As we discussed, on Friday, the Duchess of Cambridge did a “solo event” with First Lady Dr. Jill Biden. It was notable for all kinds of reasons, one of which is that Kate was never offered up to anyone in the Trump family. At the end of the day, they knew how bad it would look for William and Kate to get keen with the Trumps. The Tory government has no issue with offering up the younger royals to the Obamas and Bidens though. And maybe there was the feeling in the Johnson government and in Buckingham Palace that perhaps Duchess Kate would do well with a well-educated professor like Dr. Jill Biden. I doubt anyone had any idea how badly it would go.
Speaking as an American who spent all of 2016 through to January 2021 being incredibly embarrassed to be from a nation which produced the Trump family, let me tell you something, British peeps: you should be embarrassed about Kate. Once anyone sees past the PR fluff, embiggening campaigns and endless litanies of “she’s never put a foot wrong,” all you’re left with is a nearly 40-year-old woman who flaps her hands constantly, freeze-poses mid-gawp, can’t speak in any public situation, can’t figure out her own fake accent and can’t act her way out of a paper bag. First off, Kate was asked by an impertinent American reporter (Andrea Mitchell) if she’s seen her new niece, Lilibet Diana. Kate’s response was: “I wish her all the very best. I can’t wait to meet her. We haven’t met her yet. I hope that will be soon.”
Ten bucks says that Kate was mad that the Americans had the nerve to ask her a question directly. She looked genuinely surprised to be asked something in that sort of call-out media scrum way that Dr. Biden is probably much more accustomed to. She lied coolly, but you could definitely see that flicker on her face. Interesting. But what was also sort of interesting was the “prepared” part of the visit. Both Kate and Dr. Biden knew they were doing this roundtable conversation and Kate’s staff obviously prepared some brief comments which Kate would make to introduce Dr. Biden. Whew, this is so bad.
Again, I can see why the galaxy-brains at Buckingham Palace and Downing Street thought this would be a good soft-focus, kid-friendly photo-op to exhibit the US-UK “special relationship.” But all the event did was highlight, once again, that Kate is a complete lightweight. You could see the dawning realization that Dr. Biden was not speaking to someone she considered a colleague or an expert. Dr. Biden was acting as a babysitter to Buttons Lynchpin. It’s bad.
Someone in the First Lady’s office worked with someone at Kensington Palace and they did a vague, light editorial on CNN about how early-childhood education is important, signed by Dr. Biden and Buttons – you can read it here. One of my favorite parts was the CNN Editor’s Note: “First Lady of the United States Jill Biden is a community college educator, with more than 30 years of classroom teaching experience. Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge has focused for 10 years on the critical role early childhood has on lifelong outcomes.” LMAO. They really do think people are like “oh yes, Kate has worked for a decade on early-childhood development.” For sure.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
Some people posted the videos on twitter……..jeez, who thought it was a good idea to put Katie Keen with Dr Biden in a roundtable? it just highlighted how incompetent she really is
Why wasn’t Camilla doing this?
You have to have some sympathy for W….Kate is all he could find? no wonder he is mad at H. H’s choice highlights how bad his own choice is
I think if Cain was a better man he would have a better partner. W has always been known as a boorish cheater and thats why no woman with an ounce of self respect touched him with a 10 foot barge pole. William wanted an aristo and they all turned him down – Kate was quite literally the only woman who wanted him.
Exactly. Aristos have options. The successful, well-educated ones can marry billionaires without having to bother with the tedium of royal life and courtiers.
William as a person wasn’t worth the trouble for many. But definitely worth it for someone like Kate and her family who were looking for a come-up.
That’s why I don’t believe baldemort will divorce her. He had no better options then, and certainly now, who would want that?and with all the baggage and scrutiny?
He’ll continue to have his side pieces and they’ll lead practically separate lives.
He could find someone now. They won’t have to have his kids or have the newlywed press buzz around them. And it could potentially be somebody who would be far more comfortable in the aristo set that Kate basically excluded herself from when she tried to freeze out Rose. Kate doesn’t fit in anywhere except with the Middletons – not with William’s toff friends or in the professional sphere either. I’m sure that’s got to irritate him.
People don’t care about second royal spouses. If I’m being honest I think Kate would retain more press attention even divorced.
I think he’s emotionally involved with someone else now. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll divorce.
The poll shows otherwise. The British people like her and don’t feel that they should be embarrassed about her.
W scarfed/ignored the poor girl, why do you think he wants someone like Meghan? He likes K enough to marry and procreate with her and so far his family and the British don’t have much to complain about his wife. He’s made a a good choice.
“The poll shows otherwise. The British people like her and don’t feel that they should be embarrassed about her.”
I am not British so I will let those who are comment on how the population, or at least those who care, feel about her.
I am talking here on a stage when she has to interact with our FLOTUS….she can barely talk and when she does people can’t understand.
Of course, those who like their women quiet will like her; women who themselves don’t feel accomplished won’t be threatened by her. From what I have seen is that there are a lot of women whom people admire, whom people talk about, whom people quote constantly….Katie keen isn’t one of them. That’s ok, women in the rf are apparently not to be heard; they just have to be pretty and smile…..that’s why women like Diana and Meghan didn’t survive there.
You gov polls aren’t exactly scientific so outside of sycophants most people don’t pay attention to how dim Kate is. The more she is seen, the more regular people will see her for the shallow person she is. She can’t be an ingenue anymore. She will be 40 soon and her people do her no favours when they pretend she has worked on this for 10 years. First it’s a lie and second, it means she should be doing more than spouting meaningless platitudes. Her survey wouldn’t even have passed a first year psychology undergrad course.
Dr. Jill was being generous in lending her time to such a lightweight.
I mean the main difference between Kate and Ivanka is that Ivanka is no longer attaching herself to government events. Kate is going to act like Ivanka and be legitimized for it by the UK media. At least the non right wing media were commenting on how ridiculous it was for Ivanka to be there… just as it is for Kate to be at any of these things.
Will doesn’t like her enough to keep his penis out of other women, even back when they were dating. But do go on.
LOL. He didn’t really have a choice since none of the other girls he pursued wanted to deal with his shit. If William had it his way he’d have been happily married to an aristocratic woman. Would he still cheat? Absolutely, but at least she would understand and be cool with it. Not like Kate.
Also, the British public’s “like” for Kate has always been more indifference than anything. British posters have said numerous times that most people in the UK don’t give much thought to the royals.
Well if you compare her to pedo Andy, her father in law that will forever be known as the guy who broke Diana’s heart and her charmless husband then yeah I can see why British people approve of her. She’s the least offensive of the bunch.
Ah yes. The storied polls that showed no one in the UK wanted to watch the Oprah interview or listen to Archewell audio onlt for the interview to be watched by over 11 million people on itv and the podcast to debuf at #2 on the UK Spotify charts.
But i do hope you hold on to your scarf mentions about William being openly rude to Meghan when she was being polite for the next round of crying about why Harry has no interest being around his petty and small brother from your fave’s prized tabloid hacks. I love it when you all break from your disingenuous lines about “how could Harry and Mwghan do that to the family when they were so welcoming” to talk truthfully about how classless and bitter that “family” actually is. Thanks!
I think a lot of people see through Kate, she is so fake, she let her real personality show with the mean girl looks at Harry and Meghan, and the way she participated in the Flybe stunt with william to put down Harry. I don’t think she’s all that popular, it’s just the bots who put up the fawning praise and then end the sentence with criticism of Meghan. I also find it ridiculous that Kate is called “classy.”
royalists are pretty selective about the polls (yougov, anyone?) they choose to screech about constantly. yes, kate and wills are comfortably popular in the uk, but the rota folks never show the polls with the nuance:
a) the monarchy is losing support with young people and ethnic minorities (coincidentally the same demographics with whom harry and meghan are popular)
b) just because somebody is ‘popular’ doesn’t exactly mean it would translate to support for the institution that they represent (see: scotland in the months and years ahead + commonwealth post-queenie)
also, to people wondering why kate is popular in the uk: it’s because she fits quite perfectly what royalists want in their royal women (the queen included) – silence, ‘duty’, motherhood, etc. kate gets a lot of praise from older royal commentators for essentially knowing her place (being a mother first, never overshadowing her husband, just generally always looking lovely with nothing substantive to say). see: historical author hilary mantel’s past comments on kate.
this is an archaic institution whose biggest supporters happen to be people with archaic attitudes.
My question is … what’s that girlish whisper thing she has going on and is that always how she is in public? I could barely hear her or understand what she was saying. My comment is if Cate does it for you Brits, then good on you all. 🙂
However, a comment Harry made during the Oprah interview now makes sense to me. I’ve only watched it once, so please someone correct me if my memory fails. I seem to recall Oprah asking Harry something along the lines of when did he feel the Firm’s attitude toward Meghan begin to change, and he said “After our first official tour abroad …” and then with a smile ” … because it was clear she was so good at it, good at the job.”
I can’t speak for the polls or the majority of British citizens, but unfortunately a great lot of people really do like her and think she does great work. More than should be so, anyway.
But that’s the way it is. As long as she is William’s wife she will be shoved onto a world stage she is incapable of contributing to comprehensively and people will pretend she’s amazing. That’s why the Queen, Camilla and she appeared at that G-7 event. Business as usual, is what they want people to think.
At least she didn’t say she was more excited about her sister’s kids this time.
Harry definitely said what we had been saying since 2018, that the attacks started once the Oceania tour was done because Meghan was very good at it.
I am going to agree with Wehweh on this. Why shouldn’t the British public like Kate and W? They are essentially the Queen and PP all over again. Not very bright, certainly not passionate about anything in the world that really matters, and Will is forever putting his foot in his mouth. Add in W’s cheating and her acceptance, and the press protection, this is what the people can identify with from royals. The fantasy, full stop. It’s time the advisors and crisis managers accept this couple’s limitations and stop expecting them to have any type of hard-hitting platforms or any knowledge of the world’s problems. Kate should never have been sent to this event, it was bound to end in disaster. She should have just had tea with the Q and Bidens and not this. I have said before that W&K are the type of royals that those who even care in Britian want, not what they actually need for future relevance, but what they want. The courtiers need to just let it go.
WehWeh, I can assure you that nobody cares about Kate or William (or even Charles) outside the Daily Mail/Sun crowd. The latter might like her, I just don’t bother to check, to be honest.
It’s not like they’re despised or anything, people just don’t care. Non-royalist people in UK mainly care about Queen Elizabeth II, the rest gets fairly ignored, like they don’t even exist.
To be honest, after QEII, the most known members of the Royal Family at present are, without any doubt, Harry and Meghan.
It’s funny, none of the media that I consume as a British citizen even mentions this outing. Nothing. The only thing that is mentioned was her comment about her new niece and that was a tiny tiny feature on the BBC news website. That is it. Most of the G7 reporting is on how the EU is picking on the UK for not following the treaty that they signed, covid vaccines, lack of actual investment in reducing climate change and the extinction rebellion protest in St Ives. As the media seemed to be pretty much corralled away from the event they spent more time reporting on the protests.
I feel really sorry for Jill Biden that she didn’t seem to get much out of the visit. She speaks so well and is so passionate and knowledgeable. Hopefully she will met other, more proactive, people when the cameras stopped rolling.
william IMO settled for Kate. He could not find anybody else who would go out with him during his breakups with Kate. He settled.
The reason why Kate is popular in the UK is because the British media have successfully corrupted the minds of the public that she is Meghan’s victim. They have 24/7 poisoned and conditioned the minds of the Brits against Meghan. And have embiggened and praised Kate to the heavens. Without Meghan, Kate is a useless nobobdy. She needs Meghan to be somebody.
Kate’s damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t. If she actually shined and researched this subject, Will would dump her ass cause no one is allowed to be smarter than he is. If she doesn’t she looks like an idiot but she keeps her marriage in tact.
I don’t feel sorry for Will in the slightest because if he wanted an articulate and outspoken wife he would have chosen one. He’s fostered this behaviour for a reason and that’s because he doesn’t care about the work, and he doesn’t want a partner that makes him feel insecure.
If an almost 40 year old woman is looking stupid on purpose to keep her man then she’s got issues too. Kate just doesn’t care to do the work and be competent because she knows she doesn’t have to. She is choosing to remain married to him so that she can get a crown. So I don’t feel bad for a woman who has privilege and many choices and remains in this situation. Diana was Princess of wales and got a divorce. If it’s that bad for Kate she can leave too. But she doesn’t want to.
Nic919: I think we can already see she’s got issues. Kate’s thinnification is a stark reminder that not all is well in her life. I don’t think that woman’s got any support in her ring, which is why even Meghan felt sorry for her enough to say she was a good person in the Oprah interview. Kate can be two things at once: the abuser (mean girling Meghan) and victim (of opportunist family with failing business, cold husband and machinations of grey men).
@ Watson, no one across the pond has ever put her under the microscope with the famous, damned if doesn’t and damned if she does. In the UK press, she is praised for putting her shoes on. The only one that falls into that category is Meghan. No matter what she did, she was criticized. Baldimort chose her and she could take the initiative to work and create actual change and prepare herself for events, such as this. The fact is, is that Keen Doucheness has no desire to work. She wants all of the glory and do none of the work. Keen wasn’t even able to carry herself in this interview. Keen was not well prepared for this event which she should have at least done the bare minimum. It’s apparent that Keen has no desire to be a force or support the people of the commonwealth. Keen has had 10+ years to prepare herself for this position and she is failing badly every step of the way.
@Watson, you’re right. He fostered her behavior, but he certainly has no trouble showing his boredom and disdain when she attempts to speak in public. He married the last woman standing, knowing he could roll right over her, and at the same time showing his feelings publicly. I just watched the Bidens leaving Windsor, and FLOTUS was speaking with the two senior military officers escorting them. POTUS had the biggest smile on his face, watching and listening to her. He loves his wife, he respects her, he’s proud of her, and William just…doesn’t…and isn’t.
I think Kate believes her own publicity. Camilla does not have the same knowledge that Jill Biden has nor the experience, but she could still articulate her feelings about the topic a lot better than Kate and maybe refer to her grandchildren and how they are developing, especially since experiencing remote learning during the pandemic. Something like that.
She definitely isn’t damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t. Since when? She gets nothing but praise for everything that she does. The press do not criticize her for anything. Even her childish theme dressing for tours is hailed as “diplomatic dressing.” Meghan raised half a million with the Hubb cookbook and was called a terroist.
Calling Queen Bee Bitch Andrea Mitchell who has spent the past 20 years trashing Hillary Clinton, “impertinent” wasn’t what I’d call it. Given the fact Mrs. Greenspan is no longer capable of stringing together a coherent sentence in under 5 minutes, maybe this was her audition tape for TMZ.
She doesn’t want to retire and have to change Alan’s diapers and she’s got to be hanging on by a string at MSNBC.
Oof. That video clip of her introducing Jill is so terrible. I absolutely loath speaking to large groups of people, and after 40+ years, my stomach still roils and my heart pounds when I lead meetings at work, but I’ve learned to master/bury my fear and I practice before my meetings so I’m super prepared, which helps alot. I can’t imagine how stressful it is to speak in front of cameras and thinking of the literal billions of people who might be listening & watching.
BUT COME ON. Kate has ALL the resources available to her: access to people who can help her get better at public speaking, all the time in the world to practice, and after more than a DECADE in the spotlight — this is the best she can do? She looked like me at my first meeting in my 20s — arms and hands flapping, looking everywhere and nowhere, and speaking so fast and basically mumbling the end of her sentences. I feel bad for her because I can SEE her nervousness and can absolutely empathize, but damn, girl.
You mean Jill, her team and the CNN team wrote it and Keen Buttons just stamped her name to it.
That clip where she is asked about Lili was awkward as FK. Nothing wrong with the actual response, was very generic but her delivery was off. She seemed surprised it was asked and then fumbled the clearly pre prepared response.
Kate was very clearly uncomfortable and intimidated by FLOTUS, Jill seemed to be making a real effort to make Top CEO comfortable.
Am looking forward to the Windsor Castle visit today.
After she was asked if she had FaceTimed with the Sussexes, she answered and then quickly looked down, it seemed to me, to discourage further questioning about it and maybe also out of embarrassment because it didn’t jive with what she said about being anxious to meet the baby.
I saw it, it was pure CRINGE, you can tell she is a sort of robot: if something doesn’t go as planned she doesn’t know what to do, I mean was it that difficult simply saying “not yet, but we can’t wait to meet her in person”?
Kate seems to “naturally” cringe when speaking from trying to get that accent. So this combined with her stilted response is just “ick.” Like she can’t even manage to be warm and natural speaking about her niece.
It was so weird how you could see her surprise and annoyance at just being asked a question in the first place. Like did KP tell her she wouldn’t have to answer questions at an open press event? And why didn’t they have a company line for such a huge story? Just amateur hour over there.
I think it shows just how much the UK media protects her. Andrea Mitchell did not ask a trick question nor should it have been unexpected. And Kate showed her arrogance in that brief micro expression when someone dared to breach that bubble.
Chelsea, I think this is the company line. It’s pretty much what Eddie said in his interview. The difference is he said it about the Sussex family and not just a days old baby. Now we know what the family members will be saying. Do I think they really wish any of them well? Oh, no.
Thank you. You said exactly what I was going to.
The coddling of the British media in regards to Will and Kate is doing them no favors. It is actually hindering their ability to be the most amazing FFKQC that their PR claims they are. A soon as they get in the presence of other media, like Kate was at this event, the actuality of their abilities is hard to ignore. It’s clear she was not prepared at all for any questions whatsoever. The follow up regarding the FaceTime question was even more evident. Will and Kate are all smoke and mirrors. When it truly them all own their own without the nostalgia of the queen and when Charles is gone, their reign will be completely shambolic if they even get the opportunity. They are grossly unprepared.
JT is absolutely right. i don’t feel bad for them, but all this effort into building them up for an inevitable fall…it’s a bit depressing
OMG, that was so embarrassing. She looked like a shy teenager mumbling & waving her arms around. Even Jill, for a second, looked incredulous. Another reason; there are way too many to count, why H & M had to go.
This is how someone summarized it on Twitter:
“Brilliant to hear Dr Biden talk in such an informed way about education. The Duchess wore a belted magenta dress by Alexander McQueen. That just about sums up the reporting about this.”
https://twitter.com/MrsMurphySoton/status/1403448812346167301
No wonder they always talk about her hair and clothes….what else is there to talk about?
Jill’s face during Kate’s introduction! There were a few eye blinks and then the very quick thanks at the end. I think Dr. Biden was kind of incredulous at that moment but doing her best to keep off any reactionary expressions.
I bet Jill assumed that Kate would be as prepared on her topic as Harry is regarding IG and veteran issues. She’s certainly seen the light now. And she even mentioned Harry at another event with veterans the next day.
I have an alternate opinion – I think some of that shy bumbling is an act. I’m not saying Kate is a brain trust, because she’s clearly not. And I don’t think she cares that much about any kind of education, let alone early childhood – in any case, she’s not being paid to care about anything except producing heirs and going wherever the monarchy tells her to go. But, I think part of her delivery is trying to emulate that Hugh Grant, upper-crust, humble brag we see from those who are faced with the “little people.” People will say “Oooh look at her, so modest, not putting on airs, could be one of us, not like that pushy American…” I saw that a lot when I was working in London.
As for Dr. Biden, I don’t think she really expected a serious panel discussion. There’s actually no substantive reason why the spouses should even attend G-7 meetings. Not sure why the Twitterverse is surprised that Dr. Biden can talk about education, she’s been teaching all her life – in middle schools, high schools and community colleges. Those are places where teachers are in classrooms, in front of students, every day – plus, 37 years in politics – she’s used to speaking easily in front of people.
You missed the fact that Kate admitted she hadn’t facetimed with Lilli yet.. which made me very happy!!😁😁😁
All the ‘Kate the bridgebuilder’ stories shut down with that point.
IKR – there was a story in the Fail about how Harry texted Kate after Lili’s birth. Keen clearly just admitted that wasn’t true with that statement.
Seems TQ is the only person who has direct contact with the Sussex’s.
It’s clear how bothered Kate and Carol are that it got out that they didn’t FaceTime after the birth. If he texted her she would have said it.
Kate and Carol need to be worried over William and not Harry. It’s incredibly creepy.
Maybe Carole forgot to remind Kate about that claim or Kate being panicked when asked a direct question and forgot the prepared answer.
Why are they still trying to create the illusion that Harry somehow cares more about Kate than his own wife. This is weird on another level. Still trying to make Meghan the outsider.
Someone needs to tell her Harry was never into her. He was just treating her with respect as his sister-in-law. Like the time on the barge when he called William out for leaving without her.
Yeah, but did Dr Biden see her pie charts? I’m sure she would be impressed with the pie charts!!
Ha ha
They’re still trying to push the lie that Kate has been working on Early Years for a decade? Pathetic.
Honestly by highlighting that she’s been on this topic for 10 years they just make her look worse. 10 years and this is the best she’s got? Would be better if they left that bit out
If she did the work for over 10 years she would be more passionate about it. She has zero passion for this. The videos prove it. My kids are in school and I am very passionate over their education and early years. She just isn’t.
It’s like a trump lie where the number gets bigger every time. At first it took 5 years to make the survey, then it was 8 years that she has been working on this and now it’s 10 years. Look we all know she f all until 2017 when Meghan showed up. And even then she got pregnant with Louis and delayed it even more. Next number will be one that exceeds her marriage to William. She will claim she was working on this issue as she was travelling the world with William on vacation.
Andrea Mitchell rules. I remember her talking about reporting live at the news desk on 9/11, with her cell phone hidden in her lap, because her husband (Alan Greenspan…sometimes we can’t help who we love) was in midair on a plane back from a European summit, and she was waiting to hear if he was safe. Kate had no idea how to handle a true professional.
Yes, Andrea Mitchell is a PRO. I love that she asked that simple, direct question and it definitely caught Kate off guard.
It wasn’t even a trick question. It was what you would expect someone to ask when you have a new niece. Kate is just so sheltered by the Uk media that she wasn’t expecting it.
Yeah Andrea Mitchell is a total
Pro and excellent reporter, but that question wasn’t tough. I’m sure she thought it would be a throwaway fluff question. – “yes she’s just so lovely! The parents are so happy and so are we.” Instead she got…..”no it’s been a week but we haven’t seen the new daughter of my husband’s only brother.” Whoops.
It’s shocking to me how surprised she was at being asked a question cuz it happens so rarely. Saw complaints about the rude American reporter daring to ask such a question. I mean it’s a question about a baby.
Kate and her stans are idiots if they think a reporter wouldn’t ask about her newborn niece at an engagement for early years. The whole point of this engagement was how important the early years are and Kate has a newborn niece. Of course they would ask.
It was such a smart simple question that revealed lots of answers.
Her Stans go on about how “classy” she is the way she “handled it” and it was difficult, but don’t think this is about a week old baby. So absurd.
If Kate’s such a peacemaker, and she’s not the problem at all because Harry loves her and always has, and he goes to her for advice, and Kate just wants everything to go back to normal family relations, then how is it a difficult question according to her fans? It’s only a difficult question if they know that Kate is completely estranged from Harry and Meghan and doesn’t care to see the baby or talk about her brother and sister-in-law and her new niece, or even have them mentioned at all. It’s only a difficult question if it goes against the lies Kate and the midds have been having written about her multiple times a week and exposes the lie that Kate cares anything about family, Harry, Meghan, or babies that aren’t her own.
Her fans are just the worst at “defending” her. It’s like they’re all as stupid as she is. Or they know they’re propping up a person and a storyline about said person that is completely false in every way.
Kate made a face when answering a basic question about her niece. That’s not classy. They need to stop using that word and just say white because someone who has exposed themselves in public as much as she has is not classy.
It’s made me really angry, actually. I teach early years children and I’ll tell you what- we are only just beginning to see the long term ramifications of covid bubble up to the surface now. The current generation of under fives has been damaged so acutely and their development has been so skewed.
Not in my professional career has there been a time where it has been more necessary for us to be shouting from the rooftops for recognition, funding and support. And Kate just sits there, looking thin and offering nothing at all of substance. This could have been a critical opportunity in our post-covid recovery; I genuinely think Dr Jill thought it was. Anyway, it was just a damp squib, publicity-wise. Yesterday’s article in the times just summed it up as a day when Kate gave Jill a plate of carrots to carry and they both got their heels stuck in the grass outside the school buildings.
I teach elementary-aged kids. Thank you for this comment! I agree, this was an opportunity squandered. Our kids deserve better.
I also found it weird that her main focus is how these kids will grow up to be parents and what kind of parents they’ll be. Like, is their entire childhood, teenage hood, and young adult years completely unimportant, and we just need to focus on what will happen to them once they’re procreating? What about the kids that won’t want to or cannot have children? Children are important as children, not just as proto-adults. They’re people now. They’re not things that are in training to become people once they’re old enough to be parents. Their mental health and happiness and cognitive development and social development is all important for them NOW. So that they can be effective, happy, 5 year olds. Because this is part of their life, right now. And it’s an important part of their life not just because it might affect the type of adults they become, but because children and their wants and needs and happiness as children is important. It’s such a weird way for her to frame it all. Like the only reason we care about working with little kids is because we want to make sure they’re good 30 year olds. It sort of reminds me of companies that sell an adult product advertising to children, getting them familiar with the brand and creating brand loyalty when they’re kids so that the company will have customers 20 years from now. It’s disingenuous and kind of sketchy. They don’t actually care about the children and the life and happiness of a child they care about molding the child into the type of adult they want.
I wonder if she’s focusing on it because being a mother is something that she can “relate” to hence it interests her more? Or at least she can pretend to be interested in it. 2 out of 3 of her kids are no longer in their early years so Kate’s interest in that may be waning? But since Kate will always be a mother, her staff have focused on parenting in hopes that it’ll keep Kate’s interest enough for her to try and show some passion? Plus it seems Kate wants to be a mother and nothing else (which is fine but if you’re taking public money in exchange for working, it’s not so fine) so I can see the courtiers/her staff going “okay well just focus on parenting”
Exactly. And Kate again blamed parents while totally ignoring systemic inadequacies.
Celia456, Um, isn’t this why they’re mad at Harry? He talked about his father and his parenting style was based on how C was raised. Good heavens, I think Keen is agreeing with Harry.
@Saucy omfg you’re right! Kate inadvertently spilled that everything Harry’s been saying is correct.
@Saucy&Sassy, You are right! Kate’s words are pretty much in agreement with what Harry said about generational trauma. Seriously, how could anyone involved with an Early Years project, not recognize how their own spouse wasn’t f*cked up by their own early years. Which, I do believe Kate does see…but, won’t quite come out and say it. Not defending her, it is problematic to me that a female who is purported to be confident, a peacemaker, finder of who own voice and a mondernizer of the monarchy, has done sh#t in supporting Meghan, her sister-in-law. Confident & modern women do brave things. Kate has not shown bravery-Meghan has.
All KP’s PR that Kate was growing in confidence and has come into her own was destroyed by this engagement. What the press and fans saw as confidence was actually egotism because she was participating in a smear campaign against Meghan. As I said on Friday, Jill made Kate look like the lightweight she is and it highlighted why the Palace and the Cambridges saw Meghan as a problem.
Meghan is so natural and eloquent speaking live and off the cuff. The BRF blew it.
The BRF never wanted Meghan and they successfully got rid of her.
Now they are stuck with inept Kate.
If they used half the energy that they used to push Meghan out to better prepare Kate for her role she wouldn’t be out here looking like an unprepared, unintelligent fool.
Working for the Duchess of Cambridge is not a resume builder if this is the final product. The staff that work for her must hate her.
The funniest thing is that this all happened in front of American and other international press, so the British media couldn’t cover for her like they normally do. It was practically radio silence from the RRs; usually they’d give some fawning commentary on Twitter to accompany their footage of Kate. I do wonder what William was thinking when he saw this mess. He’s as vapid as her but he’s made no efforts to hide his disdain whenever she’s speaking at their joint engagements.
I expect a People cover story in the coming weeks to counteract Kate’s ineptitude at this roundtable photo op.
I think we know very well what William thought about this debacle — it’s always written all over his face like when they were in Scotland, and while Kate was speaking he’s staring up at the sky and anywhere else but at her, with a derisive expression on his face. Anyone who’s taking up for her and saying she hit this out of the park is as empty headed as she is, and unfortunately for her the veil has been ripped off for the world to see. I don’t fault Kate for not being a natural public speaker, but I DO fault her and her people for insulting our intelligence by trying to pass her off as something she’s not. And of course for their horrific treatment of Meghan solely because they were all jealous that she naturally had what Kate does not and never will.
But sadly I kind of think we will still get some fawning articles about how amazing Kate was at this event and didn’t put a foot wrong. The article will just create that narrative and a lot of the audience may never see the actual video so will believe it. Just wait, at some point Tominey or Nicholls will exalt Kate as the jewel of diplomacy.
@Swirlmamad . ITA . Kate was a mediocre in comparison to Jill Biden. In fact when Kate was delivering her welcome remarks, Jill was staring at her completely unimpressed. She wanted Kate to get her speech done as she could sense how difficult it was for Kate to be doing a grade two welcome remarks. She was so pitiful to look at.
Did anyone see the video of them shutting down the round table discussion quickly and Dr Biden said “I prepared a million questions!” You can tell how disappointed she was. This was just a photo op for Kate. This engagement had no substance. I feel bad that Dr Biden’s time was wasted. I actually don’t know if the round table discussion even took off or not.
I’m sure Dr Biden wasn’t impressed by Kate at all. It was clear she was used to prop up Kate’s early years “work”
I didn’t see that! Did they shut down the round table bc of the Lilibet question and then after Dr. Biden said that about having a million questions?
Dr B said it after the moderator said they were out of time; she had a notepad in front of her. So disrespectful that they used her for a Kate photo-op
Someone on twitter said it was after the Lilli question but I can’t say for sure. I have only seen the clips on twitter, I haven’t watched the whole thing.
I saw the videos,she seemed super disappointed…lol..she probably didn’t know that these royals don’t do real work..:play acting with zero substance
The LIlibet question was after the end of the meeting…
Yes! She made it so clear she was there for a real round table discussion, not a lightweight photo-op. She seemed like she was frustrated, but putting on a kind face about it. When they announced these two would be paired up I was uncomfortable for Kate- you have a woman who has worked in education, with children, passionately for her life- all while her husband was leading a high profile career that could have afforded her the ability to stay home. And then there’s Kate- 10 years, 5 questions and a pie chart.
Dr. Biden’s IG post said “we could have gone on for hours!” Could have because she knows her stuff but didn’t because that’s not what the royals do. Photo op and back to getting paid to do nothing.
I didn’t consider that “we could have gone on for hours” from Dr. Biden’s insta in that way. Could it have been some hidden shade? Lol. Does anyone know how long the whole engagement actually lasted? Would be interesting to compare with Dr. Biden’s other engagements.
Jais, apparently 25 minutes of debate, after 10-15 minutes in a classroom with kids.. I’ve posted the link a bit below
She did look genuinely surprised when it ended and good on her for gently pushing back. That was no roundtable. But if I were British, I would be distressed that FLOTUS was more prepared to discuss early childhood issues in the UK than the woman preparing to be Queen.
@ EnormousCoat, Dr. Biden was apparently fully prepared and seemed disappointed that it wasn’t a true round table but instead was a photo-op for Keen! It was a wasted opportunity for them to discuss real issues with Dr. Biden and they should have told Dr. Biden that in the beginning. Instead, she responded with a polite and surprised response that she will have to come back, but why should she? Dr. Biden has much work to do here in the US. It was a complete failure, to me. Also, how degrading to only list Dr. Biden as a teacher of Community College whereas Keen was stated as having worked in this arena for 10 years! Keen hasn’t spent 10 months on her keen supposed Early Years program.
Dr. Jill was definitely surprised and a bit irritated— you can sort of see her realizing in real time that her time had been wasted for a photo op. She mentioned again toward the end of her remarks how disappointed she was at how short the entire thing was…she handled it well but was definitely baffled and annoyed.
I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall that night when she debriefed her husband on that sh!tshow, lol.
@EnormousCoat, Dr. Jill Biden, FLOTUS, doesn’t need to be prepared. I understand that you understand that. Dr. Biden doesn’t need to be prepared for this type of situation because she knows her stuff. It is sad that Dr. Biden’s time was wasted with someone who had nothing notable to contribute after allegedly spending 10 years “researching” and being called an “expert” by courtiers & rotas on the subject.
Dr. Jill Biden, FLOTUS, is not ‘Jilly from the block’. She could be, Jill the Chill in handling the roundtable as graciously as she did. And, instead of saying she had a million questions, she could have queried when Allen Funt was going to jump in and tell her she was on Candid Camera.
That was an AMAZING clip. Early education is being affected by the pandemic, food insecurity and more, Jill shone bright. Kate on the other hand had a new dress.
So that clip was about 7 min long? Was that really the length of “the roundtable” or is it edited? Some people spoke before? Omg if that roundtable was at most 10-15 min long???
Well there’s a clip 10min-long with them and kids and teachers at a school, but I can’t find the whole thing …
Found it : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twXdcDp7dpc
@Desdemona thank you for that clip! Holy hell, that was worse than I expected even after reading all of the comments here!
Did Kate ever even poke her head around to acknowledge all of those children seated toward the back, like Dr. Jill did?
JFC that was so embarrassing to even watch.
Thanks Desdemona! I was really curious about the length. 25 min is better than my initial thought that it was around 10.
This is wild to me. It is just so evident that Top CEO hasn’t really researched or thought about anything in depth. It is particularly glaring when you put her next to any smart, educated, professional woman. Buttons just doesn’t have an ounce of intellectual curiosity. You have Jill with all her experience, energy, and questions and Kate probably had doodles on her paper. Sigh.
Love Jill Biden though! America really has a strong tradition of passionate, educated, strong first ladies. You love to see it!
Even people without a degree can research, if it something they are passionate about it shows. Why isn’t she doing mock run throughs? There is no excuse to have zero substance in her speeches. That is the big issue for me I can deal with a monotone voice or quiet voice if they actually know the subject matter they are talking about. She could have brought up the difference in that classes vs other classes she has observed or been to.. or even what has worked well with her own children.. I am at a loss.
Yes. Do you know how easy it would be for Katie Keen to actually bring herself up to speed on this material? She could take some online child development courses at a university. Heck she could even just order textbooks for such courses from Amazon, and read them. It would almost be like taking the course.
I suspect that whenever she needs to do something for Early Years that she goes straight to her nanny for the answers. THAT is who should have appeared at the roundtable with Dr. Jill.
No one even expects her to be an expert because she isn’t — she’s a princess ffs, not a professional in this area!
But she *should* be able to competently make a few remarks highlighting the organization hosting the event, and graciously mentioning how lucky she was to be able to spend some time learning from someone as accomplished and knowledgeable as Dr. Jill.
But she couldn’t even do that.
Minus Melania. Be Best. Lol.
The statement would have come off better if they had just mentioned Kate’s patronages that have to do with children and didn’t try to embiggen her by making it sound like she is some sort of academic studying early childhood. It would have also served the purpose the royals are supposedly there for, to bring attention to causes and not themselves. Isn’t that the big complaint about H&M?
It’s another example of how they project W&K’s flaws onto H&M. W&K’s work is always framed by how it builds their personal legacies — how it’s the best ever, first ever, most prestigious. How Kate’s finally found her voice, or is one step closer to being Queen. And we can’t forget the statesman Wills. The media spin is hardly ever about the populations they should be serving with their projects. Aesthetics over impact.
“Will and Kate’s work is always framed by how it builds their personal legacies.” I watched the video here and Kate speaks multiple times about HER journey into early childhood research and stuff. So much focus on HER and how she’s been studying/researching and how this all some kind of “journey” for HER. She barely spoke about children, she often speaks about children from the parents’ point of view bc that’s what she is and she can’t think outside herself, she didn’t ask any questions, she didn’t even really share any unique insights, she just talked a lot about how she’s been learning about early childhood and these are the extremely broad bullet points that she’s learned. Like rather than drawing attention to the cause, or the place they were visiting, or the people they met with, or the children they spoke to, or the things she learned/talked about specifically on this outing, or the concerns she and dr. Biden share, or even anything about children in this current time (the pandemic, dealing with parents and children at home, moms having to put careers on hold to stay home with kids, or dads spending more time with kids bc they’re home now too, or the financial, food security, or housing security issues that kids are facing during the pandemic, or the lack of a safe place to go to when schools are closed, etc), she was trying to draw attention to herself as a “real” early childhood expert who has been on a journey of learning. It’s like Kate was writing a short personal essay on “what I’ve learned this year in child psychology 101 and how the class has affected me.”
Whereas Dr. Biden didn’t feel the need to prove herself: she didn’t need to prove to us all that she’s a competent person to speak on these issues, and she didn’t need to tell us all what she’s learned. She just applied her experience and knowledge, and we saw how smart and competent she was through the questions she asked, and the topics she wanted to bring up, and the way that she shared observations from her visit. She spoke about how well behaved the children were. Which makes me think she was paying attention to the children, she interacted with the children, and that she has enough experience with various groups of school children to make that comparison. Little things like that.
Yeah H&M do a better job highlighting charities Meghan will always incorporate in her speeches that she met with this X organization & ties them to the same goal she won’t just ramble like keen.
She was so awkward. In the brief introduction she must have looked at her notes 20 times. I get not everyone is good at memorizing speeches and the like – but for something Kate is allegedly so passionate about, she can’t give a natural introduction with minimal note-checking?
She showed exactly who she is – an amateur who has been coddled and praised and built up so she thinks she actually has credibility but she cannot hold her own when she goes to toe with someone like Dr Biden.
And dr Biden isn’t intimidating. She’s educated and knows her stuff but she’s down to earth. It should have been easy for someone who has spent 10 years studying the early years to pull off this event.
And she just couldn’t.
Somebody commented on twitter that kate will just “cute it through”. And honestly, that is the most accurate description. When she joined, they let her do a minimal amount of easy bread & butter engagements. Just showing up with a nice smile and a nice dress was good enough. I 100% believe it was the plan to do this until George took over. But then Meghan came. And she wanted to do things more effective. Kate has been playing catch up ever since. And cute’ing in through won’t work anymore because (no disrespect) but good looks fade in time
Apparently that account went private because despite the totally fair comments about Kate being incompetent at this event, a few derangers targeted it. It’s probably a Knauf sock puppet that started it but that crowd cannot handle critical analysis of how Kate is lacking.
People remember things that are important to them. That’s why it’s easy to tell when someone genuinely cares about a topic–even quiet people become more relaxed and fluent because they are drawing on their own knowledge and experience. Kate’s constant note-checking is just another giveaway that she doesn’t give a moment’s thought to these topics when the cameras are gone.
Even if you’re not a good public speaker (like me) there are ways to improve yourself. Like you said, if you are passionate about a certain topic you will have the basic knowledge that is necessary to somewhat not look out of place in these type of engagements. Also, we can see she has notes. So clearly she had something prepared for this engagement. This might sound very childish, but if i have a presentation i type out what i want to say and practice it in front of my parents or friends. She can do the same. She just refuses to do some actual work.
When she wasn’t given “princess lessons”, and thrown in to sink or swim, Diana figured it out and pulled coaches for speech, presentation, clothing… she availed herself of all the experts she could to be able to do the best job she could in her position.
FFKeenKween is content to be a middle aged woman who can barely speak a coherent sentence in public, wear clothes like a store mannequin (NO personality, No “personal” styling), trot out for a pic, then go home and hibernate for a few wks/mos. at a time.
What a difference!
Kate is just dumb and she’s lazy. The media skates around it but it’s the truth. And pretending she’s worked on this issue for a decade only makes it worse. You can’t be that bad in a topic you have focused in for a decade. And she’s not good enough to fake knowledge especially in this area.
Once again it should be noted that one of the few times Kate did an engagement that was over an hour was when she visited the set of Downton Abbey. She doesn’t do that with “hard” topics.
@ (The OG), this is what angers me!! Keen has had 10 years to prepare herself and if she was genuine about her role in The Firm, she would have spent the last 10 years preparing herself. The fact is, is that Keen isn’t interested in doing the actual work, Keen thinks that she can just wing it. You can’t just wing it, you have to prepare yourself and if this is what the UK and the Commonwealth have in their future, I feel badly for them. Don’t expect someone who doesn’t care enough about the people that is supposedly working towards becoming the FFC when she has no interest in the position, which this event has brought to light in spades.
Nic, that is why I have never bought into the “she’s shy or nervous” excuses. On the engagements that involve fun stuff for her like celebrities or sports, she is genuinely enthusiastic and lit up like a Christmas tree. When the engagements are more serious or involve some preparation or effort, she is the complete opposite because she doesn’t care.
Agree that she can’t just “wing it” – but this all
Extra embarrassing/enraging bc it’s disrespectful. She wasted FLOTUS’s time. That’s something that will be remembered. Next time Jill Biden heads to the UK, she’s not going to schedule anything meaningful with Kate. If all Kate wants is a photo op that’s all Jill Biden will give her. And then people can wonder why Kate didn’t join her on a visit to a school or something.
Yikes, no wonder that baby name saga is the cover of the Sunday papers and not this.
Will the baby name saga ever end? It’s really making me incandescent 😡
It’s truly pathetic and disgusting for them to keep going after a BABY like this, even though they’ll scream that it’s only the name they have an issue with.
THe media and the bloggers don’t think of that baby.
She’s had a decade to improve and hasn’t. She’s had a decade to enact some real change and hasn’t. She wants all the $, prestige, and servants but none of the work.
You could say the same about Will. He wants the King title so bad he can taste it, but he wants the version where you sit in your castle and occasional trim rose bushes.
William has bad speech a lot of ers and ums. Harry always spoke better than he did.
I don’t wish to be mean because public speaking can be terrifying. However I wish I could read Kate speech because I honestly didn’t understand one word she said.
I get that it can be scary, but it is also very much in her job description and she has had a decade+ to improve her nerves and presentation skills. If it were a priority for them that she be a good public speaker, she would be by now.
Yes it’s not everyone’s thing but she had ten years to at least make some progress, and ten more if you count the professional girlfriend years. There’s a reason the RF likes their women quiet and pretty, not have much opinions. No wonder Meghan was a problem for them.
Not everybody is a natural public speaker but unfortunately for Kate it comes with the job. The least she could do is take some classes and practice.
Not denying she had 10 plus years to prepare, however when all people expect from you is to smile and be a clothes hanger, you kind of don’t work on the part of the job that requires you to talk, hence why I am still going to need to see those notes because I still can’t understand a word she said
Yes it is but if public speaking is in your job description, you get a coach & do the work to improve. Do they have “Toastmasters” in the UK?
I had to do a lot of public speaking for my job & I was terrible at first. I worked really hard to improve. One thing I learned is that I did the best when I really knew the topic I was speaking on. That’s also part of Kate’s problem. Her interest in early education is superficial at best.
There was a point in my life where I had to do regular ten to fifteen-minute presentations and I was so nervous about it. But I asked someone who did public speaking how they handled it, and the advice was to practice ahead of time–not just once or twice but ten times or more. So I did that and it made all the difference–my memory just took over during the presentations and everything just spilled out with smoothness and ease. People asked me afterward why I was so good at it! Kate is lazy lazy lazy. There is no excuse for mumbling and um-ing her way through that brief introduction.
Harper, it makes me wonder if she even writes her own notes. Sometimes it looks like she’s getting lost or doesn’t know where to look for the answer for whatever questions. There are times where she looks down almost every other word like she literally has no idea where this sentence is going.
@AmyToo it never even occurred to me that she might write her own notes — I automatically assumed that staff did that for her. But at this point I’m wondering if she even READS the notes at least once before an event.
I think the person who said Kate thinks she could “cute it through” hit the nail on the head. That’s just such a perfect description, imo. Because that’s exactly what she’s been doing for more than ten years now, and it’s never been questioned. She wears a pretty dress and smiles, waves once and goes home. And that’s that.
Her fans absolutely love when she makes a funny face, or giggles, etc. Go read the comments on What Kate Wore; it makes me feel as if these people saw completely different footage than we did.
But as she ages, “cuting it through” won’t continue to work. It won’t be “charming” anymore (I’d argue it hasn’t been since about 2013-ish, tbh; the day she rolled her eyes, on camera, at the staff member in NYC when she as wrapping presents was the day she showed just how incapable she is at appropriately representing the Crown, imo).
But as long as there are photos of her smiling in a nice outfit to dissect, maybe some new jewelry, her supporters are happy. That’s all they expect from her, and all they want is to be able to say she’s somehow more “regal” than Meghan, so she won’t bother to do more.
I agree public speaking can be scary. Ten years to work on it aside, even if Kate was comfortable with speaking, she’s clearly not comfortable with the subject matter and that makes all the difference. Getting photographed talking to little kids (likely only for a few minutes until the photogs got enough snaps) while wearing pretty clothes does not make one an expert in early childhood development. And she’s sitting next to someone with 30 years of actual experience and education in the matter – I’d be intimidated by that too if I were Kate of No Work Experience, no matter how lovely and warm Dr. Biden is.
And the thing is, this wasn’t really a speech-speech. This was a round table, which is supposed to be a conversation. You answer the questions you’re asked, you can ask questions back of other people, if you get stuck and don’t know what to say, you can throw it to the other person you’re at the table with. It’s a conversation. It’s not a speech where you have to get up there and speak for minutes straight, just you. This makes me wonder what other conversations with her are like at these events. Or when she’s meeting with world leaders or other royals, even when it’s not recorded. It’s like she has no idea how to have a conversation about anything other than the weather, or what craft these kids are working on, or how much she likes so and so’s hat.
I also wish I could tell her that you don’t have to fill every single second with noise. You can just pause for a second, rather than say “um” or “like” or “err.” Especially if you’re in the middle of a sentence, no one is going to cut you off and think you’re done. Just pause for that half a second rather than fill it with “um.” That’s a very simple little something that I learned, and it helps so much. It makes you sound so much more prepared and professional.
This was the first time I heard Dr Biden speaking, and man,she has such a sweet voice and also she’s so knowledgeable. And the less said about the posh mumbler, the better.
Damn, I really miss Meghan just for this. Both would have done such an amazing event. Kate would look better with Melania.
Anyways, have you guys heard the word that Keen Guevara has two dogs and chickens too, that she hatched them herself 😒. And also wore Aquazurra bow pumps ie Meghan’s signature style.
@Mooney, the blatant copying/cosplaying Meghan has been going on for a while. Out with the jeggings, in with the trousers, handbags have replaced clutch purses, veja style sneakers, delicate necklaces and now aquazurra pumps. Have you noticed how her zoom calls have also moved from a boring wall/door background to sofas with plump cushions and plants in the background? Poor, poor Kate…you can dress up like Meghan all you can but if you don’t have IT, nothing is gonna make you happen. The moment she speaks it all falls apart.
Kate’s mumbling few words reminded me of that famous beauty pageant question where the Miss Teen USA South Carolina contestant lost her way and was rambling on about maps and South Africa and Iraq and everywhere like such as. Google it for a good laugh. Honestly, what is with those hand gestures of Kate’s? You are sitting down Kate! Put your hands in your lap or fold them in front of you and chill out. Jill, meanwhile, is sitting there watching Kate and I would love to know what was going through her mind.
@Harper omfg, thank you, I knew it reminded me of something and that’s exactly it! The way she just kept rambling, knowing she didn’t have a clue where she was even going with each sentence. That will never stop being one of the funniest things ever.
“And the Iraq” or whatever may as well be what Kate was saying because no one can understand her anyway. I’m going to go rewatch that clip right now for a laugh.
ETA I’m a terrible public speaker and would be as much of a hot mess as Kate is, or that pageant contestant. The only difference is that I’m self-aware enough to know my flaws and limitations, and don’t put myself in situations in which I’m being paid or expected to do a good job at it.
It would even be slightly endearing imo if Kate just came out and *acknowledged* how intimidating it was, or how nervous she was, being in the company of someone as intelligent and respected as Dr. Jill— it would automatically make people feel for her, because so many people would feel the same way in that situation— and would lower expectations; people would know she was there sort of to serve as a host/moderator, and not expect her to be some sort of expert. It would definitely make me like her more because it’s actually relatable.
Dr. Jill would, no doubt, say something to make her feel a little better and then they could move on. But they try to pretend Kate is on the same level and think that we won’t see through it.
Yeah the Lili question definitely caught her off guard. I’ll give her credit where credit is due and say it was a good response from her.
And I agree with others than her EY work has been lacking. At this for 10 years yet not much to show for it. In 10 years she could have gotten a bachelors, masters and be at the end of working on PhD on it. Yet she’s done very minimal. Wonder why her announcement next week is going to be about.
Her face did this weird contortion afterwards. It was like watching a robot switching off. A true Stepford wife. I imagine royal watching prior to Meghan was all about clothes, shoes and hair – nothing of substance. They shouldn’t have organised this event for her. It’s clear that in 10 years she has not bothered with improving her skills.
Exactly! She is in the mold of the Stepford wives. All about her hair and clothes and small talk.
Might be a divorce announcement given how this appearance went. I’m glad they put her out there so people can see for themselves why she and Pimp Mama Carole were so threatened by Meghan.
I can’t believe they told Meghan to be less of herself to make THIS creature shine. That’s why we never got a Meghan and Keen engagement.
Hmm that’s true @mooney. Have always though how nice it would have been for them to at least show up at each other’s engagements as a show of public support. But literally this is why Kate never did or wanted too. I feel like Meghan would have gone out of her way to include Kate and make her comfortable but even that wouldn’t have been enough as evidenced through this engagement with Dr. Biden. Yikes!
Meghan would have to be 100% less in order to not outshine Keen.
Meghan and Kate did a Wimbledon engagement together with Pippa.
was that an engagement? jeez…. that was WORK?
There was that Fab4 roundtable which just highlighted how light years ahead Meghan was compared to the others, including H to be honest…the difference is H was proud while poor K could only mumble and Baldimort said nothing that’s even worth repeating/remembering
ridiculous eh? After the fab 4 event they could not schedule another event where they would both have to speak in order not to highlight the huge gap between the two.
@royalblue- I did not get your sarcasm in the first quote lol and was like yo that was just a tennis match, no talking necessary. Well done.
The only way she could “shine” next to Meghan is if Meghan is unconscious.
Watching this video it was clear that Dr. Biden was stunned at how short this visit was, which is the MO for the royals, a quick wave, photo and gone. With million questions at the ready it’s apparent that she wanted to learn more about this academy and the work that they do and isn’t that the point? And no, Kate hasn’t been working in the early years sector for the past decade, we didn’t hear anything about her “passion” for it until the last 5 years or so, you know once she had kids.
Shoot, we didn’t hear about her passion for it until the day before Meghan’s launch event for the Hubb Community cookbook. It’s clear that they quickly threw together Early Years to have something Kate could put her name on. The whole thing is sad. Sophie and Camilla have long had their causes they put effort into. We saw what Meghan was able to do. But Kate is just there lazing her way through everything.
The broken Britain project was first mentioned on the Friday prior to the Monday launch of Meghan’s cookbook. Rebecca English wrote some nonsense in the DM about this alleged ground breaking project and when Meghan launched the cookbook days later to everyone’s surprise, it was obvious that Kate and Carole tried to steal Meghan’s thunder with the hastily drawn up broken Britain thing, which Kate didn’t even touch until years later after Louis was born.
I really focused on the content of their remarks. To me, it seemed clear that Kate didn’t have that much engagement. The comment about ‘how do we prepare future generations to be parents’ missed the mark for me. We need to look at our systems and that impact on children so we can learn how to reform and improve them to better meet and serve people’s needs.
And it doesn’t help that Dr. Biden is very open and very warm and very conversant with the subject matter. Kate looks terribly uncomfortable, and that, for me, betrays how out of depth she is because again, she’s not really conversant with any of the issues within her chosen area.
Kates response was baffling… focus on early childhood education by preparing them to be adults and have their babies and…. What? She just kept going on, but that’s what she said right? Lol
Maybe Malignant Melanoma Trump will let Keen borrow her ‘I Really Don’t Care, Do U?’ jacket for her next “engagement”.
If you watch the whole thimg while everybody else is speaking, Kate can’t stand still….
English people ‘ like her’ yes de uneducated ones !!!!!!
Seriously though l just watched de clip, why oh why didn’t she prepare for this meeting, we all have to do this for meetings , independently , she has soo much help and experience at hand, she really is lazy.and useless , totally not suited to this job or role and l tell you one thing if she worked in my company she woukd be sacked!!
“The Tory government has no issue with offering up the younger royals to the Obamas and Bidens though.“
That’s interesting to say – isn’t the Tory party the Conservative party in the UK?
I still like to hold on to the one scrap of respect I have for the Cambridge’s that they refused to be photographed with the Trumps.
Also, bring on all of the Dr. Biden stories. She’s just the best.
@ Sara – Yes the Tory and Conservatives are the same. I’ve not heard that they refused to meet the Donald Trump family when they visited. Would D.T. actually be interested in meeting them? I thought he was only interested in meeting the Queen, going to Buckingham Palace and attending the fancy state banquet. I could be wrong.
DT was offered a State visit by the then Prime Minister (Teresa May) because our ambassador in the USA said the UK could get stuff from him if we offered him pomp and circumstances because he was a weak idiot (or something like that in fancy words). Unfortunately, this was leaked to the press by someone inside government who wanted to screw up Teresa Mays leadership. This then pissed DT off and the state visit was all for nothing.
That is how I remember it but it has been a while
What is wrong with the the picture of kate pushing back her hair. Did her cheeks fall. She appears to have aged 20 years. Why does she have to obviously look at her note to may a sentence. Iistening to her is extremely hard, just a observation. I hope no harm no foul.
I’ve never heard “no harm no foul” as a saying. I love picking up things like that, thank you, Margaret.
Re Kate’s face. Kate actually does look like this; has done for a long time. I keep saying that, under natural light and without very kind editing, she looks awful. Her cheeks are like this in real life because, despite fillers and procedures, she is too thin for her natural body weight. Some of this will probably be disordered eating but some, I suspect, is massive amounts of anxiety. Both of these things will have waged war on her body. Also, I’m sure sometimes the news editors pull the photoshopping on her, and William to an extent; I think it’s when KP isn’t playing ball and keeping stuff to themselves.
I think that’s a non-photoshopped photo. That’s her face, un-retouched.
Trying to keep the accent together
+1000 for comments above.
I’m genuinely curious why Camilla wasn’t put in there too. They had to have known Kate was out of her element. Was this done on purpose? Is this beginning of the RF turning on Kate and the Middletons?
Carole had to have seen fallout.
No, I think KP genuinely believed that putting Kate with Jill would earn her a ton of good press and nice photo ops, with the bonus of sticking it to Meghan in the ongoing one-sided competition. You could tell it was a genuine and ill-conceived plan by how brief the engagement was and how urgently the staff wanted to move things along. The thing is, in normal circumstances Kate’s woeful lack of preparation would be quickly and neatly smoothed over by the palace and the RRs. They couldn’t do that with the international press on the scene this time.
Yeah like you and others have said – the international press makes a big difference. The RRs first off are out of their league, surrounded by actual journalists. So they can’t cover for Kate’s ineptitude like they usually do and the international press has no interest in covering it up. It makes me wonder how they are going to handle things like future US trips where they can’t control the coverage.
I think Kate believes her own publicity
I think that, too. I think she believes she deserves that seat at the table with actual educators, early years development professionals, and Dr. Biden, who is all that and more.
Camilla was with Charles at the G7 in Cornwall. All the leader spouses were there and they were taking lots of photos. Jill had to mad dash. Also Camilla doesn’t poach Kate’s “territory.”
I held my phone to my ear to hear KK speak. She mumbles and needs to raise her voice.
My word, this was painful to watch. I lost count of how many “um”s she spewed in a topic she’s been embiggered to be knowledgeable about. Throw in the fake accent and flailing arms, this was so distracting. 10 years married in and 20 years with William and she is still not ready for Primetime. Pathetic.
I don’t understand why she feels the need to fake her accent. The whole world knows her background. Nobody is going to hold her accent against her.
This is absolutely not about early childhood education, because she does not care, it was purely Apublic relation. She and her team wanted good press and solidify their credibility in the field of early childhood education.So, in the same way as she to exploit the muertre of
Sarah Everard, she wanted to harness the work and credibility of Jill Biden to get good press especially internationally without doing any work.
And for those who were on the topic of anxiety, she’s been a member of the royal family for 10 years, may her public speaking be so bad and she’s clinging to notes like a mussel to her roger this isn’t not normal. Diana is not generally good speaker, but she had received help of professional .George VI, feared to appear in public, due to a severe stuttering since the age of five, he received to help by Lionel Logue, elocution specialist who allowed him to overcome his stuttering. Why, Kate doesn’t? At this point she’s just the ultimate trophy woman, lazy …. someone who walks and stiffly waves a maniacal smile through the crowd. No is not a surprising that she felt threatened by Meghan because she is really bad in her role.
I agree. I understand and get social anxiety (I’ve got it too) so if she has it, I sympathise with her on that front.
But she’s also had 10 years and counting to improve. And that’s not even getting into the girlfriend years where she could have polished her skills. She knew being a royal would mean speeches so she should have and could have improved herself.
I’m not expecting her to be a great orator but if you look at where she was in 2011 vs 2021 in speeches, the improvement has not been great
Isnt part of social anxiety worrying about how you’ll be received and what people will say about you? Because Kate really doesn’t have that problem. No matter how pathetically bad she is at her job, she will be praised as the best. People will flock to her social media to tell her how classy she was. The press will just pivot to her clothing or hair or tearing down Meghan. She never has any consequences for performing badly. It’s not like she’ll be fired or never asked to come back to whatever charity she’s visiting. No matter how badly she performs or how much second hand embarrassment people feel when she’s speaking, people nod along encouragingly and fawn all over her like she’s something very special.
I guess a lot of anxiety can be inward, about not meeting your own expectations and wondering what people are *really* thinking even if they tell you you did wonderfully. But if that’s the case, wouldn’t she do something to help herself? Either avoid this type of work where she has to speak publicly, or not let things be recorded and broadcast live, or actually work on the public speaking that she’s so bad at, or even take some kind medication or do some kind of meditation or acupuncture or aroma therapy or anything else to deal with the actual anxiety?
I’m just so confused by her. I agree that she always seems awkward when doing this sort of thing yet she’s also too lazy or uninterested to do anything to make it better. Whenever I am very anxious or nervous about a presentation or speech, I practice it to make myself less anxious. Then even if my voice sounds wobbly and my face gets red, at least the actual words that I’m saying are competent and accurate and clever. That’s not happening with Kate. She seems more unprepared and awkward than super mentally/physically anxious. Like she knows she’s out of her league but she’s just going to pretend and wing it and hope it goes well. Like the charismatic and confident kids at school who would be able to get up in front of class with someone else’s notes that they’d never seen before that morning, and find a way to deliver the presentation. It wouldn’t be a good presentation and it wouldn’t make a lot of sense, they might say the same thing over and over again because that’s thats the one thing they know about the subject, or wave their arms around to look like they know what they’re doing. So it’s awkward to watch, but they’re not actually anxious, they’re just ill prepared and pretending they know what they’re doing rather than admitting they forgot their was a presentation today.
@Amy Too: Yes a lot of it is being worried about what people say about you but even if you know for a fact that people will fawn over you, it won’t take away or even lessen the anxiety you have because anxiety isn’t rational. You can know that whatever you say will be praised and still be nervous about it all.
There are ways to handle and manage it and I’ve done things to help. Hasn’t gone away completely and never will but again, there are ways to improve. Which Kate can do/use especially as she has virtually unlimited resources at her disposal. I’d be a lot more sympathetic if she was a first year duchess or whatever but she isn’t. She’s been at this for 10 years and was the girlfriend for another 10. She knew what the job requirements were, she could have improved any time. She can even do so now. If I was going to marry the future future King and I knew I was nervous about public speaking and had social anxiety, I would have found resources to help me. Either Kate can’t or won’t.
She certainly never showed any social anxiety when she was an unmarried party girl. She was splashed all over the tabloids clubbing in all the hot spots with Pippa and their cohorts, wearing next to nothing at a charity roller-skating event, etc. etc. She’s just lazy, unprepared and apparently unrepentant. She may be going through the breakdown of her marriage because she married a total wanker and is having a hard time dealing with it but jeebuz woman. Do your f*cking job.
Oh my. This was so embarrassing to watch. I literally have second hand embarrassment. Kate is worse than some classmates I’ve seen in my child psychology course in college (it was considered to be an easy class at my school and a lot of people took it for that reason). She sounds like a bumbling mess next to Dr. Biden and just pause at 1:07 to see that vacant, bored look on her face. She has absolutely nothing going on. She’s there for exactly the same reason some of my classmates were there for. It’s a subject she feels comfortable with and doesn’t have to challenge herself on.
It is insulting to students who actually did the work to get a degree and wrote a thesis or dissertation and worked in education. Kate is such a lightweight.
I get embarrassed for her when she does these events, particularly if she has to talk. It’s excruciating.
Here’s the thing: this PR rollout in theory could have been good. They have Kate do a roundtable on early childhood development and education with Dr. Biden who is a lifelong educator, they have them “write” an oped “together” and then release some new vague program on early years complete with glowing reports from RRs about how Keen Kate is about all of that. This really should not have been this hard but they completely fumbled on the first event. The problem isn’t that Kate isnt the world’s best orator; the problem is that she is unable to speak with any confidence for even just a few seconds for an intro on the topic of a field her PR wants us to believe she’s an expert in. What really struck me about that intro when i saw it was just how uncofident and uncomposed she was introducing Dr. Biden. This isn’t about shyness; it’s a lack of effort and preparation.
The fact that KP still cant prepare her to do literally the bare minimum is more evidence they are hacks and all should be fired. They need to spend more time finding things she’s actually good at and pushing her to work and spend less time trying to bring down the other couple in Montecito because this is embarrassing. She’s been at this for 10 years! 10 years and this is the best they can pull off?!
I think the problem is that Kate won’t do the prep work needed. This is someone who was copying notes off classmates in St Andrew’s so she’s never had a good work ethic. And you can’t teach someone to learn if they don’t think they need to. While I do think the advisors aren’t doing their job I also don’t think any advisor could get Kate to do anything of substance. And Catherine Quinn was top notch working in education and had tons of success in academia and even she took off once her two year contract was done because Kate is just hopeless and doesn’t care to change.
Kate focused on wearing repeats more than Meghan could and using the media to slam her. She then started to copy her look once Meghan was officially not a working Royal. This is Kate’s idea of work, not actually learning stuff.
This is where I’m at Nic. Anxious and poorly prepared can look pretty similar, both are awkward to watch, and we will generally jump to the more sympathetic conclusion and say that she must be really anxious/nervous. But that really doesn’t explain her other engagements where she’s smiling like crazy, laughing out loud, trying to touch and connect and show PDA with Will, flirting with cute sportsmen, playing sports vigorously and competitively, willing to try all sorts of stuff like beach yachting that she’s never done before and letting it be filmed, trotting around in super bright colors and high heels and flashy outfits, and literally flashing multiple times while seeming to think it’s cute rather than mortifying. She doesn’t seem to be shy or socially anxious when she’s doing all this other stuff. I think she enjoys being on display and feels entitled enough to think that she can just show up and do whatever and people will fawn over her. I don’t really get how someone can be the shy anxious mouse and also the b*tchy, calculating mean girl who snubs people in public and rushes across the room to claim William as her bf when he’s not yet in order to chase off other girls.
I think the horrible speaking during speeches and round tables and any other type of recorded conversation is her being unprepared and thinking she’ll just wing it. The “um”s, and looking down at her notes, and trying to use her hands to look animated, the pretend accent and the quiet voice are about having no idea what she’s talking about because she isn’t knowledgeable, she didn’t study, she probably isn’t following the conversation or really listening to the questions, and all because she doesn’t really care. She’s entitled and lazy and knows she can make up for any inadequacies (which honestly won’t be reported on or pointed out by her press) by having pretty hair and new clothes and commissioning articles that embiggen her while deriding anyone who actually does do this sort of thing better than her.
If she were truly embarrassed and anxious, then how can she go from stumbling through a speech to standing there grinning while people applaud her, and then immediately mingling and laughing out loud in people’s faces?
I think the things that she’s truly anxious about are her relationship with Will, looking good and staying thin, whether people will like her outfits, and her image in the press. You can only really be anxious about the things you care about. She doesn’t care about the intellectual aspect of her job because it’s not at all important to her. Anyone can learn about early years and give speeches, but not anyone can be a Duchess/FFQC in a new outfit every day with HRHs for kids—so if she’s truly anxious about anything, it’s that aspect of it all, the image.
this,Amy!
I think the really embarrassing part of all this is that Dr. B clearly turned up to the roundtable thinking it was a serious event, and she’d done her prep as any professional woman with her experience would. But then you see it dawn on her that this was just a glorified photo-op. Because lord knows Kate can’t cope with any more (in fact she barely coped even with this).
It really makes me sad for Dr Biden. They completely wasted her time.
The only bright spot is we have a wonderful FLOTUS who the Duchess willingly worked with and was photographed with as opposed to Trump or Ivanka. Although as much as I absolutely loathe Ivanka at least she showed up to the G7 prepared.
It’s so disrespectful and they wasted her time.
Kate and Co basically used Dr Biden for good PR. I hope she never does another event with keen again.
Agree with you and Harla above. It’s evident Dr Biden is shocked at the briefness of the round table discussion and this being the usual for royal events. It’s all about photo ops isn’t it even if we put KKKate aside? Worse, this event could be even more vibrant without her around. This is a joke. I still don’t know how and why institutions work with the BRF, especially those championing mental health.
It’s so clear they didn’t pair Dr Biden with Camilla because they thought it would be CUTE and embiggening if Kate was paired up with a passionate academic and teacher like her. They wanted this event to add to her fake early years “portfolio”.
The education I would buy with a royal bankroll! Even if she didn’t want to pursue early childhood education–which I have no doubt was foisted upon her as more Diana cosplay– surely she must be intellectually curious about something. It is such a shameful misuse of resources.
She should give this up because she cannot even wing it. It’s obvious she only cares about her own kids. I think she’ll be more convincing and maybe happier championing sports.
And it cheats the kids who need the help.
I’ve only read celebitchy coverage and I thought Kate looked good in the walk about photos, relaxed, smiling sensibly. Is that down to no Will and Dr Biden’s personality? Has she met Meghan or only Harry? She will have gained great insight into Harry’s actions I’m thinking. Yes this was all to prop up Kate’s legitimacy as an expert. I keep wishing we could hear from Catherine Quinn. She must be fascinated by the past few years
Well, on a positive note, I actually understood Kate better this time than I have in the past…seems she may have put more work in to improving her fake accent? I don’t understand why someone would go through all this trouble though. I would think her original accent is just fine and would improve her public speaking as well.
I know, Greentea. Her voice is pitched too low for her because it is faked and fragile to hold. She should never have changed it because she is pretty much stuck with it now.
I don’t normally watch Kate clips. She’s so much worse with sound and motion! I turned off the introduction when she referred to her notes 3x just to say thank you. Does she always talk with her hands that much? I mean, I’m a hand talker, so I know how it feels, but watching that, I finally understood why people will grab my hands to stop it. Also, her weight loss is alarming and I wish she could get some help.
I do exactly the same, Jessica. I turn the sound off and just watch. Her voice gets to me; it is very faked and fragile. I also feel embarrassed for her because she is so anxious. Yes, she does a lot of hands in the air. I think she’s been told by an expert that waving her hands around makes her look vibrant and engaged when she speaks, and that it’s also a prop to help her get through any talking bits. I think it makes her look worse, because it isn’t natural, it is contrived.
Kate has a degree in art history that she did not use.
Kate strikes me as one of those people who thinks a degree is the end of education, and once that box is ticked they’ve finished and never have to open a book or think or learn anything ever again.
In my country it used to be said about some rich (female) students were going to university to study MMC (mientras me caso, in Spanish, while I get married, in English), whereas other middle class or lower, we were actually needing the education to get jobs.
Kate switched universities and took a gap year to put herself in William’s path and not only ended up in the same program as him, but also the same residence. (William later switched to geography because he was going to fail out art history. I guess he didn’t think of copying the notes of classmates like Kate did). She never cared about education and everything she has done since then only proves this to be true.
Ennie, we here I Texas call that a degree in M.R.S.
She’s so incompetent. Why do they keep trotting her out? The monarchy is doomed.
10 years? I recall she only picked this up 2017 or 2018? Oh….cos the survey took 8 years? How creative.
I now understand why Baby Name Gate is still raging. Kate embarrassed the Crown and the UK government at an international summit in real time with world press present. Ten years in the Firm and still not a polished speaker, although she had time to hire a speech coach. And Early Years was not a ten year venture and CNN needs to be called out that. I don’t appreciate FLOTUS Dr. Biden being used as a prop for Kate. Notice in the YouTube clip Dr. Biden did not address Kate as Your Royal Highness. FLOTUS sees what she’s been handed and she’s not impressed.
Dr. Jill attended two events that Harry is part of, sitting on bench at the beach, she explained that she attended the first Invictus Games.
One of the guys reminded her, that he met her at the Wounded warrior Games, that is how comfortable the people at table with her was.
Diana had no University degree but she was a whole lot better at communicating and articulating than Kate will ever be. I recall pictures of her talking earnestly with Mrs Clinton when she was first lady.
Diana was kind and perhaps even more importantly, Diana was curious. Formal education isn’t the be all and end all. The royals have access to so much if Kate was even the tiniest bit interested in anything she probably would be able to move through the world with more ease.
I recall (But cannot find in the internet) that Diana was asked abut her academic achievements by a reporter who I think was foreign. she answered “I’ve had an education”, referring to all her trips and having to connect and deal with people all around. She had emotional intelligence by the loads.
I think Harry mentioned something alike, he said how all his trips to the commonwealth nations have helped him shape who he is now, how he learned to empathize with people all around, and not only in the island.
Weird how these heirs are protected, isolated and detached, and I suspect a lot of this is by their own choice and design.
I am not a natural public speaker in that it makes me terribly nervous. You wouldn’t know it, though, because I took courses in it to make me better. The hand gestures were something I had to consciously work at, but behavior can be changed. But I can sympathize with Duchess Keenbridge a little because I’ve been there.
What I can’t excuse is the total lack of preparation, including that load of waffle – does anyone understand what point she was trying to make? I got “Dr. Biden is a little off base about this program, we aren’t as concerned about early childhood education itself so much as teaching kids how to be good parents so they can someday be good parents.” It was a little nonsensical. Not every child will BE a parent someday, it doesn’t make their education less important.
But Kate is all about the tools, and Dr. Biden needs to get informed! The following is the actual translation of Kate’s word salad: “Actually the focus isn’t you know um sort of on on parenting itself but actually how we could give them the tools so that they are having their babies and and raising their children with these greater tools and I think that’s the way that education all the way through the system I think would be really um really powerful.”
I mean, what you just wrote is actually clearer than what Queen Keenbridge mumbled, so thank you for the translation.
Yikes!
Did Kate not take the opportunity to talk about her 5 question struggle survey that she devoted years to? Or at least the actual research KP bought to cover up the 5 question struggles when they released the results?
The only early childhood outcomes she cares about are her own children. I’m not convinced she cares about Pippa’s children. I don’t think it is a stretch because she and her husband are both very arrogant and selfish; we see how they have treated the other set… As far as her appearance is concern, she has an eating disorder. You can tell by her hands/feet/bones/head, she wasn’t meant to be that slim.
Such a disaster. Again, it might have been different, and what a score it would have been–but Kate couldn’t be fussed to do the slightest preparation. What a total waste of time for Dr. Jill.
I think it was a great idea to put Kate with Dr Biden. She can learn from Jill. Dr. Biden is an educator, and she has the patience and kindness to low-key mentor her. I am no fan of Kate’s, but i dont think she is necessarily opposed to bring mentored.
She could learn a lot from Dr. Jill, but it seems unlikely when Kate didn’t even bother to prepare for their time together.
If it’s not going to get her buttons, dresses, jewelry, and a tiara, she can’t be bothered.
Catherine Quinn was also a highly recognized educator and Kate didn’t bother to learn from her and so I doubt Kate thinks she needs to be mentored. She wanted to ride the coattails of the positive PR that associating with the Bidens bring to her. I don’t blame her for seeing Jill Biden as a positive person, but she disrespected her by wasting her time and being so ill prepared.
@mina_esq
Jesus H. Christ!
Y’know, you can always tell when an ordinary mediocre sees herself in a high-profile mediocre…….the former embarrasses herself in a cringe-worthy attempt to prop up the latter. Yeeesh!
PS: a 40 yr old is 20yrs too late to start thinking abt acquiring a mentor.
Food for thought.
She can learn from any expert in the UK about this topic, she just won’t.
But they didn’t frame it that way; they tried to pass Kate off as one of Dr. Biden’s equals.
I would have a lot more respect for Kate if she’d said something about how happy she was that Jill was there because it was such an opportunity for her to learn from someone who’s genuinely been doing this work for decades. But they didn’t present it as Kate learning anything, they tried to present Kate as on par with Dr. Jill, with just as much to say about the topic, and it was so embarrassing.
It would have been so much better if Kate had acknowledged that she had so much to learn from Dr. Jill and THAT’S why this engagement was meaningful to her.
This is spot on.
mina_esq, um, this presupposes that Dr. Biden wishes to be a mentor to someone in another country–or even has the time to do such. Let’s be candid. Keen would have to actually know something about the topic in order to have a mentor. If the brf is hoping for that just for the PR, I think they had better come up with something else for Keen. Keen wasted her time once, so how many times do you think Dr. Biden will be a party to that?
I wonder if the reason we’re seeing so much of Keen lately is because she’s been told she has to start working. Maybe there’s no free lunch anymore.
@Mina, Dr. Biden is the First Lady the United States. In what universe is she supposed to be Kate’s governess? I’m sorry, maybe you mean well but this is way below Dr. Biden’s status and low key insulting to expect her mentor the granddaughter-in-law to the Queen who supposedly has the full backing of the establishment. Kate needs to put in the work and she either does not want to or not allowed to. Her disinterest is so blatantly obvious. Either way, the result is this tongue tied mediocrity. FLOTUS has a real job, a very full schedule and plenty of grandchildren if she needs to babysit.
@Mina_Esq — you can’t mentor someone who doesn’t want to learn. Kate does not have the intellectual capability or focus to take on any learning of importance despite her “years” (coughcough) of study. It’s like the old saying “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink”. It’s certainly not up to a very busy First Lady WITH a teaching career to boot to encourage Kate to learn. That meeting was yet another utter failure in a litany of failures of both William and Kate to get off their lazy, entitled asses and actually do more than the bare minimum. It was an embarrassment and you could see how taken aback Dr. Biden was at the lack of fulsome discussion and brevity of the meeting.
oh yes great idea : the First Lady of the United States should be a ‘tour guide for some grand daughter of some people while the world is burning. and their shunning /damaging) while simultaneously committing stochastic terrorism on some US citizen/their Female family member . So Great that during a pandemic the english royal family / and whatever boyos at state/ thought a woman’s “tea party” mentoring program was a Great idea.
Yeah I’m pretty sure Dr. Biden, being both the First Lady of the United States and a full-time college professor, has more important things to do than to mentor this total lightweight of a woman.
It was actually disrespectful to put Dr. Biden through that with someone who is a total lightweight, who hasn’t one 100th of Dr. Biden’s intelligence, experience, drive, focus and wit. Why didn’t they just plan a tea with Kate and leave it at that? I’m sure she was aghast at the lack of substance about a hugely important issue and one that would have benefited Kate’s professional profile enormously if she’d only put some actual work into it instead of a new dress and too many extensions.
Why did Dr Biden get stuck with keen ivanka? Did she lose a bet?
Lizzie wins internet of the June 21 imo. “Keen Ivanka” sums it up. Yes, Jill is a woman and she absolutely lost a bet; the boyos at state wanna maintain that ‘special relationship’ with the boyos running england
To think Kate is supposed to be announcing some big project on “early years” this week. And yet here she is looking like she hasn’t a single clue.
She apparently doesn’t know much about her “big project.”
Maybe it will have something to do with feeding the hungry children of Great Britain. That way, footballers and UNICEF won’t have to go it alone while taxpayers fund another watered down McQueen frock for KKKate.
There’s another announcement coming? Seriously? JFC that’s all Elegant Bill and Kate do: they make announcements about everything they’re going to do. Just fcking do it! Not everything needs hype beforehand.
Meanwhile, in just this week alone Meghan birthed a child and released her first book, lol. And, I have zero doubt that despite being only a week postpartum and not having done “ten years of work” on this topic, she still would have done a better job than Kate did at this engagement, just walking in blind. What a trainwreck KP is.
So basically they used Dr. Biden for a photo op and to try and give Kate some gravitas ahead of whatever she is announcing this week on early years. I wonder if it occurred to them how badly she would do next to Dr. Biden.
Ooof. And now that the Bidens have met Keen Guevara and the rest of the BRF, I hope they’ll meet with the Sussexes soon. It would have caused a diplomatic incident/kerfuffle if the Bidens had met with the Sussexes before the Cambridges — c’mon, you know the RR rats would have whipped themselves into a frenzy if that had happened — but now that they’ve met the Queen and Keen has had her little roundtable with Dr Biden, it’s all good. Dr Biden even brought up Invictus when she met with a UK veterans group: https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/surfboards-calming-waters-us-first-lady-meets-uk-military-veterans-2021-06-12/ .
I think it’s a insulting they had Dr. Biden do an event with Kate. She’s the First Lady of the United States. Her husband is meeting with the Queen and world leaders. She should have been offered an event with Charles or Camilla. And they invited an educator with a PhD to a roundtable discussion that was actually a photo op! She was polite, but it was obvious she was surprised, which means she spent time researching and preparing questions for this, when she could have been doing something else! So disrespectful. The royals were so careful to make sure the Trump family didn’t get any pictures with them, but now it’s okay to use Dr. Biden to make Kate look better?
Mad and plaid had no business attending the G7. Sorry but they are not leaders and won’t be for a few decades. But if there is a camera Keen will be sure to be in front of it.
Camilla, who reads books and invites intelligent comment, should have been paired with Dr Biden. How rude to think that the world would buy the idea that Kate is the intellectual equal of Dr Biden.
I think this is it. The royals were very shrewd about not being seen with Trump and his spawn unless they absolutely HAD to (the Queen)….because it would have done nothing for them positive PR-wise. But you are exactly right that they had the audacity to waste Dr. Jill’s time with this sad excuse for an engagement with Kate, because the only goal was to prop her up as usual. Problem is, you kind of have to meet someone halfway if your goal is to look good and Kate clearly doesn’t have the capacity to do that.
British people will like her because her incompetence and laziness show as being modest and shy. She doesnt have a heavy weight brain like other women – i guess that is ok too, but she is stuck in her position for all to see. That is not a good position to gain self esteem for her. That explains the type of work she does to feel comfortable: sports, gardens & kids.
On another notr, Id really like for her to stop saying “I suppose” you should know something and not just suppose everything. That is so amateur.
It’s clear the William did not notice her for her academic achievements, but really she should have achieved more and embetter herself more since she has had years and years to do just this, be a worthwhile representative of a leading country, even if it is on the monarchy side.
Seeing this event reminded me of all those arab countries with sheiks and many wives.
I understand that many arab women are very educated, and especially those rich ones, and still they are destined to marriage and raising kids.
Still , as protected or limited as they are in that world, one can see Sheika Mozah. Píncese Haya, when she was younger was also very accomplished, but I think her achievements kind of stopped after marrying the Dubai ruler.
I really don’t like to say anything bad, I am on twitter and I restrain myself a lot, for several reasons, but I have to say that she really has had years to try to overcome any fear or insecurity she might have had, and practice in the areas she performs worse. I suspect she cares for her looks, and just does things she likes.
She might be an ok-ish person, but I think she is lacking,s she seems fearful in the moment, but then she forgets and goes to enjoy the perks. The courtiers surely prefer her this way, it is easier to control an insecure, person. She is going to be queen in the future, wether her performance is, so , who cares, right?
-I am not talking about her part in her SIL take down, but I think it is all related.
She and Will really have to center themselves in any discussion, don’t they. He couldn’t talk about his grandfather in his eulogy statement, just about himself, she can’t talk about early ed for the sake of kids, just about her journey learning about it.
Especially contrasted with Dr. Biden, who spoke about actual experiences with children.
Riffing on Kaiser’s headline of childhood education: This, now adult woman, has and continues to be infantilized and used. Further, she is complicit in her own infantilization. The freest she was and has ever been is when she was an actual child, where, hopefully, she could run, play, and be herself. There is an inverse relationship between her physically growing up and her becoming controlled and used.
It was always and continues to be bizarre to me than someone would sit around waiting for someone instead of working towards something of one’s own for 10 years! She had the means to, and could have had a doctorate in Art History, rather than be a study in waiting and diminution. She could have done both, worked and waited. She could have made herself worthy of herself. Believe me, I’ve been in very bad relationships that made me doubt my self worth, but I have always had a job and worked on things and earned things that were exclusively my own – my degrees. Education is freedom.
Do you think Carol told Kate to sit around and wait for William for 10 years or was that Kate’s idea?
TEalief, even, even if she didn’t study an academic degree, there are ways to improve oneself.
@ Bess, who knows? Her mum or her, a combination of both? It’s galling that working parents, especially a working mother with means, would encourage her daughters to not work at something, anything, that interested them instead of, fostering dependency – financial and otherwise. She seems to like and is a sporty type, she could have gotten a PE degree, which would have helped her in the now, and lent credibility to her engagement with Dr. Biden, because of genuine interest and personal passion.
@ Ennie I agree with you, formal education not necessary. Interest, curiosity and passion are required.
I think if kate did pursue a career during the dating years, it would have been entirely for the sake of optics, and nothing to do with her own self worth. Just like when she had the token job at Jigsaw, she only did that because people kept saying ‘why doesn’t she have a job?’. She did literally nothing whilst she was there and had no interest in doing anything.
What I find strange is the fact that whilst she had no interest in pursuing a career, her relationship was always rocky. Willie would dump and cheat on her every 5 minutes or so, she literally could have been finished at any time and left with nothing. She still had no plan B, when plan A was so uncertain. Maybe she was like that to prove to Willie she would do whatever it takes.
The niece part was actually when everybody was already saying goodbye and after both Flotus and Kate’s speech..
At least she did not refer to Pippa’s daughter, as William said.
Someone from BAFTA excoriated Kate for this appearance, basically saying she’s an underprepared lightweight, and not the person for this type of work. It upset her fans and apologists big time to the point he had to go private. I don’t think this is the usual royal watcher type, just someone who saw a mediocre performance. I’m not really following the UK royals and what they did during this summit because they were window dressing. However, I got the general impression they were underprepared, brought nothing to the table and just expected people to be impressed if they just showed up. They spent the past week showing their entire petty ass to the world attacking the Sussexes newborn baby girl and expect us to be impressed with their grinning and pantomime? Like seriously!? Boris Johnson didn’t exactly dazzle on the world stage either. The Bidens looked so prepared and enthusiastic and the UK’s isolation is starting to show in how they interact on the world stage.
The whole point of Kate is that she’s actually bad at doing anything of substance. Her whole purpose is to stand, walk, smile, wave and make small talk. If she was actually intelligent, hard working and outwardly ambitious (we all know what her real ambitions are) then she wouldn’t be so popular with the core fanbase. She’s mediocre for a reason, so that mediocre women can think she’s one of them.
I have read nothing other than the title of this article and just came on here to say that the correction needs to be: Dr Jill Biden wrote an op-ed about early childhood education.
Is Kate unable to absorb enough knowledge about a subject to not make a fool of herself when at an event like this or is she too lazy to do the prep work? Is her staff not presenting her with information in a way that she can understand?
I can’t imagine Dr. Biden or Michelle Obama showing up an event unprepared to have a meaningful conversation on the topic.
the courtiers are probably even lazier.
My opinion: the BRF did Kate dirty.
I am no Kate apologist. But they are the ones that sent her out here, knowing she was not prepared (and didn’t want to be prepared – that part is ALL on her). This reflects poorly on THEM as well as her that they sent out a representative that is supposed to save the white monarchy because she is the lynchpin king maker on a subject she supposedly has made her life’s work and spent 10 years on already KNOWING she can’t speak in coherent sentences and really doesn’t have the gravitas to add to to a discussion.
They deliberately set her up for failure and have assured her it’s been a great success. And the press trying to convince the public this was a great success as well? No one has ears or eyes to critically review it, it seems.
I think Kate is being set up for a fall by the press and the BRF and she doesn’t even know it yet.
Maybe it was payback for all of the embiggening articles written about Kate over the last four years. I can’t imagine those articles are going over well with some people in the firm.
You might have a point there. Who knows, maybe this is Charles saying “You wanna portray yourself as the top dog in the Firm? Fine, then get out there and prove it”, fully knowing she would just crash and burn.
Agreed. In the past, when she did a speech, she had notes. Granted, a bit wooden delivery but the performance was passable. This was an expert set up.
All Catherine had to do was to show william and his family that she got her degree,after that she was good. she stopped using her brain to learn anything else . then her mind was busy trying to get him to marry her. she saw her life with servants,all she had to do was wear some fashion clothes that her father in law will buy her., he will also paid for her nannies when the time comes. in her world she really don’t have to do anything,just have babies and sail on with money she never earned. what would anyone talk to Catherine about? does she know anything that she can have a conversation with anyone? walking around with titles means nothing,unless the person is a plumber, a doc, a lawyer, an electrician and other titles we all need in our daily lives. Catherine can’t do anything else but walk around with a title ,and disrespecting the 1st lady of the usa by pretending she is serious about the early stages of children lives.. yes its important for all children to have a good upbringing. but its also important to help some parents to make them good parents . with all this money is needed. anyways Catherine title is for life, unless she divorces. she don’t have to campaign to the people to keep her title.
Anyone notice how Will Suck-a-Thumb barely got any mentions this summit? I guess once the Take Your Kids To Work Day meet and greet was over, they gave him a juice box and a coloring book to keep him out of the way of the adults.
If they had done the same for KKKate, she wouldn’t have looked like an airhead on the world stage, pretending to do important work.
I guess the BRF really does protect the heir only at all costs.
Kate has a 4 yr university degree. This requires some work ethic, studying and applying herself to earn a passing grade. As many of us can attest, no one hands you a diploma on a silver platter. Work is required to stay in the game. So what happened? How is she now being called lazy when we know she can do better? How is she not prepared now when for 4hrs she had to have been prepared to pass exams? Any answers?
Watch the documentary Born Rich and see how rich kids don’t have to work hard at Uni to graduate. They can phone it in and behave in ways that would get middle class and poor kids kicked out of school, so long as their parents can donate large sums of money or are connected to highly influential people. George W Bush has been a lifelong fuck up, but graduated from Yale with “C’s.” Look at Olivia Jade Gianulli, in private high school and at USC.
She did not really use the degree. She left the University of her choice when she heard William would attend St. Andrew’s even adopting the same major, Art History. Right after Graduation she was unemployed for Months and spotted at nightclubs and lavish vacations with William. She was campaigning for the Ring and could not be bothered taking on a job with actual deadlines and responsibilities. She had the super flexible Jigsaw job and could be there when the phone rang so William would take her and not some one else.
Kate was known to copy off of her classmates at St Andrew’s and there is an old jezebel article where former classmates mention her doing this and someone putting false answers for her to copy. Also, the fact that she was able to get in the same residence group as William suggests she had some pull not only to get in St. Andrews over a high number of applicants that year, but also conveniently be in the same house. That only happens if someone donates money to the school. Kate was likely smart enough to pass her classes, but by the second year she was known as William’s girlfriend by the school and staff and she would have been given special treatment as much as William was at that point.
Middle class folk need to work hard at school but rich kids with connections don’t follow that same path.
She was given a very flexible work schedule when she took that part time “job” after college and was special dispensation to leave early and take extra vacations and stuff whenever William “needed her” because she was his gf. I’m sure sure her mom was able to pressure professors into giving her extra time for assignments or re-do tests when she needed them because of her highly “unique circumstances.” And who is going to fail or hold back the heir’s gf? And it’s amazing the amount of help you can get from people if you just ask. Roommates and assistant professors or advisors who will proof read your papers and point out what needs to be fixed. Teachers that will give you extra credit chances when you’ve failed. Other students who will let you copy their notes or see their study sheets after they’ve filled out all the answers. And again, being a rich enough girl to get in who was literally living with Prince William? People are going to do things for her. Plus a lot of these more prestigious schools care about their graduation level. Once you’re in, they want to keep you in and they want to pass you and give you your degree so you will become an alumni, someone who represents the school and donates and shows up for parties.
Even without all of that, in real life I know some incredibly stupid people who have managed to get college degrees. You don’t have to do well in school to get a degree, you just have to do well enough, as in not fail everything all the time. You can graduate high school and college with a D average if you have to. I know people with medical degrees, nursing degrees, who can’t spell or write or use correct grammar. I always wonder how they wrote papers in college. People with business degrees who have no idea about basic history or simple science. People with 4 year degrees who have no idea where any other country is in the world besides Canada and Mexico—my own mother has no idea where most of the states are in the United States and she went to college. I know people who work in the hospital doing dialysis all day who are anti-vaccine and think that crystals and supplements heal serious illnesses. You don’t have to believe or even really understand what you’re being taught in order to get a degree, you just have to be able to memorize what you need to memorize for that one test and then you can forget it for the rest of your life.
That’s probably where Uncle Gary comes in….he threw some money at the situation to get her right where she needed to be to hook her prince.
Whew! Imagine forcing Meghan out for this one. Wow.
Oh she is shy, they say. Give her some more time. But this woman played in school theatre and did it very well. There was no sign of shyness. I really liked her acting and charm on scene. So she can do it – play and speak in front of people.
But theatre was entertainment and this is real life and work. Kate obviously hates work. And she is obviously meaningless. Hope I use this word correct, bad English. Just mannequin.
Even if you think Brits should be embarrassed by Kate, equating embarrassment with her and embarrassment with Trump in the same sentence is way off.
What I’d like to know, and never will, is what her mother thinks of a display like this. Can Carole Middleton see how poorly her daughter performs in these situations? If so, why can’t she suggest to Kate that help is available to improve her performance? And that she should take advantage of it.
Stage mom is gonna stage mom. I honestly don’t think Carole cares as long as Kate keeps her hooks in William and her eyes on the throne.
I’m not saying this is the case here, but when I am nervous my brain shuts down and I forget some of what I need to say so I rely on my notes to make sure I cover everything. It could be nerves, after all, she is being compared to Dr. Jill.
That’s fine and all but they really need to stop insulting Dr. Jill by acting as though she is her equal and this was going to be a meeting of the minds. She is not on par with Dr. Jill or any expert on this issue, never has been and never will be.
Well, on twitter yesterday, kate was DRAGGED, by all, including some British “conservatives.” The video making the rounds where kate is asked to speak…🙄. A collective conclusion on kate’s performance…😧😧: aka, Duchess Mumbles or Mush Mouth (to each its own)…🤣🤣🤣🤣😉.