The Curious Case of the Missing Kate (Coverage)
And what the recent pop up of "work from home" news says about KP's strategy
It was the last week of February, I was in my hotel room in Barcelona watching the sun dance over the Mediterranean Sea. I pulled out Twitter for a quick scroll and saw a tweet from one of the hosts of Keep It—a pop culture podcast—
about Kate Middleton.
People outside the royal watching community had caught wind that Catherine, The Princess of Wales hadn’t been seen since late Dec. 2023. The long shadow of Princess Diana’s death still loomed large in peoples’ minds, plus…everything about this current situation was weird. The lack of updates from the Palace was weird. The British media looking the other way and reporting like it was business as usual was weird.
In the absence of information, rumors flourished about Kate’s whereabouts and health status—unlike King Charles, whose team at Buckingham Palace provided a steady drip of information on the King’s procedure and cancer diagnosis.
How We Got Here: Kate Middleton’s March 2024 Media Coverage
Despite Kensington Palace’s firm stance that they would not let public dictate their strategy—it totally did. The reaction to growing questions from the public and international media put KP on defense and they reacted poorly. Every move after the Mothering Sunday debacle was an attempt by the Palace, with the help of their extended PR apparatus—large swaths of the British media—to cover it up by pushing a, “of course Kate is fine and around just look at these blurry pap shots” narrative.