Even Omid Scobie was not immune to Kensington Palace’s balls-to-the-wall PR extravaganza for the Duchess of Cambridge’s 40th birthday. I’ve believed for two weeks now that Kensington Palace sent out guidance to journalists, likely in the form of an outline, talking points and pages full of “quotes” from people around Kate and people who have dealt with Kate through her meager patronage list. It’s been interesting to see what various royal reporters have done with the same basic information and what they focus on. Scobie was shady, but honestly, he wasn’t the only shady reporter covering Kate’s birthday buttons. Scobie started his piece by pointing out the shift in Kate’s work and “work ethic” when she had competition. Some highlights from Scobie’s Harper’s Bazaar piece:
Kate began doing more starting in 2019: Rather than simply follow the roadmaps suggested to her by senior palace aides, Kate was taking the reigns of her own royal career as she continued to navigate a more senior role within the House of Windsor (one that will eventually see her as Queen consort to King William).
She’s more ambitious now: “Kate’s confidence has grown tenfold – there’s a lot she wants to achieve in the years ahead,” a Palace insider tells BAZAAR.com. “I also think that witnessing the way in which William, Meghan [the Duchess of Sussex] and [Prince] Harry spearheaded successful and unique projects of all different types served as major inspiration,” says a former senior palace aide. “She often played it safe in the past, perhaps almost too safe, but she’s more ambitious now.”
Scobie on the shift he’s seen: As someone who has covered the work and lives of the young royals for over a decade, I too have noticed a shift. Engagement notes from Kensington Palace emphasizing how “keen” Kate is to learn about an issue or charitable focus, have gradually turned into carrying out projects with tangible results that deliver more than just pretty photos. Example? The November 2020 “Big Change Starts Small” research report into early childhood development that the duchess founded has since evolved into an important arm of The Royal Foundation (the charity that supports the work of the Cambridges)—and a major cornerstone of her public life.
Katie Nicholl on Kate’s future: “She’s an extremely safe pair of hands,” Katie Nicholl, author of the bestselling biography, Kate: The Future Queen, tells BAZAAR. “Juggling being such a private person with an immensely public role, raising a young family in the spotlight, managing your marriage—making it happy and successful—with so many people watching. . . None of that is easy. But I think she’s really found her stride now. We are now seeing more of the real Kate than ever and it’s standing the royal family in great stead.”
I’ve said before that watching the Sussex saga gave me a newfound and begrudging respect for the balancing act Kate has pulled off within the family and in the media. Now, does Kate also benefit from A) whiteness and B) positioning herself as the “good duchess” to Meghan’s foil? Of course. The story of Keen Kate and the Wiglet That Saved the Empire is now inextricably linked to Meghan and Harry’s exile. Kate showed her hand and exposed her own ruthless streak, and now she’s trying to put that genie back in the bottle and pretend that she had nothing to do with any of it. Two things are especially funny to me: Scobie writing “keen” and how he managed to give credit to Meghan and Harry for the change in Kate.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Avalon Red.
I saw some Kate stans angry about this piece but Scobie is correct. Harry and Meghan lit a fire under the asses of both William and Kate, only the deluded would deny this.
Agreed, but then they were still too lazy to actually do anything lol. I could write a ten page list on everything Meghan accomplished this year. Meanwhile Kate’s biggest accomplishment of the year was wearing a gold dress…
@Pink Flamingo: Don’t forget she launched her Early Childhood Centre for Research with no Head, office space or concrete plan of action and she had a Christmas concert that was really about her playing the piano.
@Amy Bee- I forgot about that one!!! If I remember correctly even the Daily Fail commenters were ripping her to shreds for having zero qualifications for the early childhood education one 😂
I guess if you call COPYING everything someone else does as “lighting a fire” I can see that. Let’s be honest here, William and Kate haven’t done ANYTHING of significance since Harry and Meghan left. They have co-op others work and pretended to be “keen” in all things. They spend more time focusing on what’s going on the USA than the UK. The UK media props them up for doing absolutely nothing. I suspect we will continue to see more of the same from them….wait to see what happens an ocean away and try their best to copy it.
@ PaulaH, that’s the truth of their utter lack of work ethic or stepping up to the plate when TQ has done 3x’s as many engagements. Since Harry and Meghan left, these two are back to their old habits, doing nothing!!!!
Yes, I agree that we saw a little bit of fire under their arses, but that flame is out. The Bitter Brother and Mumbles McMutton have no one to compete with now, especially when a 95 year old woman can outwork them!!
It’s back to lazy and lazier, I hate to tell the RR’s and courtiers.
Kate’s juggling jazz hands are an extremely safe pair? Only with Nanny Maria and her staff as safety nets.
She does not have to use her hands to do any housework, or cooking or anything, full staff available to her to do the work. And she can pay attention to her daily regime at her home spa.
I cannot stop the baffled head tilt I am doing with every article, that are all clearly sanctioned by Kate, going on about comparing her to everyone around her, especially Meghan. If my big birthday present was everyone posting to Facebook comparing me to my sister-in-law (who also works in health care: she is a NICU nurse who literally saves tiny babies lives and I’m a social worker who has to spend the day not fainting when I see blood, so she’d win at all the things lol) I’d be furious! Some friends.
@Laura: Kate’s fine with those articles as everyone of them embiggened her and bashed Meghan. This is what she wanted.
no shade to your SIL, who is awesome, but: there’s more than one way to save a life. i can tell you, as a doctor: we need social workers as much as we need NICU nurses.
Scobie has an editor who gives him assignments. He did manage to be shady with it. I buy that Kate is more ambitious but she doesn’t want to put in any work related to that ambition. She wants to use other people’s work like with her “childhood development centre.” K&W’s big problem is that they can’t steal H’s ideas anymore and coast along behind him.
Kate has always been ambitious. It’s just that her ambition has centred around first capturing a prince and then trying to be the most popular. Any action she has done since Meghan’s arrival has been to try to keep her position of queen bee. And while the media establishment and systemic racism praises her for being the white duchess, she knows that she doesn’t match Meghan, hence why the attacks on her own sister in law continue to this day.
Your right! She is all out of ambition!! It’s takes a lot of ambition and no self respect to stalk someone for 10+ years!
Mumbles McMutton has nothing to offer or is not capable of competing with Meghan, as we have all seen. Meghan ran circles around her Mumbles even while she was pregnant. Mumbles McMutton needs to give it up. She is seen solely as someone who refuses to let go of someone who is much more worthy and loved than she will ever be. Mumbles will never be at the same level as Meghan, which is why it’s eating her up inside. She knows that she will never measure “up”, against Meghan or anyone else.
Managing her marriage is a strange way to describe a wife relationship to her husband. It sounds like a business not a happily married couple. Also I think Kate needs to be called out for being lazy and stop giving her credit where it isn’t due. She doesn’t work.
Thank you @ Over It! The curtain needs be pulled back, once and for all.
Exactly, Kate is a product of her surroundings, almost atmospherical. If the press says she’s humble and regal, that’s all Brits see. But during the Waity Katie and at the beginning of her marriage, she was lazy, blunderous and lame. She’s goes where the wind takes her.
She is ambitious, even if M never married H. You kinda have to be if you were willing to spend your young adulthood based on a prince’s whims and desires so that he’ll marry you. But that’s not extended to her work – except when she does the big flashy projects and even then most fall flat to me. And she was ambitious enough to play a major part in a smear campaign against M along with crafting/creating a PR narrative that you’re utterly indispensable to the monarchy and that your husband is an emotional rage monster and you’re the only one who can deal with him.
Right, she’s always been ambitious, its just a matter of what her ambition was, so to speak. Working has never been part of her plan so she’s never been ambitious about her projects etc.
I’m confused about the tangible results part that omid mentions. I guess there was a tangible piece of paper that came out of a tangible copier that read Big Change start Small.
Yeah, I see no tangible results for that. Not yet. Not from Kate.
What big projects have William done by himself?
He was trying to hold on to the Invictus Games, claiming he had input, but was quickly told to get stuff, Heads Together which he got to keep, most likely have not heard from the Lamebridges in 2 years.
The Military app that he was trying to take credit for, until the Military said it was Harry’s idea.
When Meghan told the Lamebridges that all from the cookbook money was going to the HUB, the Lamebridges had plans for it saying, they put all the money in the pot and share it with other Charities.
They usually do that with Harry and take all the credit, but Meghan said no, it was the Ladies’ recipes and they wanted to open 7 days instead of 2.
Wouldn’t be surprised if she told Harry to take ownership of his work, and stop letting the Lamebridges take credit for work, they didn’t do.
Look at the Lamebridges projects in the last 2 years, big ideas that fizzle out after all the hype.
Hold on, William was trying to get the Invictus Games? Ok, I’m gonna do some Googling because I HAVE GOT to get the tea on that. How on earth did I miss that!?!
Me too!!!! Though, it’s not surprising but my gawd, how utterly indefensible and underhanded!!
he wanted to keep it as part of the Royal Foundation IIRC.
Yes, and Harry managed to take what was his (Invictus and Endeavour Fund), no matter how many fits W&K pitched.
Don’t forget Sentebale! My God, Wilnot and Cannot are the worst.
The military does not like William.
You can practically hear Scobie’s teeth grinding over having to take part in the grand feting of Catherine. He managed to get his brand of delicious snark in there, though…lol…
We have many articles about keen Kate gearing up, being ambitious, finding her stride, learning her role. There is going to come a time when the Queen passes and the elderly Charles takes the throne, when she’ll actually have to step up & what then? Will she actually step up and work? Will she blame Meghan? Sounds like the palace has no idea if she’ll step up & work either.
Definitely throwing some shade.
Scobie also posted a link to the BBC podcast about Harry, Meghan and the Media ( otherwise I would never have seen it!), which I am plowing through and will be desperate to talk about later in the week. Can we have a thread on it later?
I havnt listened to the podcast yet @jay. would you recommend so far?
Yes, please share a link.
I was only able to find this article that was posted on 1/6/22. Hope that helps!
https://honey.nine.com.au/royals/bbc-releases-meghan-markle-prince-harry-podcast-despite-unfounded-royal-documentary/fac5e58d-7f4d-4ee2-9492-053917c60bbb
I’m about halfway through – the interviews with the reporters themselves is the most interesting ( and frustrating) for me so far. I had to actually search my podcast app for the title “Meghan, Harry, and the Media” to subscribe as I couldn’t find it anywhere on the BBC site! They also put it out all at once on Jan 6, rather than episode by episode. As I said, I wouldn’t have heard about it at all if Omid hadn’t mentioned it.
I was able to download through Spotify if that helps anyone. Am waiting till I have a long drive to get into it and thx for the update @jay
Yeah, this is definitely shady. He talks about how successful Harry and Meghan were as royals, with significant projects (I feel like William is thrown in there bc his editor made him) and he uses the word “keen” to describe Kate and KP’s PR about her, AND he specifically calls her the future Queen Consort. I know some people are divided on Omid, but I don’t think there’s ever been any doubt that he saw the smear campaign for exactly what it was – a racist campaign meant to drive out the biracial duchess. And he knows who was in charge of it.
I also think he had quite a few interactions with knauf as the press secretary for both couples. Obv there were the emails we found out about through the trial. I have no idea but I imagine, like Meghan, he also wasn’t fully aware of what JK was doing. How much leaked info would he have been retrospectively side-eying?
I’m not surprised she’s “more” ambitious now. It would be literally impossible for her to be “less” ambitious.
“Please don’t divorce me, you small, angry man. I’ll be exactly the queen you want…”
Once the Queen dies, these puff stories about Kate becoming “more impressive as time goes on”, “increasing/shouldering more responsibility,” and “coming into her own” really need to stop. She and William will be the second in line to the throne, I’m assuming stories about Prince Charles at 40 weren’t about how he becomes more impressive as time goes on (he was 40 in 1988, 7 years into his marriage to Diana and a father). If they are still pushing this narrative once Charles is king, not even Kate stans will be able to defend her. I think she gets a huge pass while the Queen clings to life.
That’s a lot of words for “She finally got off her arse and did SOMETHING.” But do go on.
She doesn’t have an ambitious bone in her body beyond being ambitious enough to marry rich.
She’s just a stupid doormat who stalked and waited for a prince.