So my quiet little conspiracy about the Princess of Wales is that she, along with Kensington Palace staffers, always intended to do certain things to show her “recovery.” I believe that there was always a plan to release a “new photo of Kate” for Mother’s Day, just as I believe the original plan was for Kate’s first public appearance to be at church in Windsor on Easter Sunday. The thing is, the palace wanted those things to be a surprise – they didn’t want anyone to EXPECT Kate to be seen or to do anything until May/June. They were caught off-guard by the past month of speculation, conspiracies and rumormongering, and they’ve been trying to react in real time, only everyone involved – from senior staff to junior staff to the Waleses themselves – is an incompetent dumbass. It’s given the impression that Will and Kate are staggering from one self-created crisis to another. Mid-stagger, they’re trying to go back to the original plan, only they’ve made everything into such a four-alarm crisis that if Kate doesn’t show up to church on Easter, it will be international news and the conspiracies will get even worse. Speaking of, now “friends of King Charles” are basically letting Kate know (through the press) that she better put on an Easter wig and hustle her ass to church OR ELSE.
Kate Middleton’s return to public life will be marked with a “big bang” return to the limelight on Easter Sunday, March 31, friends of the royals have told The Daily Beast. Expectations are building that the Princess of Wales will walk to church with other members of the royal family on Easter Sunday and greet well-wishers in a show-stopping set piece, heralding her return to public life.
While her officials have been busily reminding journalists that they initially briefed that her return to public duties would come “after Easter,” with some suggestions that could actually mean “after the kids Easter holidays have finished,” a friend of Kate’s and a friend of King Charles told The Daily Beast that they expected and hoped respectively that Kate would attend church on Easter Sunday morning, in just under two weeks.
While Kensington Palace declined to comment on whether Kate would be walking to church on Easter Sunday, or indeed if she would be seen out and about privately before then after she visited a farm shop with husband Prince William this weekend, one friend said, “She is doing well. Everything is on track. Easter will be the big bang moment.”
A friend of the king’s, meanwhile, told The Daily Beast that Charles “of course” hoped Kate would attend church at Easter. However they were also careful to point out that there was no suggestion of any pressure being put on Kate to do so, and that it would be ultimately up to her. (As for Charles himself, while there has been no specific guidance on whether the king will attend church on Easter Sunday, his attendance would be unlikely as the palace has said he is avoiding crowds while he receives cancer treatment. Queen Camilla will likely represent him instead.)
Another source, a former Buckingham Palace staffer, told The Daily Beast that Easter was “the natural choice” for Kate to make her return to the public sphere. The former courtier said that attending the Easter Day church service at Sandringham with her family would provide a “powerful dose of continuity.”
They said they understood it was unlikely that there would be a social media campaign featuring Kate—last seen in public on Dec. 25, 2023—or that her team would release any more images of Kate before Easter.
The former courtier added that she is now expected to delegate the business of photographing her family for media handouts to professional photographers, after another image taken by Kate of the late Queen Elizabeth II was struck out of official records by the photo agency Getty Images which declared it had been altered. The former courtier, who retains good links with current staff members said: “We won’t be seeing any more official pictures with Kate’s credit. It would just stir the whole story up again. The kids are older now anyway, so it is less of an issue.”
Asked if the reality was that the palace would have little choice now that major picture agencies have said they no longer regard Kensington Palace as a trusted source, the former staffer said: “They could continue to put her pictures out on social media but the point is, they won’t.”
Re: the palace-released photos, I said yesterday that I genuinely hope that media agencies dip into their archives and start labeling all of the manipulated photos released by KP for YEARS. This is practically an admission that yeah, they got caught on that too. They thought they could keep sending out manipulated photos forever and no one would say sh-t. That blew up in their faces, as did their lack of preparation for how to keep the public informed about Kate’s condition. Anyway, I’m sure Kate will be resurrected for Easter, or at least that’s what everyone in Windsor World is telling Kate that she has to do. Although, history shows us that whenever pressure is applied on Will and Kate to get off their asses, they refuse.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid.