What’s going on with Kate Middleton? If you haven’t asked yourself this question during the past week, then you probably haven’t seen the endless chatter that seems to be taking over social media. First, let’s get this out of the way: The future queen most likely is indeed recovering from abdominal surgery, just as Kensington Palace said she is. But a confluence of factors—and the public’s rabid preoccupation with celebrity gossip—have converged to make some people online think that something is very amiss.
Here are the actual facts. The Princess of Wales has not been seen in public since Christmas Day, when she, her husband Prince William, and their three children joined the rest of the royal family for a holiday church service. She was smiling and looked well, judging solely on photos.
On January 17, Kensington Palace announced that the princess had undergone a “planned abdominal surgery” and would spend 10 to 14 days in the hospital recovering. The statement attempted to prepare the public for Princess Kate to take a long break from public life, saying that she would not resume royal duties until after the Easter holiday on March 31. That same day Buckingham Palace announced that King Charles III had undergone a procedure for an enlarged prostate. Less than a month later, on February 5, the Palace released another statement saying that during that procedure, doctors had discovered Charles had an unspecified form of cancer, for which he is now being treated.
To the public, it was a lot of information all at once, and the princess’s health news was somewhat overshadowed by the announcement that the king of England was facing his own health challenges. At first it seemed everyone just wished Kate well. People speculated on what the surgery could be for—some guessed a hysterectomy, for example—but Kensington Palace didn’t share the reason, perhaps planting a seed in people’s minds that there’s something to hide, especially since Buckingham Palace had been forthcoming about the king’s issues. On January 29, Kensington Palace announced Kate was headed home to continue her recovery.
This all may seem fairly benign, but we live in 2024. Kate Middleton is one of the most photographed people in the world, and the fact that she hasn’t been seen publicly in months is unusual. As people have pointed out on social media, why could the princess just not show her face online, to assuage everyone’s curiosity? A little Instagram photo with her kids, even sitting in bed, would put many of the most overblown rumors (that she’s in a coma, that she and the children have fled the country) to rest. And because she hasn’t, does that mean something actually might be wrong?
It’s important to contextualize the moment we are currently in. Picking apart and theorizing about the secret lives of celebrities has become our chosen pastime. Just look at the endless dissection of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s relationship—fans are speculating about how the couple feels about each other, extracting clues and Easter eggs based on everything from the jewelry Swift wears on game days to a certain video angle of them kissing after a concert. Online investigators are also attempting to get hints about Swift’s upcoming album by comparing things as seemingly random as her song titles to her red-carpet outfits. We lip-read to understand what celebrities are whispering to each other, we dissect pap walks, and we read Deux Moi. To be completely cut off from any of this access in the case of someone as famous as Kate feels foreign, and it creates an element of suspense where one may or may not exist.
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