What the royal family doesn’t understand about PR in 2024….Read more

Let me get this out of the way right now: I have yet to see anything that has persuaded me that anything is “going on” with Kate Middleton other than what the palace originally said: She had abdominal surgery, the recovery is involved enough that she needs months away from her work, and that’s the story.

But the absolute clown show that has been the palace’s handling of spiraling speculation about her has made the whole thing worse and underscored that whatever command they once had over “controlling the narrative” has deserted them. I’m not sure they have a Kate problem, but I think they have a massive, pressing comms problem. There are several foundational pieces of advice about the current media environment that the palace — “the firm,” as we’ve now heard it called so often — either does not understand or has not accounted for.