Anonymous wrote:I'm not saying it's impossible, but Kate has since publicly visited the hospital where she had cancer treatment. If she's lying, a bunch of people surely know. I get that healthcare professionals are bound by privacy laws, but that's still a big risk. I think she's definitely been too skinny at times, but i honestly believe the cancer thing. Lying about cancer would take the RF down fast- much faster than Andrew. Which really says something about our society, btw.
I agree, a lie about cancer would be extremely risky, and it would take the Waleses down faster than anything Andrew ever did, and that's definitely a condemnation of our society. Which is why there may be some truth to it--a questionable pap smear, precancerous cells, or maybe even full-blown cancer. But the fact that she visited Marsden just the once and doesn't support cancer charities is also why people will forever be questioning why she told the Marsden chemo patients to get lots of sunlight, or told the Marsden patients that she had a port but nobody can see the port scar when she wears lowcut necklines or sleeveless dresses. People will be forever digging around the edges of this.
That's exactly why they shouldn't share details. If they said she had a certain type of cancer, then people would be digging up reasons why she is lying because she couldn't possibly have that. We already saw this when people said preventive chemo is impossible.
Charles said "I have cancer" from the start, and his office kept everyone updated on his treatment that went on for two years and is merely scaled back now. Nobody is digging around to find out what cancer he has, because they are convinced he's being straight about having cancer, end of.
The real problem, actually, is that she keeps making cancer her persona, so people like this chat keep digging into it. So many things about her are explained in terms of cancer--why she needed to move to a huge new mansion last fall, her working less than the 91-year-old Duke of Kent who lost his wife last year. Just simply stop making vague allusions to your "diagnosis" several years after the fact, like when she mentioned her vague "diagnosis" at a brewpub yesterday, sparking this very discussion. (If you don't want to drink, for understandable reasons, then don't go to a brewpub and basically call their beer poison. It really is that simple.) Because making cancer your persona inevitably invites people to reopen all the questions.
PS, please don't let the explanation involve "she's a mother" because all three of her kids are now in school full-time.
You are ridiculous. She is a devoted mother to her children, and that alone is a full time job. She’s raising the future king, which makes it an even more crucial task to be done well. She doesn’t have to do engagements, but she does anyway - her kids are her priority. As it should be.
You’re ridiculous for missing the part about how she’s not even with her beloved kids most of the day. She has hours of free time Monday-Friday. She’s always been lazy.
QEII said the monarchy had to be seen to be believed. There’s an implicit contract that they get the palaces and millions of dollars in return for public service.
Yes, William and Kate can choose to work only on Thursdays, and Kate not even doing that reliably. And they can choose to skip things like VJ Day because they’re on vacation. But if you doubt the growing grumbling, go read the Mail comments and see the anger bubbling up. These days they’re routinely heckled when they do go out.
You’re in some little fantasy bubble in northern Virginia and don’t see any of this.
Not in NoVa but I admire her and do not see her as lazy. She is a good example of parenting and working for UK. And your nastiness won’t change my good opinion.
Kate will always have admirers like this because many women have bought fully into the princess fantasy. They won't judge her for doing nothing and living off taxpayer money and pretending to be a super involved mom while her kids are mostly raised by nannies, tutors, and boarding schools because this is precisely the life they aspire to. To them, that is a good and productive life.
Implicit in the princess fantasy is the idea that if a woman is pretty and charming and can induce a prince to marry her, her reward is a life of privilege and leisure. It's a fantasy that values women for being decorative and gently entertaining. Princesshood is supposed to just happen to a pretty, gentle girl, it's something you earn with looks and personality, not ambition. Even Kate's "Waity Katie" rep fits this -- she didn't aggressively pursue William, she passively placed her princess qualities within his line of sight until he was charmed and proposed.
So for these admirers, Kate being pretty and performing baseline mothering activities and just generally giving off the air of gentleness and sweetness is of course admirable and makes her deserving of a huge income paid for by taxpayers. Of course! She's a princess, she deserves it.
This is the ultimate pinnacle of womanhood for many women.
💯. It's the princess fantasy many of us were raised with since childhood. If it helps some people escape the drudgery of their daily lives, perhaps it's not all bad.
Polling suggests, though, that Britain's younger generation isn't buying it and is much less willing to pay £millions to read PR fluff pieces about what a great mom Kate is for driving her kids to school a few times a week. The rumors about William's temper, about her weight, about them always being on vacation even during clutch moments (when Charles dealt with Andrew last fall, when Andrew was arrested a few weeks ago, they were on vacations yet again, despite William's team briefing that he basically tells Charles what to do)--all of this is bubbling up even in traditionally sycophantic outlets like the Daily Mail. You expect criticism from the Statesman and Republic. But when the Mail gives A N Wilson, Amanda Platell, and Liz Jones editorial permission to trash the Waleses for laziness, Kate's weight, and William's temper and illiteracy, something's definitely up.
For me the fantasy died with Diana. I was too young to remember her wedding, but I grew up with images of her in that huge white dress, riding in a horse drawn carriage, and walking down the aisle at Westminster Abbey. And that was the backdrop against which the end of her marriage, Charles' affair with Camilla, her mental health issues including her eating disorder, her hounding by the press, her attempt to build a new life for herself, and then her tragic death unfolded. To me, someone born in 1980, that image of a "happily ever after" princess on her wedding day will always be tied to public humiliation, mental anguish, and death. They are two sides of the same coin.
I don't wish that on anyone, including Kate or her kids. But I don't buy the BS. These are regular people with regular people problems, not special people chosen by god to fulfill this role. It's all smoke and mirrors. The royal family is an expensive and dysfunctional fantasy that no longer serves any purpose now that QEII has died (I will acknowledge that her long reign, which she chose to perform as dutiful service rather than with pretty princess vibes, even though she lived as lavishly as the rest of them, did seem to become part of the national identity in a positive way post-WWII). Charles and William will forever be marked by what Charles' marriage to Diana revealed about him personally and the family generally.
People who can look past all that and still buy into the fantasy are willfully blind. Kate included. She saw everything that happened with Diana and she still wanted to marry William, she staked her entire life on it and does not appear to have ever had any other ambition for herself (maybe simply marrying some lower noble or, at worst, just someone rich). She watch Diana rise and then get destroyed by the system that constructed her image and she still decide "I want that."
Anonymous wrote:I'm not saying it's impossible, but Kate has since publicly visited the hospital where she had cancer treatment. If she's lying, a bunch of people surely know. I get that healthcare professionals are bound by privacy laws, but that's still a big risk. I think she's definitely been too skinny at times, but i honestly believe the cancer thing. Lying about cancer would take the RF down fast- much faster than Andrew. Which really says something about our society, btw.
I agree, a lie about cancer would be extremely risky, and it would take the Waleses down faster than anything Andrew ever did, and that's definitely a condemnation of our society. Which is why there may be some truth to it--a questionable pap smear, precancerous cells, or maybe even full-blown cancer. But the fact that she visited Marsden just the once and doesn't support cancer charities is also why people will forever be questioning why she told the Marsden chemo patients to get lots of sunlight, or told the Marsden patients that she had a port but nobody can see the port scar when she wears lowcut necklines or sleeveless dresses. People will be forever digging around the edges of this.
That's exactly why they shouldn't share details. If they said she had a certain type of cancer, then people would be digging up reasons why she is lying because she couldn't possibly have that. We already saw this when people said preventive chemo is impossible.
Charles said "I have cancer" from the start, and his office kept everyone updated on his treatment that went on for two years and is merely scaled back now. Nobody is digging around to find out what cancer he has, because they are convinced he's being straight about having cancer, end of.
The real problem, actually, is that she keeps making cancer her persona, so people like this chat keep digging into it. So many things about her are explained in terms of cancer--why she needed to move to a huge new mansion last fall, her working less than the 91-year-old Duke of Kent who lost his wife last year. Just simply stop making vague allusions to your "diagnosis" several years after the fact, like when she mentioned her vague "diagnosis" at a brewpub yesterday, sparking this very discussion. (If you don't want to drink, for understandable reasons, then don't go to a brewpub and basically call their beer poison. It really is that simple.) Because making cancer your persona inevitably invites people to reopen all the questions.
PS, please don't let the explanation involve "she's a mother" because all three of her kids are now in school full-time.
I don't think this is a difficult question. She takes her kids to and from school and has openly stated she prioritizes her family and her health. They don't have a cook, so she makes dinner every night.
Could she do more? Sure. But she doesn't want to give up the things she does at home. Presumably when she is Queen, she will have to step it up considerably, and they may be taking this time while they can.
Now, can any of us sit there and verify that she is at every pickup and drop off and sports match and dance recital? And that she's cooking most nights and not ordering takeaway curries? Of course not. But that's the story we are being told.
Kate can’t cook. There was that event where she was taught to make pancakes and really messed them up. Where are you getting that she doesn’t have a cook?
She spends months on vacation every year, often in foreign countries or skiing—this is well documented. It’s also well documented that she works out for long periods every day. You’ve swallowed the pr.
There's tons of stories where she discusses cooking, how she cooks and William can't, how they have a much a much smaller staff than the older royals and don't have a cook or butler.
I haven't heard of the pancake story, sorry.
Whether any of this is true, who knows- nobody, including you.
The thing about their staff is that they don't have a *live-in* cook or butler. That doesn't mean they don't have a cook or a butler. A lot of very wealthy people have made this shift in their generation -- staff comes during the day or even on an as-needed basis, but they don't sleep in your house and you can have a more normal family life that way. But they still have staff doing most of the stuff that normals do themselves.
Kate is not cleaning her own home or preparing most of her family's meals. She's got a team of people keeping the house clean and organized, stocking the fridge, likely doing meal prep and planning. Kate may execute some of the meals. Great, cooking is a fun hobby. But the idea that she's no different from a standard SAHM, busy with running a household and watching the kids? No. She's doing a small fraction of what a regular SAHM would do, at least in terms of childcare and homemaking. This is not shade on my part -- if I could afford to pay people to make it super easy for my family to run smoothly, I 100% would. But the idea that Kate eschews all that and is doing it all herself is insane. No she isn't. She's the Princess of Wales, folks. She's not doing much of anything she doesn't actively want to be doing.
I absolutely don't think she does it all. But I do believe she does lots of school drops and pickups (supplemented by help from a nanny shuttling the kids around). And I wouldn't be shocked if she cooks dinner most nights, with the housekeepr doing the dishes the next morning. Yes, of course I understand she doesn't clean her house, do her laundry, or call a repair service when her dishwasher breaks.
But none of us can know what her daily life is like.
Agree it probably takes hours for her to get ready for a 20 minute ribbon cutting, although Charles is known to have his shoelaces ironed. But since he has a giant staff, maybe they are just all doing that kind of stuff all day long which speeds it up.
Kate is lazy, full stop. She’s never had a real job, except for that part-time gig her parents got her at Jigsaw after the late Queen asked what she did. Even then, she told her boss she needed a flexible schedule because she had a famous boyfriend. This is all well documented.
The Wales have a staff of 60. It’s pure PR to say they have little or no live-in staff, because of course all these people couldn’t squeeze into Adelaide or even their new mansion. Some school parents have said the Waleses only show up on the first day and often leave driving to security most of tys rest of the year. And does anybody think they don’t have a cook, or that a woman with an ED is cooking balanced meals for her family every night?
Even if she does do school drop-offs, she still has plenty of hours in the day to do other things like take those helicopters they're always using to work. What does she do all day? She doesn’t read, she works out. Sure, that’s her choice. But the public is getting restless about paying them £23m a year for this, when pensioners can’t heat their houses.
Most of their "household staff" are office jobs.
It's not a lot of work to drive school-aged kids around (certainly with help, bc there are 3 of them) and make dinner when someone else surely scrubs the pots and pans the next morning. That's why I can't believe people are arguing so adamantly that she doesn't do these things...
She has a very obvious ED. Why are you arguing that she makes them pasta, or really anything besides plain fish or roast chicken every day of the week, and then sits at the dinner table and they watch her eat tiny portions and she watches them eat desert? This is too bizarre.
Nobody has said what anybody is cooking or eating. Why are you so upset?
Why are you flinging ad hominems like I'm upset? I'm ridiculing your fantasy image, where Kate cooks nightly multi-course meals, and everyone gathers happily around the dinner table, William's in a good mood, and Kate chows down on the pasta.
Sounds like you're the one fantasizing, and it's very colorful indeed!
Anonymous wrote:A few years ago, a royal rota member wrote, "I can't wait until we can write freely about Prince William. It will make your eyes bleed."
There's a whole lot we don't know about the BRF. Projecting our fantasies onto them is obviously something they want us to do, and they help us by constantly briefing fluff pieces and doing stunts like the coffee shop thing that's the subject of this thread (and they can't even pull that off amicably). But we simply can't assume it's all the pure fairy tale they want us to believe.
Of course. Anyone who grew up in that family is messy and screwed up. Harry has let a lot of his mess hang out and be public, which has gotten him critcism in the short run but I think will benefit him and his kids in the long run. William and Kate still maintain this veneer of perfection that is absolutely a lie.
The family freaked out when Harry and Megan left because it exposed some of their dysfunction, but they are REALLY freaking out now about Andrew, because this is a layer that's always been there but no one has ever talked about. Peel it off and underneath you find all kinds of disgusting things. They are panicking.
Anonymous wrote:I'm not saying it's impossible, but Kate has since publicly visited the hospital where she had cancer treatment. If she's lying, a bunch of people surely know. I get that healthcare professionals are bound by privacy laws, but that's still a big risk. I think she's definitely been too skinny at times, but i honestly believe the cancer thing. Lying about cancer would take the RF down fast- much faster than Andrew. Which really says something about our society, btw.
I agree, a lie about cancer would be extremely risky, and it would take the Waleses down faster than anything Andrew ever did, and that's definitely a condemnation of our society. Which is why there may be some truth to it--a questionable pap smear, precancerous cells, or maybe even full-blown cancer. But the fact that she visited Marsden just the once and doesn't support cancer charities is also why people will forever be questioning why she told the Marsden chemo patients to get lots of sunlight, or told the Marsden patients that she had a port but nobody can see the port scar when she wears lowcut necklines or sleeveless dresses. People will be forever digging around the edges of this.
That's exactly why they shouldn't share details. If they said she had a certain type of cancer, then people would be digging up reasons why she is lying because she couldn't possibly have that. We already saw this when people said preventive chemo is impossible.
Charles said "I have cancer" from the start, and his office kept everyone updated on his treatment that went on for two years and is merely scaled back now. Nobody is digging around to find out what cancer he has, because they are convinced he's being straight about having cancer, end of.
The real problem, actually, is that she keeps making cancer her persona, so people like this chat keep digging into it. So many things about her are explained in terms of cancer--why she needed to move to a huge new mansion last fall, her working less than the 91-year-old Duke of Kent who lost his wife last year. Just simply stop making vague allusions to your "diagnosis" several years after the fact, like when she mentioned her vague "diagnosis" at a brewpub yesterday, sparking this very discussion. (If you don't want to drink, for understandable reasons, then don't go to a brewpub and basically call their beer poison. It really is that simple.) Because making cancer your persona inevitably invites people to reopen all the questions.
PS, please don't let the explanation involve "she's a mother" because all three of her kids are now in school full-time.
You are ridiculous. She is a devoted mother to her children, and that alone is a full time job. She’s raising the future king, which makes it an even more crucial task to be done well. She doesn’t have to do engagements, but she does anyway - her kids are her priority. As it should be.
You’re ridiculous for missing the part about how she’s not even with her beloved kids most of the day. She has hours of free time Monday-Friday. She’s always been lazy.
QEII said the monarchy had to be seen to be believed. There’s an implicit contract that they get the palaces and millions of dollars in return for public service.
Yes, William and Kate can choose to work only on Thursdays, and Kate not even doing that reliably. And they can choose to skip things like VJ Day because they’re on vacation. But if you doubt the growing grumbling, go read the Mail comments and see the anger bubbling up. These days they’re routinely heckled when they do go out.
You’re in some little fantasy bubble in northern Virginia and don’t see any of this.
Not in NoVa but I admire her and do not see her as lazy. She is a good example of parenting and working for UK. And your nastiness won’t change my good opinion.
Kate will always have admirers like this because many women have bought fully into the princess fantasy. They won't judge her for doing nothing and living off taxpayer money and pretending to be a super involved mom while her kids are mostly raised by nannies, tutors, and boarding schools because this is precisely the life they aspire to. To them, that is a good and productive life.
Implicit in the princess fantasy is the idea that if a woman is pretty and charming and can induce a prince to marry her, her reward is a life of privilege and leisure. It's a fantasy that values women for being decorative and gently entertaining. Princesshood is supposed to just happen to a pretty, gentle girl, it's something you earn with looks and personality, not ambition. Even Kate's "Waity Katie" rep fits this -- she didn't aggressively pursue William, she passively placed her princess qualities within his line of sight until he was charmed and proposed.
So for these admirers, Kate being pretty and performing baseline mothering activities and just generally giving off the air of gentleness and sweetness is of course admirable and makes her deserving of a huge income paid for by taxpayers. Of course! She's a princess, she deserves it.
This is the ultimate pinnacle of womanhood for many women.
💯. It's the princess fantasy many of us were raised with since childhood. If it helps some people escape the drudgery of their daily lives, perhaps it's not all bad.
Polling suggests, though, that Britain's younger generation isn't buying it and is much less willing to pay £millions to read PR fluff pieces about what a great mom Kate is for driving her kids to school a few times a week. The rumors about William's temper, about her weight, about them always being on vacation even during clutch moments (when Charles dealt with Andrew last fall, when Andrew was arrested a few weeks ago, they were on vacations yet again, despite William's team briefing that he basically tells Charles what to do)--all of this is bubbling up even in traditionally sycophantic outlets like the Daily Mail. You expect criticism from the Statesman and Republic. But when the Mail gives A N Wilson, Amanda Platell, and Liz Jones editorial permission to trash the Waleses for laziness, Kate's weight, and William's temper and illiteracy, something's definitely up.
For me the fantasy died with Diana. I was too young to remember her wedding, but I grew up with images of her in that huge white dress, riding in a horse drawn carriage, and walking down the aisle at Westminster Abbey. And that was the backdrop against which the end of her marriage, Charles' affair with Camilla, her mental health issues including her eating disorder, her hounding by the press, her attempt to build a new life for herself, and then her tragic death unfolded. To me, someone born in 1980, that image of a "happily ever after" princess on her wedding day will always be tied to public humiliation, mental anguish, and death. They are two sides of the same coin.
I don't wish that on anyone, including Kate or her kids. But I don't buy the BS. These are regular people with regular people problems, not special people chosen by god to fulfill this role. It's all smoke and mirrors. The royal family is an expensive and dysfunctional fantasy that no longer serves any purpose now that QEII has died (I will acknowledge that her long reign, which she chose to perform as dutiful service rather than with pretty princess vibes, even though she lived as lavishly as the rest of them, did seem to become part of the national identity in a positive way post-WWII). Charles and William will forever be marked by what Charles' marriage to Diana revealed about him personally and the family generally.
People who can look past all that and still buy into the fantasy are willfully blind. Kate included. She saw everything that happened with Diana and she still wanted to marry William, she staked her entire life on it and does not appear to have ever had any other ambition for herself (maybe simply marrying some lower noble or, at worst, just someone rich). She watch Diana rise and then get destroyed by the system that constructed her image and she still decide "I want that."
SMDH.
I, too, saw Diana's wedding and that big, white dress as the ultimate princess fairy tale. For a while I even bought into the "Diana is a manipulative adulterer" line, which my own Scottish mother believed. But then I took a hard look at Charles' behavior, at the pressures Diana was under including the brutal press beatings with palace collusion, and at Diana's undeniably wonderful work ethic and commitment to her charities.
William calling Diana, his own mother, "paranoid" on the courthouse steps after he reached an agreement with one of the tabloids was the final straw for me. Kate has Diana's same wonderful platform, and she could still turn her image around by adopting even a fraction of Diana's work ethic, but she won't.
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