The Duchess of Cambridge and The Duchess of Sussex watch the Womens final at the Wimbledon Championships, Wimbledon, London, UK, on the 14th July 2018.
Picture by James Whatling
There have been lots of questions about why Kate isn’t attending the unveiling of the Diana statue. First of all, to my knowledge, she was never publicly scheduled to go. I never saw any mainstream/reliable royal reporter claim or confirm that Kate would attend (I could have missed it, but I don’t think I did). I saw that The Mirror stated Kate would be there, but their source actually just reflected that it would be nice for Kate to go, which is undoubtedly true, but not confirmation that she would indeed go. Several Kate fan accounts repeated that on social media, but again, I didn’t see any press say Kate would go.
I am sure the Palace has a lot of reasons for keeping this a brothers-only event. I can imagine there are a variety or pros and cons they worked through. Camilla Tominey is reporting in the Telegraph this morning that:
“Aides had agonised over whether Kate, 39, should attend Thursday’s engagement but she will not be present. While William, 39, always wanted his wife of 10 years to be by his side, there were concerns that Harry might feel ‘outflanked’ by the Cambridges if they were there together, and he was on his own.“
I don’t mind that Kate isn’t going. This arrangement leaves the focus more squarely on the boys and Diana herself. Would it have also been nice to have Kate there? Sure. I just don’t think it is a huge, huge deal that she is not.
Members of The Royal Family attend Trooping the Colour at Buckingham Palace, London, UK, on the 8th June 2019.
Picture by James Whatling
The other story that seems to be circulating is that this unveiling provides an opportunity for William and Harry to reconcile or start the healing process. I find that baffling. From the shocking allegations of racism in the Oprah interview, to the swipes at the family in the various interviews that followed after that (Dax Shepard and the Apple TV event), to the more recent doubling down by Omid Scobie on the race issue, William and Charles must be angrier than ever, and frankly Harry looks about as bitter as we’ve ever seen him. This is also an ongoing situation. The Sussexes seem to be waging an active campaign against Harry’s father and brother, and in doing so, against the monarchy as an institution. It isn’t like they’ve called a ceasefire.
Camilla Tominey’s Telegraph piece points out that although there had been more sympathy for Harry than Meghan when the couple initially left the Palace (“Before they left for the US, palace staff had nicknamed Meghan ‘Duchess Difficult’ while Harry was referred to as ‘The Hostage’.”), the royals now blame the couple equally:
“According to one source: ‘Before Oprah there was some sympathy for [Harry], but not after that. He knew the damage he was doing. That he looked deeply uncomfortable tells you everything you need to know.’”
To me, that is the key. Harry has been on the inside, watching his grandmother painstakingly steer the historic institution of the monarchy through troubled, modern waters. To survive, it is critical that the monarchy stave off scandal, remain politically neutral, and play its constitutional role properly. The royals aren’t guaranteed their position in a predominately democratic world. From the royals’ perspective, it is a very deadly game.
Those serious considerations, coupled with the very suspect manner in which Meghan alleged racism against the royals, leaves Harry with really no excuse. I cannot imagine how his family feels about him right now, but the attitude cannot be a warm one.
Many of you have asked me to write about the rumor that Prince William cheated on Kate with the Marchioness of Cholmondeley (obligatory pronunciation guide: Chumley), aka Rose Hanbury. I have hesitated for a long time, because I subtly polled my Instagram followers several weeks ago and only a little over 50% knew about the rumor. I didn’t want to perpetuate the story if it was contained.
Sadly, last weekend, I was in line at a grocery store and saw that InTouch had featured this rumor on its front cover. InTouch is famous for its ludicrous headlines, including multiple covers breaking news that is patently false, for example the magazine often runs false pregnancy reports about Kate and it has photoshopped pictures to make her look anorexic. Although InTouch is not a reputable source, it did serve to spread the rumor stateside. Last Wednesday morning, I poked around, and I saw the story had spread to a bunch of online outlets, including Vanity Fair, Town & Country, The Daily Beast, Slate, and more. With the explosion of rumor on online outlets, the requests I was getting via DM shot up, too. Now that the rumor has jumped across the pond and is spreading throughout the web, it is time to jump in and set out some facts.
This all began with a report in the UK Sun wherein the paper claimed that Kate and Rose had a falling out that is the talk of Norfolk, and that Kate told William to “phase her [Rose] out” of their social circle. Then Giles Coren claimed on Twitter that an affair between William and Rose was an open secret in Norfolk. That lit the tinder.
If you read the media reports about the rumor with a critical eye, you will see that they are all really spin on nothing. Every story (from T&C, Slate, etc) is based on the other stories. Every story is a regurgitation of the original Sun story about a falling out, paired with InTouch’s speculation, and whisked up with a compilation of all the other outlets who have also reported on the Sun story. So, to beat a dead horse, it is a dead circuit. There is no new reporting, no new reliable sources, nothing other than media outlets reporting what other media outlets have said and adding their preferred spin (e.g., Kate is neat and quiet and Rose is more exotic and exciting, what?). The number of outlets running headlines on this rumor might create the illusion of credibility, but it is a mirage. There is one story from the Sun which was just country gossip about two women falling out and InTouch fabricated sources out of thin air—sorry, InTouch, but let’s be real here.
No reputable royal reporter has breathed a word of this story, either in their columns in their respective papers or on their social accounts. This silence speaks. Truth is an absolute defense to defamation—that is, you can report truth if you can prove it, but you must be silent if you cannot (or be sued seven ways to Sunday). The fact that no real royal reporter has engaged with this rumor (it isn’t like they haven’t heard it) tells me they have no proof—or they’d be running the story.
Everyone is allowed to wonder, though. So what do we think? The first two questions to ask are, (1) do the rumors match what we can observe ourselves and what seems to makes sense generally, and (2) what is the nature of the rumor—does it have indicators that suggest it started with a solid source?
First, what can we see? Sometimes what we can observe ourselves matches the story, for example, when there were rumors that there was tension between William and Harry, everyone could observe there was a coolness between them when they interacted publicly, and it made sense that there might be tension because of their diverging roles within the hierarchy of their family, and/or the tensions that were arising between their wives. Logically, it clicked. Plus, the Palace was leaking like a sieve with multiple stories about the burgeoning split, which is always an indicator that something is up (the real media doesn’t fabricate those leaks—usually). So, those rumors seemed to match what we were observing as well as what we could just generally intuit about what the situation might be on the inside. The rumors had a ring of truth to them and were ultimately proved to be true by multiple sources [even more so now some two years later].
With this allegation of an affair, there is dissonance between the rumor and what we can see through observation or what makes sense logically. William and Kate look more smitten with one another than ever and their chemistry is warm, natural, and intimate. Although they have never been a couple that has indulged in many public displays of affection, they are clearly in tune with one another on public engagements and their body language doesn’t even hint at the trauma of betrayal that infidelity would inflict on their relationship. Furthermore, the rumor doesn’t click with where they are in the course of their marriage. This is a strange time for William to stray. They are a happy young couple with few of life’s worries that usually put strains on the average marriage (e.g. money, health issues, thwarted professional ambition, etc), and they are in the midst of raising an absolutely beautiful family. Although lust is not always logical, this timing is odd.
William and Kate at Eugenie’s October 2018 Wedding
The Palace lawyers are on high alert, and well they should be. Stories like this cause irreparable harm. You can never make the subject of the slander whole again. Some of the more rabid Sussex supporters have latched onto these rumors and have been citing them as fact on social media and elsewhere. It is unlikely they will ever let it go. For the moment, this story cannot be proven to be true, but it cannot be proven to be false, either. Many of you will always wonder if there was an affair and William was just lucky enough to hush it up. Reputations are incredibly fragile things, and particularly in this day and age of lightning news, it is next to impossible to undo the damage of an ugly and serious insinuation. The party that is particularly harmed here is, of course, the Marchioness of Cholmondeley. William is the future king, and if the rumor is false, as the years tick by, it will become a blip that fades from our memories. But, for many royal watchers, Rose will always be that country aristocrat with whom William cheated on Kate! So, it is terribly damaging to her.
The obvious reality is that the rumor could be true. There are elements that are very perplexing to me, and not everything adds up. William may have cheated on Kate. But I think we owe William, Kate, and Rose the benefit of the doubt. The idea that people should be assumed innocent until proven guilty is an admirable one and has deep roots in our law and culture for a very good reason. The idea that people are innocent until proven guilty is a critical cornerstone of a just and free society. Because the rumor is so at odds with what we can observe, it is particularly unjust to accept and perpetuate a story even the professionals couldn’t nail down.
Happy exteriors can certainly hide dark secrets, and people can put on an act. Time will probably tell the true tale, but what we have as it stands right now is a story no one is willing or able to corroborate, that has no meat on its bones, so to speak (no details that give it an indicia of reliability), and the facts that we can observe ourselves seem to be absolutely contrary to the rumor. Kate and William are in the midst of some of their most exciting and happy years—with sweet little children, a new baby, and their royal stars on the rise as they enjoy success from Kate’s brainchild Heads Together and as they step more firmly into their roles in the line of succession. William is a very smart man and appears dedicated to his family. Although they could be faking it, they have consistently displayed their delight with one another since their engagement. Their smiling exteriors are not a new development, in fact they seem more content and peacefully in love with each and their life than ever. For the moment, we are honor bound to accept that at value (and I pray that it is the truth).
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge attend the British Academy Film Awards at The Royal Albert Hall, London, UK, on the 10th February 2019.
In the two years since I wrote this post, I have not seen or heard any concrete evidence to support this story. I still genuinely do not know. On some level, I am not sure that it is important. If William did cheat on Kate, it appears that she has chosen to forgive him and move forward. There are plenty of people who choose to forgive a partner’s mistake and work to repair their relationship; they report deep gratitude years down the line that they didn’t end their marriage. Maybe William and Kate are secretly one of those couples. I don’t know. I do think it is important to realize that the Cambridges have given absolutely no fodder to this fire. They didn’t engage the public in their battle to shield reputations, thereby tacitly consenting to an open public debate. Two years after these rumors circulated, I still do not know nor do I have enough gossip to guess whether William cheat on Kate, but I still feel pretty strongly that it is unjust to claim that he must have, and for the moment, whatever the truth is, it remains a private matter.
