I wonder if there are some legit sighs of relief at Kensington Palace that Finding Freedom has dominated the conversation all month. While FF has not been complimentary to Prince William and Duchess Kate, I think everyone knows that it could have been WAY worse. Plus, the FF stories completely pushed away the remaining gossip about Kate’s Tatler catastrophe several months ago, where (this is my reading of it) Kensington Palace authorized what they thought would be a big embiggening cover story about “Kate the Future Queen” and it blew up in their faces spectacularly. There was so much shady sh-t in that Tatler piece and it made a mockery of what Kate was actually trying to do, which is gloat about how she’s the only “younger royal woman” left and she’s all they’ve got now. Well, please allow Kate’s favorite hagiographer to underline that point:
The Duchess of Cambridge is being brought ‘into the forefront’ as a clear ‘Queen-in-waiting’ by Palace aides because they ‘realise the power Kate and Prince William have as a young, glamorous, dynamic duo’, a royal expert has claimed.
Kate, 38, who is currently staying with her family at Anmer Hall in Norfolk, is taking on more duties and creating a bigger public profile ‘than ever before’, according to royal commentator Katie Nicholl. Speaking to True Royalty’s Kate: The Making of a Modern Queen, she suggested the Palace is being ‘clever’ and using the Duchess of Cambridge’s popularity to their advantage.
She said: ‘We are seeing a Queen-in-waiting. We are seeing the Duchess take on more duties, more royal engagements, more of a public profile than ever before.’
Katie added that the mother-of-three is taking on more patronages from both the Queen and her husband the Duke of Edinburgh as a sign that she is stepping up her royal duties.
‘This is all very deliberate,’ said the royal expert. ‘It’s very much part of the Palace machine bringing her from the shadows of Anmer and into the forefront, into the spotlight, because they are very clever. They realise the power of Kate and the potential of Kate and William as this young, glamorous, dynamic duo who actually do have the ability to reshape and project the monarchy into the future.’
Eight years ago, I would have agreed that William and Kate had the potential to be a young, glamorous royal couple who could have changed the way people saw the institution. They could have been modernizers and they could have dazzled people. But now? After all we’ve seen from them and all we HAVEN’T seen from them? This just reads like another promise to be keen eventually. Top CEO Kate has done a dozen Zoom calls and she cosplayed the Irish flag and that’s basically it. Instead of preparing to be Queen, it feels like she just aims to do the bare f–king minimum and she demands to be praised and flattered for it. Why would she change when she doesn’t have to?
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Kensington Palace.
Agree re: 8 years ago. They had so much public goodwill and then just…wasted it.
I agree, people were so full of hope 8 years ago and then, they just fell flat. Such a boring snooze.
I agree. They had so much promise but became another boring royal couple.
Now it is almost 10 years ago. They got engaged in Nov 2010.
Note to Kate stans. Don’t bother trying the Malta Lie, we all know it to be a lie.
what is the Malta Lie? lol
Yes, what is the Malta Lie? The Google Gods didn’t answer this one for me.
I believe NOTA is referring to the years the Queen spent as a newlywed in Malta where, despite the palace and media saying she was living a simple housewife life, she was actually living a very pampered, lazy life with LOTS of help. Fast forward and you had Kate doing the exact same thing in Wales after she and Willnot got married, despite the press saying they were living a simple life with no help, and that Kate did all the cooking, grocery shopping, etc.
The Malta lie is that the queen allowed will and kate do nothing in the first years of marriage because she wanted it be like the year she spent with Phillip on Malta when he was stationed there in the beginning of their marriage. The lie is that the queen never actually lived on Malta. She visited him on Malta. But she didn’t shrug off her royal duties so that they would live simply as husband and wife for a year.
The ‘lived two years in Malta as a newlywed’ was a lie spun by stans and RRs in the face of W&K refusing to work. They had to come up with some kind of excuse for the inexcusable.
Philip was stationed at Malta 1949-51, two years into their marriage. She visited him four times in two years, dates available on the Malta newspaper website in an article about the Jubilee. And she worked the whole time.
Simplest thing ever would have been for her to film reading a bedtime story to one or all of her kids during each night of lockdown and broadcast it out to all kid and encourage them to be brave/good/ “ it’s going to be okay” during lock down, Double points if someone has thought to film her doing a weekly Craft w stuff people who didn’t have a lot of money might have around the house ( paper chains, paper airplanes, I’d say flour water salt play dough but know flour was scarce) ….that would have been memorable and very little time and given her a zillion press links to the queen during WW2…
More like they dragged her kicking and screaming from the shadows. I don’t think that the palace is “clever” about anything at this point.
I wondered if she’d have another child to hide how little she does and give them some positive publicity
I think she should genuinely stay at home with the children or only do child centric events. She is best and most natural at these and when dressed down.
This would change her publicity forever.
I’ve said this below but Kate has a public element to her role, whether or not she likes it. She’s known this from the beginning. If she doesn’t want to work then she married the wrong guy and should have found a billionaire like Pippa or an aristo like her neighbour Rose. She has an HRH and is therefore answerable to the public in terms of her work. She can’t just go “You know what? I’m never going to work again but I’ll keep the taxpayer funding and all the privileges!” You’re either in or you’re out (as we’ve seen ourselves with Sussexit)
But yes I do agree that she should be doing more engagements related to kids as well as her Early Years stuff. It’s an important stage but Kate has been treating that whole project very superficially at times. She never really goes any deeper with it.
Sofia pippa hubby is neither billionaire nor millionaire. Times uk recently published top millionaire and billionaire in uk and low millionaire is 120 millions. James mattews was not on that list. Also in lsa someone mentioned that eden rock whatever the name the resort is now owned by some german. James mattews wealth is pure pr. Maybe at some point he might be millionaire but in 2020 he is not.
@microsoft: then substitute “billionaire” for “rich guy”. He might not be a billionaire but he probably does have money (otherwise I don’t think Pippa would have looked his way to be honest) and he’s got 10,000 acre estate in Scotland – which comes with it’s own title.
Anyways my post was more so about how Kate married the wrong dude if she wanted to be a SAHM/Lady who lunches.
That’s exactly it, Sofia. Kate seems unable to grasp that there is an exchange of sorts–royalty is allowed to live like, er, royalty on the people’s dime, and said royalty are expected to take some interest in their subjects.
As others have written, she doesn’t get to pretend to be a SAHM with the two housekeepers, three nannies, and myriad household staff.
She stalked the heir to the throne for a decade BECAUSE he was the heir to the throne. With that business arrangement marriage comes requirements, including the requirement to get off her pampered a$$ and work. Just as all the other working royal mothers did when they had young children too.
Yes Sofia! This is what bugs me. Kate and Will meeting up wasn’t accidental, it wasn’t a “meet cute” in a bar like Fred and Mary. She changed schools to have a chance to meet him. She knew the job came with certain requirements, yet she seems unwilling/unable to meet these. I honestly wonder whether they had a conversation about her not working early on and it was okay’ed by the rest of the family, if only to add some normalcy/stability to the BRF.
Mary and Fred’s meeting wasn’t accidental. It was during the Olympics and she found out there were princes hanging out in a bar. She skipped a co-worker’s going away party and went looking for a prince. Went after Felipe and Nikolas (Greece) first before settling on Fred.
To me, Nikolas has the most handsome of all the princes batch back then.
Harry is sexy AF, tho, but he was on the younger side, When I read MK’s obsession with redheads, and how he wrote about Hot Ginge, it brought him over to my attention.
THe Cambridge stans want them to be the next King and Queen and also for her to have another baby. Never mind that Charles is next.
I agree with Sofia. Lots of marriages come with in-built conditions – if she had married a career foreign diplomat she would be expected to move all around the world, if she’d married someone in the army, same thing. If she doesn’t want be a public royal and actually work, then get a divorce!
That was the phrase that jumped into my mind when I read the headline to this!
This trick has had, according to the CC, EIGHT “engagements “ (consisting of most Zoom calls, and a few in person visits lasting less than an hr each) SINCE JUNE 1st! That’s EIGHT HRS. OF “WORK” in THREE MONTHS. Wow, no wonder this top CEO is soooo exhausted!
I mean working EIGHT WHOLE HRS. on top of telling Nanny(ies) what to do, working on her tan, and bronding her hair…! Well, we lesser mortals would be laying on the floor, slayed. Whadda Woman! /s
Right. They might want to wait until she’s actually done something or has something planned at the very least, before you claim she’s being brought out of the shadows and is doing so much more work now. Because she’s not. At all. She’s been at Amner Hall for months and months, leaving only to go on vacation, and the only thing on the books for her coming up is supposedly another vacation to Scotland. This article would make sense if it came out right after Kate did a bunch of engagements. But as it is, she’s doing the same/maybe less work than she’s ever done, we haven’t seen her in weeks, she has no concrete plans for any future work or projects, and yet they’re writing to tell us that she’s working more, taking on more duties, more royal engagements, a larger public profile, that she’s part of some kind of glamorous, hardworking dynamic duo, and she’s super out in front. Where? When? How?
Maybe they think that if they keep repeating what Kate is going to do, it’ll come true. At this stage we have no more expectations of what she’ll do than the little we’ve seen already.
why is she in the ‘shadows’ in the first place? Hasn’t she been with the family for 18 years?? It’s about time she started doing something!
The palace has never been clever about anything. Especially when it comes from Katie Nicholl’s mouth. She’s not even an expert liar.
Absolutely, Deanne. She deliberately put herself in the shadows and was joined by her husband. They thought Harry amd Meghan were going to pick up the slack because Bull and Cathy are a pair of lazy apathetic twats. You wanna (eventually) be king and consort and accept all the perks that go with that? Fine, and you may be offended by the four-letter word, but you’ll have to *work* for it.
These people have no choice but to throw all their eggs in the Cambridge basket because they have nothing else to work with but I find it hilarious that you have people begging Harry to return on National TV and columns, they still stalk them and report everything they do, they were pressed about the montecito home purchase. You got fashion editors begging Meghan to start dressing again. If Kate and William were as important and glamorous and the face of the monarchy that these like to people claim, why are they still pressed about the other couple? Because the two dull ones aren’t enough and this is just the media saving face because they ran the actual dynamic duo out of town with their behavior.
Also Katie Nicholl is full of it. I don’t see her in America talking about the Cambridge’s as much the Sussexes. She knows where her bread is buttered. That’s why she’s hanging on for dear life.
Fashion editors are begging Meghan to start dressing again?? Too funny.
Yep. When Meghan did her girl up speech, the fashion editor of the Telegraph said that Meghan should start dressing up again ala Michelle Obama and that since Meghan obviously loves Givenchy, Dior and other small designers, she should wear that stuff again. Not strip back her style basically. It was a whole lot of nothing and basically screamed we need content because Kate isn’t enough.
since when are Givenchy and Dior small designers? Point aside, I admit I miss her style – while not always a hit, rarely ever a total miss and stuff I would likely incorporate into a daily work wardrobe.
So is she a kingmaker, a top CEO, a perfect royal or now being brought to the forefront? The kp dwellers should stop with these ridiculous embiggens cos no one believes it , kate is still the lazy boring buttons loving royal she was yrs ago, she hasnt taken on more roles neither is she improving in her public demeanor
Also someone should tell katie the gossip to never ever use glamorous and dynamic couple to describe the Duke and duchess of blandville it’s an insult to those adjectives. She shouldn’t also call anyone in that place clever cos we all know they are dumb as rock
It’s the “if we keep saying it over and over again, people will believe us” syndrome. Pretty pathetic.
I would love it if someone compiled all of the “Kate is coming out now!/starting to work more/taking on more engagements/finding her voice/beginning a big new project” articles so we can see just how many times this exact same narrative has been thrown at us. I want a list of article titles, brief summary, and dates. I have a feeling we would see approximately 12 “Kate is starting to do something” articles per year, going back for years and years.
Does anyone believe these articles? Are they working? Do people read them and just assume that Kate is definitely working more because they’re writing about it? And after awhile of reading the same article over and over again, do people start to lose faith? Are they hoping to reach new readers with every article? Or are they hoping that their royal watchers are extremely forgetful?
PWT and KK are not what I would ever call “glamorous.”
Wasn’t she old fashioned last week?
@Lizzie- an excellent point! I still find her an antiquated trope.
Or “dynamic”…
@Belli- definitely not!
You mean being dragged into the forefront?!?!?
Top CEO LOVES the media attention, always has but she only loves the praise when it’s on her terms and being made to work more is not one of those terms. She prefer’s to be praised just merely for existing. Work is for peasants and she’s a Duchess and FF Queen Consort dontcha know.
Work is for peasants seems to have been her motto even before she married and was still a peasant.
This, Digital Unicorn. She’s always loved the attention, back to the dating years when she went out of her way to be papped with William. Wanted to stake her claim publicly. Her ‘work’ now mostly involves her posing for PR shots at events. It is only when she has to pretend to care about people around her that she resists.
Us readers may get diabetes from this much sugary articles about Kate. She being absent for more than two weeks and top ceo has time for holidays ah ?? These people are setting her up for fall and when queen dies these people will have very rude awakening. Meghan with that much bad press have positive ratings among millennials but kate especially struggle with millennials woman particular. I love to see how she will navigate from this point onwards now Sussex are out and without instagram they are doing so much with young son. If she work during this time instead of being lazy she might have excuse in later years. She will be compared to prince philip when she hit princess wales.
Boomers and Gen X recall Diana and how much Diana did in terms of charity so no one other than royalists think that Kate is remotely comparable. She’s mediocrity personified and many women in their 40s and up are quite aware of just how lazy Kate is. Many have also raised kids without nannies and managed to do much more with their more limited resources than her so they know full well the bs that is being peddled by the RR.
I don’t see why she won’t just do more work. She doesn’t have to be a workhorse but come on. The press is ready and willing to hype up ANYTHING you do, why not give them something to work with?? Her and William will never have the charisma or recapture the interest they had around the time of their wedding but the press will surely act like they’re the It Couple if they worked more than a few times a month.
I agree! Kate got an absurd amount of praise for wearing a mask in AUGUST, because it gave the press a scrap of actual news to work with. All these wheel-spinning stories, with the RR endlessly quoting themselves and each other as “experts”, just highlight how rarely the Cambridges do anything to generate content.
Why would Kate work harder if she pays people to spin her six hours a week efforts into TOP CEO level of time management gold?
If she has not done it so far, I doubt she would ever. the moment is now. Sussexes exiled themselves, TQ in lockdown- if not now, when?
The woman is pushing forty, can barely speak, has no real investment in what she does, would happily keep popping babies and disappointing people so they would not expect much of her…I mean, leave the woman be!
she has made absolutely clear she sees that taxpayer money as hard-earned because she does the Lion King announcement and sneds these pics she takes of her children to the press now and then, and some people even want more?
the RF knows and so the Press: Kate cannot do more because there is no more in her. The same with William. That is how they plan on living their life and they want to normalize it so that people accept it as fact- why was so important to have the Sussex go.
Their vision of a small Monarchy is that. Fewer people. fewer events, less charitable efforts. A return to what Monarchy meant before WWI forced them to change things: a part-time job at best with giant perks and no pushback.
You are right Priscilla about before WWI – a hundred years ago the royal family was at the top of a very rigid structure – earls, marquesses, dukes, princes, King/queen. Nobody stepped out of that system except to marry a megawealthy heiress. Charles tried marrying the daughter of an earl but was too much of a shit to do it right, and all the marriages since have been to non-royal, non-peer related people. Better for the gene pool, but really who are these people other than a bunch of middle-class nitwits that married into money? They may as well hold a lottery and let everyone get a chance to be royal for a month or so.
I think they know this, I think the English/Scottish aristocracy sneers at the Windsors, and I think they used to believe their own BS until a bad black bitch supernova showed up and they freaked out. Asses.
60 minutes a week at best, Priscila. Kate doesn’t put in anywhere near six hours a week.
Maybe, if you include fluffing her hair and putting eyeliner, eh… browsing her coatdress catalogue.
Now that I think about it, you’re right not even then.
@NOTASUGARHERE
6 hours a week seems right, but not EVERY week. She needs her sweet time in between to recover. She is a shy woman doing her best. Lol
Definitely they had the goodwill when they were marrying.
Now I can’t find an excuse but still they have the most potential to be glamorous and gather interest by display kids..
i just feel like Kate herself doesn’t want to be glamorous anymore at all. She purposefully wears ugly dresses it’s almost like a message.
It’s almost as if there’s a hex on that family. Every PR opportunity just blows up spectacularly in their faces. People instinctively know that W and K are insincere, inauthentic and they confirm it with their laziness. K has no redeeming qualities beyond being super thin and her rictus grin. Her attitude at the CW service was the nail in the coffin for many people.
They are not hexed they are just bad at PR. Also they are still using the outdated play book because they are dumb n complacent
To be fair they don’t give pr people much to work with.
This sounds like the same old Story, just a different day…wash, rinse, repeat. How many times are the palace aids and RRs going to recycle this same worn out narrative about the top CEO? And I guess Camilla doesn’t matter at all cause she’s next in line, not Kate.
IMO, W&K chose to sit back and do as little as possible because they didn’t really want to work and kept using the “hands on parenting” excuse. And they were allowed to get away with it while using Harry as the third wheel. But then Harry matures, marries a woman who works and shares his visions. Now suddenly, W&K are being shown up and are losing the popularity contest and they don’t like it. Hence, jealously ensues and here we are.
They don’t write these ridiculous pathetic stories about camilla because she works hard, kate is useless they all know it so they have no choice than to embiggen her. And not only are they jealous they are foolish n myopic too, if they were wise they would have known the importance of keeping harry and Meghan there to his maybe monarch, they would have supported him with their popularity, made him n his assistant look good but alas this is here we are and they have to suffer the consequences
Glamorous? She wears the same four looks every single time she leaves her home. All of her clothes are fussy, matronly, and overwrought. She is so in contrast to that of a modern woman, part of me wonders if she ever thinks “I was born in the wrong era.”
There was so much potential, but she does so little and didn’t want any competition painting that or her obvious lack of modernity out. They’re not bringing her out of the shadows so much as telling her and William “well you shoved your competition back to America, so time to get to work” because the firm realizes that Harry and Meghan will be doing their own work and people will be seeing media coverage of it and they’re going to compare the two no matter what. And if William and Kate don’t start pulling some weight the population might just be like “well wait a moment, why can’t you be doing what Harry and Meghan do, if they’re self funded and we give you millions of pounds a year?”
Right? Her and William did more to push out H&M than they’ve ever done for any of their patronages. If they directed half the effort to their charities, we wouldn’t be subjected to this nonsense.
Personally I think when she realized she could not compete with Meghan she went 180 degrees the other way, hence the old fashioned persona.
Totally agree! Kate and Meghan were so different than it would have been an asset to the Firm to broaden their appeal….. too bad.
I do feel Kate’s look got worse around that time! The only time that she looks okay is when she is really dressed up for a special event, otherwise it’s all buttons and collars, prairie librarian and so odd looking! And to be fair, her sportier looks don’t make me cringe. You get a sense that she has no idea who she is though.
(I know who I am, a plump aging forest fairy and I have the closet to prove it! 😂)
Stop trying to make fetch happen.
They really need to. It’s actually embarrassing
They really need to stop with the whole taking on more engagements and taking over stuff from others because she hasn’t done it. Even before covid her numbers weren’t any better than last year. She’s only done a handful of public engagements and yet Charles and Camilla have been out every week despite being in the at risk age group. And she hasn’t taken anything over in more than a year. They need to stop trying to build her up with something so easily disproven. But then it’s not like there’s anything else.
I agree. Her and William’s numbers haven’t changed. Harry and Meghan kept their patronage’s so this doesn’t make sense. Their low numbers will continue.
From the shadows…HA! All I see in my mind is Kate in her very large and tall fascinator standing on the balcony at Trooping 2018 front and center like a statue, one breathe away from singing “Don’t Cry for Me United Kingdom”…give me a break, Katie Nicholl.
Lord. Just stop it. Just stop this nonsense. Kate doesn’t want to work nor does she want to be placed in the forefront. Even the Tatler article made that clear. She wants to sit at home, do swimming/tennis, shop and that’s it (maybe an odd appearance of charity work). Kate does not want to be the “top CEO”. She has no work ethic and she’s never been told to get one. The only thing she was told was “Marry William”. Sorry if that sounds harsh but it’s true.
But her role requires her to be in the public and do some work (nobody is saying to do 9-5 nor do any of the royals do it but she can and should be doing 200-300 engagements a year) so she better figure out a way to work. If she doesn’t want to do any work then she needs to think about whether or not she wants to stay in the BRF
They are (no longer particularly) young, definitely not glamorous (I mean innate glamour, not being stuffed into a fancy frock once in a while) and calling them dynamic made me spit out my tea. This is just painful, we KNOW she doesn’t want to do any of this, it’s been clear for years, please stop lying so blatantly it hurts to read it.
Lmao from the shadows…is she Batman?
I got nothing else to say.
😀😀😀😀😀😃😃 you owe me cola
Ha! Batman or maybe she’s one of those energy vampires from “What We Do in the Shadows.” Nadja would have a field day with KM.
Aside from Royalists, is anyone in the U.K. buying what they keep trying to sell here?
Well if they keep repeating it often enough…
They always make it out to be that Kate is the reason the monarchy is still here. She is someone that STILL doesn’t know how to do her job correctly. The press needs to stop trying to sell her on everyone. It’s so embarrassing
It absolutely slays me that they’ve been talking about the greatness Kate is on the brink of bringing to the monarchy for a decade. We all know by now that’s not going to happen.
>> “ We are seeing the Duchess take on more duties, more royal engagements, more of a public profile than ever before.“
Are we though?
I feel like they say things like “smart to bring her out of the shadows” as way to make her appalling work ethic look intentional. Like they were saving her up as a secret weapon. No. Her and Will and have been pushed to the front since the wedding, they just never delivered on being the “new, modern generation”. And now that she’s spent the last couple of years playing 80s housewife dress up, she’s never gonna be the modern change the monarchy needs. They spent too long being sponges to the tax payers and appealing to the boomer crowd that loves them. It’s too late.
This Daily Fail article is lazy journalism at its finest. The writer lifted these quotes from Nichols from the special Kate: The Making of a Modern Queen that is currently streaming online. I recognized the wording because I just watched the special in the past few weeks–it’s currently running on Prime or Netflix or maybe Disney Plus. The special uses footage that is before the arrival of Louis and certainly before the arrival of Meghan and the commentary is several years old. It is nothing but a silly puff piece about how wonderful and calm and refreshing yet self-confident Kate is.
The only interesting thing that came out of the special was Nichols saying how terrified the royals are of having a repeat of the Charles/Diana/Camilla unhappy triangle, and how they will pamper the Cambridges to keep the happy family image in the public eye. Clearly, this was filmed before the Rose affair whispers, because in the special, Nichols is very upfront about how the royals do not think they will survive another cheating Prince of Wales. If you want some laughs, I recommend watching it.
Thanks for info, Harper. So Nichols was commenting in 2015/2016 after the Cadets and Wimbledon. Big deal, in other words.
I think that fear is why Kate is allowed to do so little and why she steps out the few times she does with a new and expensive outfit. She is leveraging Billy’s gardening activities so that she can get away with doing as little as possible. I don’t think she realizes that she isn’t Diana though and the public would get over any affair if spun the right way. Many have managed to get over Charles cheating on Diana and that was a massive disaster. Billy cheating won’t create the same sympathy. Kate is like Melania in that both knew who they were marrying and for mercenary reasons.
The gist of the message was that they didn’t want to pressure Kate too much and have her crack and fall apart. Which goes along with my hunch that the firm does not care how little Kate works, because her role is to provide stability to Wills. Now that it also looks like Kate’s extreme thinness may have the appearance of an eating disorder, could be they will put even less pressure on her. Someone was saying she does about four or five appearances a month; that may be all they will require of her. Her whirlwind, Early Childhood Survey Release trip is what probably set her off feeling like she was now being trotted out like a CEO because it was out of the norm. Now that Meghan’s gone, she’s back to the regularly scheduled low expectations.
Gonna have to drag her by all the buttons, wiglets, leggings, pussy bows and wedges she possesses to get that woman to act like a grown up with a diplomatic job to do.
Maybe they could wrestle Big Blue off her and dangle it outside Anmer‘s front door to lure her out?
Or get one of those greyhound racing rabbits and stick Meghan’s face on? Kate loves to win!
Lol! There goes my coffee.
The top pic is one of the prettiest I have seen of Kate in a long time. Of course smiling at a laptop with your hands in your lap at an otherwise empty table looks staged/moronic but anyway good hair day.
She looks like an idiot mannequin. I think that picture sums up Kate pretty well.
Big deal. She and William should be on People with the title “Most Boring Couple Alive.” They’re about as interesting as stale saltines.
I’m so hungry right at this moment that I would actually be delighted at a plate of stale saltines. I would not, however, be delighted at talking to Kate and William.
“Katie added that the mother-of-three is taking on more patronages from both the Queen and her husband the Duke of Edinburgh as a sign that she is stepping up her royal duties.”
I can hear Chandler Bing say: Could this sign BE any more pointless?
I mean, Kate taking on more patronages doesn’t mean diddly squat! She was called out in a live Zoom call for not visiting the patronage she was zooming since 2012! This is 2020! So big whoop if she is taking on more patronages. She seems to be the kiss of death for patronages as well as fashion lately.
Patricia Treble did a count of engagements this year and Kate as of Aug 1 had only 60 engagements, the second lowest after the Duchess of Kent who is not considered a full time royal and is elderly with medical issues.
It will be surprising if kate can even get to 100 engagements this year. Even including all the zooming.
Guess it was time for another “Finding her voice” article. Too bad she doesn’t have anything worthwhile to say. I’m getting a real Melania Trump vibe from Kate, they are like mirror images plus 10 years.
I am starting to think the old fashioned persona was kind of genius. It’s the reason she is the loser when compared to Meghan and bonus, she rarely works because she is old fashioned and bakes with her kids. Of course she only became old fashioned when her and her mother were worried about being outshone by Meghan. PS. in FF Meghan was baking gifts for others on the Austrailian tour IIRC.
That banana bread was genius and really showed the truth on Kate the homemaker bs they try to peddle. If Kate really did bake with any frequency then making something like banana bread is very simple. But the reality is that Kate likes to be served and does not serve others.
The shadows??? Really? The same woman who still has trouble putting weights in her hems, shows up to engagements wearing a white dress and sparkling shoes while packing boxes, smiles like the joker during engagements to avoid anyone seeing those jowls while everyone else has a straight face, wears a fuchsia colored dress to a wedding where everyone is wearing darker tones, wears a color so pale that it gets mistaken for white at another wedding, has a third baby due to the fact that her husband is the community peen of Norfolk, and cosplays as her late mother in law…..
What the palace needs to do is get Kate some speech lessons because right now she’s the duchess of mumblebridge, she’s been in the brf for almost ten years and can not speak a clear sentence to say her life, let the fake posh accent go Katie keen, it’s time. Also they need to get her into the British version of the toastmasters club because at her age, she shouldn’t appear frighten of giving speeches while shaking like a sinner in church. The Spanish princess was able to give a clear speech at 14, kate should be able to do that.
I know some people might think of what I wrote as harsh but she chased William for ten years and has been married to him for nine, that’s almost 20 years and what does she have to show for it except for a 5 question survey that wasn’t even done correctly because it was for a British initiative but anyone in the world could take the survey. Maybe instead of cosplaying as Diana, you should cosplay her work ethic but then again you would need to be actually warm towards people.
She’s also the Duchess who wore a bright pink coat to Ground Zero on her New York trip with Wills. I’m in NY, and I’ve never forgotten how horrifying I thought that was. Only a truly narcissist dimwit could have thought that was a smart decision, and I started to dislike her then.
Fellow NYer and felt the same way!
@Feeshalori Glad I’m not the only one who noticed (great to see another New Yorker here)!
I am still appalled at how she wore that hot pink coat to Ground Zero- I thought it was a serious judgment lapse for the sake of standing out, and while supposedly paying respects during an official engagement there. I also remember how she wore all black to visit kids with Chirlaine McCray, and thought her outfits should have been switched around. (Had she not worn the pink coat, I would have thought her fashion sense safe and boring, but that choice looked really self-involved.)
I never understood how she could have worn such a bright color to such a somber engagement and black later on to visit children. It was totally opposite of how you would appropriately dress for these occasions and the only motive had to be to stand out. That’s why l laugh when the press try to paint Kate as this shy, retiring delicate flower. That girl definitely wanted to stand out in that sea of sober on that day.
She likes to stick out at events.
A remembrance event in France with William and Harry. Everyone in black or navy, she’s in that rickrack gray.
Auschwitz in a new white-and-floral dress with new strappy leather sandals showing off her painted toenails. So much wrong there.
It does backfire.
Jubilee boat flotilla, the other royal ladies all in white, cream, pastels. Kate wanted to stick out so wore all red. Spend the day blending in with the drapes.
WWI event in France with Charles, Camilla, William. Everyone in black or navy. Kate in her Downton Abbey cream lace over black cosplay. Blended into the gravel.
@Nota- I remember her Jubilee flotilla look, and wondered why she had worn red when everyone else was in pastels. At the time, I thought it was a celebratory choice gone wrong, because she really did blend in with all the red of the Jubilee decor.
I also remember the gray outfit and had forgotten about that cream lace over the dark sheath. Good Lord, she’s a piece of “look at meeeeee and my tasteful mourncore” work.
I missed that Auschwitz outfit. Holy F, that’s just as offensive as her Ground Zero look. Who TF wears florals and pedi-showing sandals to Auschwitz like it’s a spring day luncheon?!
Please make this the comment of the week. Thank you so much, you made me laugh out loud with this comment:
“Also they need to get her into the British version of the toastmasters club because at her age, she shouldn’t appear frightened of giving speeches while shaking like a sinner in church.”
Not harsh. Hysterical. Also: “What the palace needs to do is get Kate some speech lessons because right now she’s the duchess of mumblebridge, she’s been in the brf for almost ten years and cannot speak a clear sentence to save her life,”. Her inability to speak annoys the shit out of me. I can’t hear her, I can’t understand her, there is no content, and her holding her hands in front of her while holding her head down reminds me of my brother’s first x-wife. She does that but is mean and passive aggressive behind everyone’s back. She is also not smart. Just feral.
This puff piece is in response to FF: Kate took a major hit in that book and this is damage control. Meghan is out of the UK and she and Harry are doing charity work and taking important meetings – and it gets US and world press coverage in mainstream serious press. Kate only gets outside the UK is in fashion and gossip mags and in mainstream press when she births an heir or on tour with Billy. She will never be seen as more than a bucket of fluff. Bad look for the 21th century.
Kate has received 2 patronages from the Queen and one was Wimbledon, 4 years ago, and the RAF cadets from Phillip, in 2015. She “received” Family Action earlier this year. Nichols lies, as always. I suppose Family Action made up for the closure of Place2Be.
Will and Kate have done so much damage to the monarchy I don’t think they can recover. The loyalty to the Queen is what’s kept them afloat for so long. The older people remember her having to take that responsibility as a young girl and the younger people see her as the sweet grandmother. Charles and Camilla are going to have a struggle because their generation remembers Diana but they’ll be loyal to the memories of the Queen. The younger the majority of the public gets the more uninterested in the monarchy they are. With the results of COVID-19 and Brexit getting ready to happen Will and Kate have nothing that’s going to make the general public want to keep handing out those millions. They’re lazy, boring, and completely out of touch with the common folk. The mother with 3 kids schtick won’t fly when women are doing that everyday without nannies. Can you imagine Kate repairing a jeep like the Queen did? No way! And they’re the complete opposite of glamorous, what a let down
I’m surprised BP and CH allow these puff pieces to continue this way. They can’t be happy that Kate is the savior of the monarchy over the actual future king Prince Charles. They really need to get top CEO and Will in line. They’ve been allowed to coast long enough. H&M would’ve never made the impact that they did if W&K were out an about working for the ten years they’ve been married. There was clearly a void waiting to be filled. Prince Charles needs to put their asses to the fire and get them to work.
What does elisabeth do of any significance? Nothing. What does kate have to do to prepare this? Nothing.
Do you mean QEII when you write ‘elisabeth’? Regardless of what QEII does or doesn’t do, that isn’t relevant. Kate is the future consort, not the future reigning monarch. She’s the next Camilla, who is herself the next Philip.
In his decades of service, Philip wrote a dozen books, did 20,000+ engagements, managed the private Balmoral and Sandringham estates, and gave over 5000 speeches in his role. If Kate started right now, she’d have to give 90 speeches a year to match his work ethic. That’s if she ‘worked’ until she was 95.
I just tried to imagine Kate writing a book and got the giggles.
A Chutney Too Far: the be-buttoned life of a keen modern housewife
Chapters include:
– how to smile like you’ve pulled something
-how to get boys to like you in five flashes or fewer
– top ten curling irons
– how to sell your soul for a husband who probably hates you a little bit
– chutney!!
Plus his early years of marriage also included military service—and not William style. And he still did more events. Plus all the overseas tours he’s done separately and jointly.
Kate will not be replacing Elizabeth. She cannot be the reigning monarch. Charles is doing most the Queen’s work now. Kate will be the wife of the King, eventually. Before that she will be the Princess of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall, probably for 20+ years.
Queen regnant -reigning monarch in her own right
Queen consort – wife of the king, no reigning power
another day, another piece to lord it over the sussexes. blatantly rubbing it in their faces that they are not the face or future of the monarchy, the cambridges are. as if the sussexes really care.
Dear Katie, William and Kate are not glamorous nor is the Palace machine clever. Since Harry and Meghan left all you are left with is boring and stupid. Enjoy.
But this is what they wanted from their royals so shouldn’t complain or want them to be anything different than what they are. Harry and Meghan have to figure out their lives and do a major reset. They don’t get a grace period and Meghan never did. These two have a clearly defined path laid out for them but they choose to half-ass it and publicly, everyone is fine with it.
No, the royals are not just left with the boring and stupid since Harry and Meghan left. The Queen is neither nor are Charles and Camilla nor is Anne.
If it comes down to it, it was not very savvy of Meghan to wear a skirt costing was it £51,000?
Just like a semi-annual white sale, here comes the ‘Kate is Keen’ push. Quite predictable.
I think it may be time for a new communications director for the Cambridges. They are really struggling to come up with a new message, and what worked 10 years ago with two fresh faced newlyweds is now stale. They have tried to make Kate’s work more substantive but it still doesn’t resonate. Some of this is inevitable, since they can’t really avoid becoming boring royals, that’s their job. Speaking of clever, Camilla and Charles were a bit more effective in rebranding themselves after their messy start. If I were running their communications team, I would focus on accessibility and authenticity, and take on more heavyweight issues that are substantive but still pass to royal apolitical litmus test. They still come across as too controlled, and with today’s media microscope, people can spot the difference.
You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink – this proverb is the Cambridges in a nutshell. They just don’t want to work.
Yes, they would definitely have to be willing to change for any of this to happen
Their comms strategy seems stale to people like you and me, but we are not the intended audience. Remember that their current director, Christian Jones, worked on Brexit, so he knows these vacuous narratives get eaten up by the pro-Brexit Karens who root for Kate, especially compared to Meghan. The Cambridges are never going to have the global reach of the Sussexes, but Jones is focused on the bigots, conservatives and older crowds to sell the Cambridges to.
How many versions of this article have we seen over the years? Kate is not changing. Every few months this reinvention, emerging, becoming, lean in, article comes out for no particular reason but to remind everyone she’s the future queen. This is who she is. She’s not going to change her work habits and work ethic, or world view. Again, where is William in all this? How is he stepping up? What’s he doing besides hanging out with footballers and spouting buzzwords? Anyway, carry on.
Every story about Kate is the same. She’s keen. She has ideas. She will work one day. she’s growing up and into her role. We should be grateful for such a bland, keen traditionalist. It’s embarrassing for her, honestly.
Stop telling us what you might do. And do something. Then we can read stories about real accomplishments and not intentions.
The RRs rarely if ever promote Will like they promote Kate. I think that’s so strange. Where and what is Will doing with his time?
Maybe because it backfires and she gets dragged? He has the job for life.
The Queen and William only want Kate to stay quiet about William’s affair. That’s why Kate finally got her order. What would it take for Kate to realize she could be more than that, that being a FFQC is not the end all and be all of life? Meeting a billionaire who reminds her of Ben Ainslie?
In every single Kate embiggening piece she is always ‘about to hit the ground running’ yet never actually does. They is also never any mention of any projects or charities either. If she was doing meaningful work why not actually talk about it? There’s never any mention of any charities because she has no interest in actually raising any awareness for them whatsoever.
Also the ‘queen-in-waiting’ title she has clearly given herself is such a clear sign of her thirst. She is desperate to be queen, but she knows she’s not gonna make it, so I guess ‘queen-in-waiting’ is the best she’s ever going to get cos pretty soon she won’t even be able to say that.
lol the top CEO still needs to be brought out from the shadows😂 KN is so far up KeenKueen’s a$$ she cant see how pathetic she making her out to be. She’s still being infantilized as a helpless woman who needs to be pushed to do her job. I’d be embarrassed if my daughter was portrayed as a weak incompetent women who still needs help when she’s nearly 40!!
⁉️⁉️⁉️⁉️ DYNAMIC ⁉️⁉️⁉️⁉️
Whereas I thought it was shade, I’m starting to think that working like a top ceo reflected some true feelings. I think the press with their ‘Kate’s turn to shine ‘ were putting pressure on her to command the spotlight, be out there more and be dynamic to help sell presents. Press have come to collect with all their puff pieces and I don’t think it’s appreciated.
Didn’t read the article beyond excerpts above but if they are going to hype her up they could mention work too eg that BBC children launch and the baby bank initiative which was good.
I think you’re right. Kate has always been lazy, but I never remembered seeing the narrative that she was stressed, overworked, worn out from working like a top CEO, etc. It makes me wonder if there’s truth behind these stories. She’s still barely working, but what if she *is* stressed almost to the breaking point due to other things? We know about at least 1 affair. We know she had to attend church with Rose. We know the Tatler thing blew up in a humiliating way. And there are rumors that Charles may blame Kate/Carole for Sussexit, plus FF painting her in a bad light. We can see her wasting away in front of our eyes. The only thing she has *ever* had in her life was snagging William. If she’s in danger of losing that…I can imagine things are indeed very bad behind the scenes.
Hmmm that’s such an interesting theory about the Midds being behind the Sussexes leaving. Will can’t take the fall, he’s the heir. We know the Midds are mocked by the aristos, I could absolutely see the royal reporters turning on her with an awful narrative about lazy Katie being put off/feeling threatened by her dynamic sister-in-law and conspiring with her family to push her out.
We’ve seen the ‘Kate is the future of the royals’ ‘Kate is the star of the show’ PR from the start. We’ve also had ‘Kate is stressed from her public life, stressed by working too hard’ narrative from early on.
FFS during the Jubilee year, when she was mostly showing up to things like boat parades and parties? Just over 100 engagements that year. She publicly complained about how she was rushed off her feet and hoped things would slow down the next year.
Thanks, Nota. I didn’t remember those narratives probably because I wasn’t paying much attention to Kate at the time. I do think things are…not great in that marriage. And I honestly think she’d love to have a 4th baby to get more time to avoid work & (frankly) to be able to eat, but that Wills probably vetoed that.
He vetoed the third one, but then he was caught partying with blonds on a lads vacation. She got #3 out of that. She might get #4 for Rose.
I always figured she’d go for 4 to imitate the Queen. We’ll see.
They’ve been saying this for years and years, and yet, there’s been no discernible difference in her engagement with the public.
The constantly babying of near 40 year old woman is really ridiculously the excuses made for her well she a mother so some how she not expected to work . Two of her kids are in school she has a three nannies and a household staff at her beck and call please tell me again why she can’t do more work why did one of her charities close because of lack of Money. You know charles should do cut her clothing budgets in half make her work for clothing allowance it’s not right she gets to spend money like crazy on the same outfits just different colors without doing any work . I don’t why the tax player aren’t pissed off their paying for Kate to do nothing .
At this point Kate is keen articles are evergreen content.
The Keen in Waiting story is old and tired like Kate’s face.
I don’t see William and Kate getting a divorce, ever. Nope. I doubt the monarchy could take another hit like that with W&K in this supposed happy marriage and family getting a divorce because of his “maybe” affairs outside the marriage.
But everybody knows about the affair? People need to remember that Kate isn’t Diana. She holds no substance or power over the public, like Diana did. Diana worked her back off to build her public speaking skills and her self-confidence levels in time for the separation with Charles. Diana had the public’s support to fall back on. If a divorce was to happen with W&K, then who does Kate have to back her up? She has nobody. The public’s perception of the monarchy won’t change because nobody is really caring for Kate and it shows.
I agree with @The Duchess. Kate is no Diana. That’s a big part of her appeal to the establishment–that she’ll tolerate affairs without giving bombshell interviews about them. But the real downside is that Kate doesn’t have the work ethic or speaking abilities to carry out her job as the wife of an heir. The monarchy can take the hit if they divorce. The reasons the Charles/Diana divorce rocked the monarchy were 1) No future monarch had divorced before, 2) Diana was already loved for her compassion & respected for her work & 3) Diana came across as the wronged party, which had a lot to do with public affection for her. And then, of course, Diana died horribly & the Windsors handled it very badly. I don’t know that W&K will divorce, but things are very different here: 1) A future monarch divorced & remarried his mistress (!) & an expensive PR campaign mostly quieted complaints about it, 2) Kate is not loved or respected for her “work,” which is virtually nonexistent. Regarding 3, Kate has been wronged by the cheating, but she was not a naive 19 year old who thought she was entering a loving marriage. Wills cheated throughout their dating years, she stayed after the Rose affair, collected her honor from the Queen in return & seems to have actively conspired in a cruel campaign to bully her brother, sister-in-law & infant nephew halfway around the world.
I think William was involved, too & probably some CH leaks (jealousy, etc), but guess who the BRF won’t sacrifice–an heir. And guess who’s already produced an heir & spares, contributes almost nothing else to the Firm & can be saddled with blame for the negativity directed at Meghan & Harry as this campaign blows up in people’s faces? I don’t like the odds for this marriage.
I would usually agree, expect that going on Kate’s actions alone, she knows that divorce is very possible. It’s like she’s fighting to stay in that family so badly because she knows that Willie is already half way out of the door and is very close the finally pulling the trigger. I think she gave harry and Meghan the final push out of the door, cos with them gone she’s more needed than ever. Plus all these future queen stories, she knows that’s as far as she’ll ever get and is milking it for all it’s worth. Plus Kate’s PR only mentions her and willie is an afterthought, plus William has been cutting her out of the recent family pictures. I think the signs are there that this is the beginning of the end.
Kate and Carole’s actions, since Meghan first came on the scene. Doubled down in February 2019 with the pro-Kate articles right before the Rose situation came to light. When I look back, the talk that William wanted Kate out last year make sense. Part of his incandescent with rage with Harry and Meghan leaving meant – he had to put off setting Kate aside.
William is a selfish being and if he wants a divorce he will get one. Kate is not Diana and openly objecting to the cheating like Diana did, which created a lot of sympathy for her. Meanwhile Kate has been quietly accepting the cheating for years, so she won’t even get the public sympathy that normally arises on this situation. Years of accepting cheating shows complicity, even if she is the wronged party. She’s like Melania here in that both knew the deal coming into it and tolerated it for material benefit.
The idea that divorce is ‘wrong’ is an outdated idea in 2020.
40 percent of marriages in the UK end in divorce. The Church of England has allowed the marriage of divorced persons in Church for almost two decades. Only 15 percent of people in the UK even claim membership in the CoE, while 50 percent claim they have no religion.
Plenty of starter marriages end in divorce. No one would care if these two divorce.
Part of me really dislikes William and Kate’s laziness. But when I really think about it, what difference does it *actually* make? The royals are basically reality show celebrities who don’t do anything of substance. Appearing at charity balls? Smiling for public relations photos? Wearing expensive/fashionable clothes? Having lunch with their patronages?
It’s all just a shallow excuse for maintaining an outdated, useless, racist, misogynistic, anachronistic monarchy. The solution is NOT to make William and Kate pretend to work harder, the solution is to get rid of the monarchy.
Depends on the royals. Tell it to the 800,000 people helped by The Prince’s Trust, the 300,000 people taught to swim by Princess Charlene’s charity, etc.
lol lol lol If Kate had anything to contribute, we would have seen it by now.
They roasted this article like it needed more fire. K Nichols job is to sugarcoat any royal article it’s about time more concentration on these future K&Q that’s their prized treasure decorated to shine brighter. They have the big stage it’s all theirs. We just waiting for their big reveal of achievements. After all whats more than taking 2-former PR team of H&M plus another from the government Simon Case to intimidate the couple censor Meghan her and close friends to finally oust her. If Will is going out his way to recruit an army of ppl both press and media to destroy his brother how come he can’t be proactive and be committed to something substantive.
His links as a good friend to the owner of Daily Mail Viscount Rothemere who lives in Paris explains why the like of Richard Kay Daily mail puppets the tabloid damage control father fixer for all things William that goes awry. Quickly lawyer threats issued a letter to back off complaining his human rights were violated. They are protected at all cost they got rid of their competition. Courtiers are in full control have set the stage of resistance to propel only hope he does it right by them.
Those guardrails seem to be stronger than the rings around Saturn. A 70” tall wall to keep peeping toms away for more privacy, newly paved driveway, extra kitchen in the already 10 bedroom. Another summer home what more everything at their disposal (Que Sera Sera) whatever will be will be!
I am extremely cranky and a huge witch right now. Suffering kidney stones. All I have for future fu ing keen Katie do little is “SURE JAN”. Eyes just rolled out the back of my head. Ok end rant
Sofia, I live very near the Matthews estate in Scotland. There is no title.
For those saying Kate should only be working with children, she and William are not on the outer reaches of the RF, William is in the direct line of succession. They should be doing bread and butter engagements involving all of the people, not just special group people.