Royal reporters desperately want to talk about the Princess of Wales’s absence from Prince William’s NYC trip, and her upcoming absence from his Singapore trip. There are two concurrent lines of gossip. One is that William doesn’t want to be anywhere near his wife these days and he ordered her to stay away so she wouldn’t make an ass out of herself overseas. The second line of gossip is that Kate is Forever Lazy, too lazy to actually do an odd event here or these outside of a 30-mile zone around Adelaide Cottage. Both versions have some truth to them, imo. Well, Kate and her mother heard about all of this Singapore gossip and they want us to know that Kate is absolutely NOT lazy. No mention of what William wants though…
Friends of Kate Middleton have hit back at anonymous suggestions that she should be doing more foreign trips as part of her remit as Princess of Wales, saying the fact that she is widely considered one of the most popular members of the family shows that the public support her focus on raising her young family. A friend of Kate’s told The Daily Beast that the accusations were “absurd.”
Accusations of shirking official duties have long dogged both William and Kate, and surfaced again over the summer when William failed to attend the final of the women’s soccer World Cup in Australia. Now the suggestion has been aired again, but specifically in relation to Kate, in an item in the Daily Mail’s usually well-briefed Ephraim Hardcastle column (Hardcastle is a fictional byline and the column is usually written by an editor based on newsroom gossip and in-house tips).
A source close to Kate told The Daily Beast: “If the accusation is that Kate isn’t puling her weight, that is absurd and everyone who knows them knows it. It is not exactly a state secret that she has three children aged 10, 8 and 5 on whom the future of the monarchy depends. She works incredibly hard. They have had this type of criticism from the press before and I’m sure they will have it again. It’s water off a duck’s back. Real people understand that you have to prioritize your children at that age, and you can’t both just go flying off to New York at the drop of a hat. The fact that they both consistently receive very high approval ratings shows that the public get it, even if the Daily Mail wants to find fault.”
[From The Daily Beast]
Oh, Carole was BIG MAD. Carole – or someone a lot like her – was screaming down the phone at Tom Sykes. Nothing says “it’s water off a duck’s back” like furiously briefing the Daily Beast’s Royalist columnist at the merest hint of behind-the-scenes drama. As for the Hardcastle column in the Mail… they didn’t exactly say that Kate was too lazy to go to Singapore (although it was implied), but the main thrust was that the Foreign Office and the government wanted Kate to travel more, especially with the kids, but she was refusing or William was refusing. At some point, we’re going to need an answer about who decided that Kate wasn’t going to Singapore. Also: “It is not exactly a state secret that she has three children aged 10, 8 and 5 on whom the future of the monarchy depends.” Oh, honey. It reminds me of that shady Tatler story calling her “the kingmaker.”
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.
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