EMERGENCY EDITION: Why I respected Princess Catherine’s privacy over serious cancer diagnosis – and what the biggest royal crisis in a generation means for Prince William
Both King Charles and Kate are battling the life threatening condition
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When I appeared on the Megyn Kelly Show last week, I said Catherine, the Princess of Wales, was “very unwell” and stressed there “are reasons why she doesn’t want to appear in public”.
I added: “She is physically unwell, so there should surely be a little bit of sympathy towards her and I’m really not seeing much of that online.”
Rather than heed my advice, the intense online speculation grew, effectively forcing tonight’s bombshell video statement from Kensington Palace where the Princess of Wales revealed her diagnosis with her typical class, humility and honesty.
Prince William and Catherine knew it was impossible to keep the diagnosis secret any longer, given the international social media attention that had been disastrously handled by Kensington Palace (more on that later), but they only told their three children George, Charlotte and Louis today, knowing they had time to process over the school holidays.
Such a decision reflects William’s entire approach to his role: Like it or not (and in this case it was clearly the right decision), his young family comes before anything else.
After the way he was neglected for long periods as a child, while dealing with significant trauma over his parents’ divorce and Diana’s death, he has had a single minded focus on ensuring his children are able to grow up loved by both parents in a relatively “normal” household.
Kate (it’s hard not to refer to her using her pre-married name at deeply personal moments like this) asked today for “time, space and privacy” while she “completes her treatment”.
It is a basic human right to choose how much you share with the public about the intimate details of your body.
TRIAL BY SOCIAL MEDIA
I believe the Royal Family deserve significant scrutiny from the media and the increasing soft touch approach taken by a muzzled and supine British MSM usually does them a significant disservice but, in this case, given the seriousness of what Catherine had been told and the circumstances surrounding her young family, it was different.
If one thing the past few weeks proves, in the age of trial by social media (and Mark Dolan of GB News) William is going to have to adjust to a new media reality.
The London Clinic, where Catherine had her abdominal surgery, and police are already investigating after the medical records of the princess (and possibly the king, too) were accessed, probably illegally, most likely for a staff member to show off to the online ghouls online.
SUSSEX SQUAD SPREAD LIES
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Sussex Squad were somehow involved.
If you’re not familiar, these are the internet trolls who, while not officially affiliated with Harry and Meghan, use dark online arts to spread the most disgusting form of abuse to enemies of Montecito moaners.
In recent weeks that has meant using the uncertainty around Kate’s health to cause a dishonest internet sensation, with many untrue theories, from cosmetic surgery to marriage troubles to death, being given such prominence they have found their way into the American mainstream media.
PR DISASTER
That said, Kensington Palace has also been guilty of allowing a personal health crisis to become an international PR disaster.
Given the significant challenges ahead, that cannot be allowed to continue.
William must not allow the monarchy to continue with an analogue operation in the digital age.
That might have worked with the late Queen on the throne – a great stateswoman from a different era who stood by her promise to never give a sit down interview throughout her entire reign.
The never complain/never explain mantra actually rang true with her because she kept up her side of the bargain.
But those days are gone.
So too is a world where you can brief a handful of newspaper editors and major broadcasters in the UK and believe that massive news like this can be contained.
CATHERINE DID NOTHING WRONG
I do not hold Catherine responsible one bit for what happened with the doctored Mother’s Day image.
Think of what she was having to deal with psychologically that moment: Her own mortality, the prospect of informing her immediate family of the news and the truly overwhelming terror of how to break the news to her impressionable young children. That’s before you even consider the pressure of such a diagnosis having on her work.
It was the responsibility of her courtiers to step in. They should have insisted that releasing any photograph to give the impression that everything is OK when they quite clearly were not, let alone a photoshopped one, was insanity.
But I know why and how that happened.
Kate is a selfless person. She hates the attention being on her. She wants to be there for others.
She so desperately wanted us to think everything is OK.
And how we wish it was.
WILLIAM NOW ON HIS OWN
My heart aches for Prince William, who craved his father’s reign to allow him to raise a young family with a degree of stability.
Any sense of that has been devastatingly smashed with the diagnosis to his wife, coming on the back of his father’s very serious battle with cancer, which could significantly shorten his life.
The weight of the world is now on William’s shoulders.
Who should he be able to turn to at such a dark moment? His younger brother.
But, after the way Harry decided to trash Kate in his vile tell-all autobiography, that is now impossible.
The Prince of Wales will, for a period, do this all on his own.
His character is going to be tested in a way not seen since the death of his mother as a 15-year-old.
I pray for his wife and father making a full recovery – and I pray William is up to this significant challenge.
Let’s hope those awful waste of space, trolls, leave her alone now.
I watched that interview Dan and I thought to myself you knew something but you were not prepared to say out of respect for princess Catherine .❤️