Given the Prince and Princess of Wales’s efforts to overshadow King Charles and Camilla’s US state visit this week, there’s been precious little commentary about it. I think that’s because most of the royal reporters were part of the traveling press corps in the US with Charles & Cam – they couldn’t do two things at once. So it’s left to the B-team royal commentators to speak the truth and question what the hell William and Kate were doing this week. One Daily Mail columnist, Claudia Connell, picked apart William and Kate’s bizarre anniversary photo in a piece called, “Why this photo of Kate, William and their children makes me uncomfortable.” LOL. Some highlights:
The weird staging: There was Kate, looking like a glossy Boden mum in her Breton top and pristine white jeans, surrounded by her barefoot family and two spaniels. It’s a previously unseen photograph taken on a family break to Cornwall. There’s William with a golden tan, showing off his muscular thighs; cheeky Louis is linking fingers with his mum, while Charlotte is laughing and showing off her trendy blue-painted fingernails. Only George looks uncomfortable and unsmiling, a quizzical look on his face as if it ask ‘how much longer have we got to stay like this for?’ And if George was wondering that, who could blame him?
It’s certainly not a spontaneous image: It was taken by Matt Porteous, a professional photographer and favourite with the Wales family, and looks to be the result of a carefully thought-out and highly stylised shoot. The family’s clothes are all in complementary colours and every one looks as though they have been told to point their legs one way and look in a certain direction. In addition, the picture is taken from above. Was Porteous in a tree? (He has actually photographed the family in a tree before.) Did he have a stepladder with him perhaps? Or maybe he utilised a drone to capture the shot? Whatever the story, it certainly reveals that a great deal of time, effort and planning went into what is actually a tightly controlled ‘holiday pic’.
Why the discomfort? The reason for my discomfort is that it’s all a bit showbiz and buys into the damaging world of social media perfection. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to see pictures of the couple in a messy house surrounded by muddy dogs and sulky siblings arguing with one another, just something a little more honest. Professional portraits that look like professional portraits? Fine. Professional portraits dressed up to look like relaxed, informal holiday snaps? No.
The Waleses are overdoing the glossy-family pics: A keen amateur photographer, Kate has previously taken many of the family portraits released to the media to mark family occasions. However, following the debacle in March 2024 when she had to admit to ‘editing’ a Mother’s Day picture taken by Prince William, I wonder if she’s decided that it’s safer to rely on the professionals. If so, it’s a shame because since then, we’ve been treated to a glut of glamorous, Hollywood-style photos and videos of Kate and her family, the videos often accompanied by some decidedly woo-woo voiceovers.
That horrible 2024 video: In September 2024 to celebrate the end of her cancer treatment, Kate released a three-minute video via the family’s official social media channels. The content was a complete departure for them in that it was truly personal and intimate. Filmed by videographer Will Warr, it showed the Wales family in Norfolk enjoying picnics, a game of cards and days out on the beach – there was even some decidedly fruity footage of Kate and William rolling around in the sand dunes. I say! It went down a storm and so far has garnered 2.1million views on YouTube and 2.4million likes on their official Instagram page. Ever since then, the Princess has taken to releasing nature-inspired videos to mark the arrival of each new season. I hate to say it, but it’s all become a bit cringey and ‘Live, Laugh, Love’ for my liking.
Kate is copying Meghan!! My other issue with this type of picture and video is that it’s all a little bit ‘Meghan’. It’s the sort of thing we expect from a Californian former lifestyle blogger fond of using phrases about ‘living authentically’, ‘speaking my truth’ and ‘thriving not surviving’. Harry and Meghan have a good eight years of form when it comes to these types of barefoot-on-the-beach, love-heart-drawn-in-the-sand snaps and oh how we’ve mocked them for it, too. It would be unfortunate if Kate and William continued down this path. At times it’s starting to feel like they’re one small step away from writing inspirational quotes on bananas. We love Kate and William because they’re not Meghan and Harry.
The bare feet: When Meghan revealed that, eight years ago, she had turned up barefoot for dinner at Kate and William’s Kensington Palace apartment and it hadn’t gone down well, most of us Brits thought: ‘Quite right too, put some shoes on woman!’ Today, I feel like I’ve seen enough of the Waleses’ bare feet to last me a lifetime.
Bring back cold, detached royalty: I understand that the Royal Family need to adapt to the times and update their way of communicating with the public, but surely there’s a limit? There are a million influencers we can follow if we want staged perfection. I want my royals to rise above it all and be detached. It’s hard to imagine no-nonsense Princess Anne rolling around on a picnic rug in the sand dunes.
This actually makes me feel sorry for Kate in a weird way, because she’s never going to be good enough. That’s the root of it too. She has no sense of self, which is why she dresses like other women in her orbit and why she obsessively watches and copies everything Meghan does and wears. That’s why she “edits” family photos and commissions these weird “commercials” and “family photoshoots” to publicly perform a wholesome-family image. Anyway, it’s amazing that the more William and Kate try to copy the Sussex aesthetic, the more the royalists f–king hate it.
Update: I didn’t even catch that this woman lied about Meghan’s bare feet. According to Prince Harry’s Spare, Meghan was barefoot in Nottingham Cottage, when she made dinner for William and Kate for the first time. Meghan didn’t show up barefoot at Will and Kate’s KP apartment.
Photos courtesy of Kensington Palace and Cover Images.
