In the days before the Princess of Wales made her big cancer-announcement (a video which dropped on March 22), one of the biggest stories in the British media was about the investigation into which hospital staffers accessed Kate’s medical records. There was a lot of back-and-forth about who accessed what and when (and where), and reportedly, three staffers were under investigation as of March 20th or thereabouts. What was meant as a sympathetic story for Kate took some weird twists and turns, because I absolutely believe that if someone accessed Kate’s records, they were doing it to sell that information to one of the British tabloids… the same tabloids which were falling all over themselves to lie and scam on Kate’s behalf. Well, Kate’s video changed the narrative on that whole story. Now the Daily Mail reports exclusively that Kate’s cancer-announcement video happened because someone accessed her records. As opposed to a sudden need, after months of deception and dissembling, to come clean.
The Princess of Wales’s video announcement detailing her cancer treatment was rushed out by Kensington Palace aides after her diagnosis had been leaked, the Mail can reveal. Kate Middleton confirmed she had been diagnosed with cancer and is undergoing ‘preventative chemotherapy’ for the disease in a video message on March 22.
However, a well-placed source has revealed the timing of the video nothing to do with the speculation that would have come from her missing church on Easter morning, but instead because someone had knowledge of her health condition.
Kensington Palace had been contacted about Kate’s diagnosis, leaving no option but to hurry to get ahead of the story, the insider told the Daily Mail’s Ephraim Hardcastle column.
It is unclear as to whether the leak came from within The London Clinic, where the Princess underwent abdominal surgery in January, or from elsewhere.
It’s really odd/funny that the Mail is reporting this exclusively, given there was a persistent rumor two weeks ago that the Mail was the outlet set to break the “Kate has cancer” story. My guess is that if the Mail did have some or all of the information, they went to Kensington Palace and gave them a heads up/deadline to get ahead of it, or else the Mail would break the story.
That’s not the only weird thing though – “a well-placed source has revealed the timing of the video nothing to do with the speculation that would have come from her missing church on Easter morning…” Let’s be clear: senior sources within Kensington Palace were briefing the media – for a full week before Kate’s video – that Kate would be resurrected on Easter Sunday, that she would be back at work after her kids’ Easter holiday, etc. Again, Kensington Palace destroyed their own credibility over and over again for three months and this was the most bizarre crisis management/comms strategy I’ve ever seen in my life.
Photos courtesy of Kensington Palace’s video, Cover Images.