Last week, the Princess of Wales attended the Royal Variety show with her husband. Per usual for the royal attendees, William and Kate greeted some of the performers backstage after the show. That’s when Su Pollard apparently told Kate: “I like your hair, it looks a lot lighter.” Kate replied, “It used to be brown, but it’s gone light in the sunshine.” That was reported by the Daily Mail, and widely picked up by other outlets. No one in the British press said a word about Kate’s very obvious lie, even if social media was full of laughter and mockery over Kate’s latest dumb hair lie. Well, Mail columnist Liz Jones is doing that thing particular to the British media: dragging a royal under the cover of “defending” the royal. The basic gist of Jones’s new column is “sure, we all know Kate is lying, but she has her reasons and it’s rude to talk about someone’s hair!!”

What a blabbermouth! Off with her head! The actress Su Pollard has broken the circle of trust upon meeting a royal and now? Well, all hell has broken loose. It has been revealed by the Hi-de-Hi alumnus that when she met the Princess of Wales backstage at the Royal Variety Performance earlier this month, she brazenly made a very personal comment, viz: ‘I like your hair, it looks a lot lighter,’ Su commented. Catherine replied: ‘It used to be brown, but it’s gone light in the sunshine.’

Cue much guffawing and incredulity on social media. ‘Umm, love Princess Kate, but that didn’t come from the sun. And she’s also wearing extensions,’ one commenter wrote. ‘There’s no way on God’s green earth the “sunshine” did that to her very dark tresses,’ wrote another.

I imagine as soon as Catherine opened her mouth to reply she knew the comments, should her response be made public, would come thick and fast. Catherine would have perhaps not wanted to go into naming her hairdresser or the shade on the box. She might not have wanted to dampen a lovely evening with talk about how cancer can change your hair texture and colour. And so she replied with something bland and innocuous but, of course, these days proves to be anything but.

Kate should of course have replied with a simple thank you, followed by a smile before gracefully moving on. But even a dignified silence these days can spark accusations of ‘she’s so snooty!’ and ‘who on earth does she think she is?’.

Unfortunately for Kate, she is now the most famous woman in the world in the age of social media: every aspect of her appearance is pulled apart by online vivisectionists. She attempted to quell what she saw as a distraction from her work by no longer disclosing details of her clothes, but of course unless she wears a burqa we can still take potshots at her make-up, discuss whether a choppy bob would suit her better (why are older women always told to cut our hair?) or debate whether she has had veneers and on and on. For the rest of her life. Because there is no age at which a woman’s looks are no longer a crop to beat us with.

Most faced with her level of criticism would never leave the house but, unfortunately, appearing in public, photographed from every angle, is her job. Her first official appearance after treatment – Trooping the Colour in 2024 – was greeted by offensive comments along the lines of ‘nobody looks ten years younger having had chemo’, while fellow sufferers remarked, ‘I’m clearly not doing cancer right’.

[From The Daily Mail]

Usually, the Mail only repeats online snark when it comes to the Duchess of Sussex, never with Kate. But it looks like Liz Jones wanted to get some stuff off her chest, all while buffering her criticisms with simpering sympathy for poor, lying Kate. “Catherine would have perhaps not wanted to go into naming her hairdresser or the shade on the box.” Ouch. “Or debate whether she has had veneers and on and on…” She has veneers, that’s not a debate. There was a debate last year about whether she’s gotten new veneers though, but that conversation was only on social media, not anywhere within the British media. They continue to act like they are required to comment on every single part of Meghan’s appearance, life and work but they never bring even a fraction of that energy towards the princess they pay for, the same princess who just openly lies about really obvious sh-t like her hair.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.