot of people are now obsessed with this ‘disappearance’ is because it goes against our expectations of the royals and their typically careful media planning. The old ethos of the Windsors, ‘never complain, never explain’, was tossed out long before Elizabeth II died. The royals love to explain themselves now, usually through palace ‘sources’ and sympathetic reporters who have chosen their side in the perennial slap-fights between the many wings of The Firm. Bad press is seen as a sign of weakness, evidence that they can’t keep their affairs in order. But I’m not sure this is bad press, per se. It’s conspiracy, and as we’ve seen many times before, there really is no way to combat that which is not rooted in reality.

Kensington Palace issued a terse statement this week, noting that Kate was ‘doing well’ and that they’d ‘made it clear in January the timelines of the Princess’ recovery and we’d only be providing significant updates.’ A perfectly standard statement but in Conspiracy World it only makes things worse. You can’t combat people who spend days online claiming they know everything about abdominal surgery and that Kate is lying about her situation for reasons only they know. You can’t alleviate the mania that turns something that is ultimately pretty mundane into the scandal of the century. Frankly, it’s kind of sad to go onto certain sites covering this story with multiple posts a day that proudly pander to misogyny and see no shame in bragging about their enjoyment of a stranger’s potential pain. A lot of these sites’ ‘coverage’ is now no different from obsessive anti-fans who think every actor’s girlfriend is a PR plant. That’s not anti-monarchism: that’s just being an arsehole.

The story has become so overblown that nothing will stop months or even years’ worth of theorizing. I’m pretty sure Kate could be seen in public tomorrow, looking happy and healthy, and these sites will go full QAnon and claim she’s a double or puppet. Could the palace have prevented this? I’m not sure, to be honest. The price one pays for celebrity and media control is a loss of normalcy, and what should have been a standard health issue is now the stuff of corkboards and red string. It’s also the inevitable side-effect of being a rotten institution where women are treated as nothing more than broodmare clothes horses. Truly, I hope that Kate is okay, because all we have in life is our health, and I would hate for my medical privacy to be ripped from me. Amid all the fun and memes is an insidious strain of conspiratorial giddiness that won’t be sated, and that’s just bad for all of us.