Does the public owe Kate Middleton an apology?
What’s happening
Kate Middleton announced on Friday that she has been diagnosed with cancer, putting an end to intense speculation about why she had not appeared in public for more than two months.
In an emotional video posted to social media, the princess explained that a planned abdominal surgery she underwent in January had revealed the presence of cancer and her medical team had advised her to begin a course of preventive chemotherapy.
“As you can imagine, this has taken time. It has taken me time to recover from major surgery in order to start my treatment,” she said. “But most importantly it has taken us time to explain everything to [her children] George, Charlotte and Louis in a way that is appropriate for them and to reassure them that I’m going to be OK.”
Before Kate’s diagnosis became public, a whirlwind of conjecture had cycled through social media and mainstream news outlets aimed at making sense of the princess’s absence. Part of that conversation skewed into wild conspiracy theories that posited everything from major plastic surgery, infidelity, an undisclosed coma, body doubles and even a secretly dead king.
Toward the end of her short video, Kate asked the public to respect their need for “time, space and privacy” while she completes her treatment.
Why there’s debate
In the days since Kate’s revelation, some of the people who participated in the “Kategate” frenzy have apologized for making light of what turned out to be such a serious situation or for helping spread unfounded rumors about her. Some media commentators have also chided the broader public for allowing themselves to get wrapped up in the mystery at the expense of a woman and her family going through such a difficult time.
But others say the blame for the media circus falls squarely on the royals themselves, for refusing to provide anything more than the sparest of updates and bungling things when they did decide to share anything — most notably with a digitally altered U.K. Mother’s Day photo. They argue that the monarchy should have known what would happen in that kind of information vacuum, but chose to let the rumors run wild regardless.
What’s next?
There is still a lot that remains unknown about Kate’s condition, including the specifics of her diagnosis, the nature and duration of her treatment and what her prospects of recovery are at this point.There’s also no word on when she might return to the public eye, with Kensington Palace saying only that she will resume her duties “when she is cleared to do so.”
Perspectives
None of the speculation would have happened if the palace had just been honest
“The apparent truth-telling of Kate’s Friday night news dump didn’t happen because people are stupid. It happened because people are smart. Smarter, at least, than a Kensington Palace ... that alternatively dissembled about the princess’s whereabouts, encouraged paparazzi speculation, and finally put out a photographic lie and made Kate take the blame for it.” — Will Bunch, Philadelphia Inquirer
It was obvious from the beginning that there was a serious reason for Kate’s absence
“The royals are international figures and certainly not off-limits when it comes to mockery. It’s an ugly reality that comes with the privilege of the crown. ... But it was also clear that, behind the scenes, something was truly wrong — and yet so many continued to relentlessly dig in, shoveling wild conspiracies for clicks and laughs.” — Kirsten Fleming, New York Post
It’s unhealthy to expect to know everything about someone because they’re famous
“The American public has become so accustomed to unfettered access to public figures that we expect total self-exposure as a matter of course. Meanwhile, we meet their need for privacy, which belongs to every human, whether humdrum or celebrated, with a kind of rabid suspicion.” — Pamela Paul, New York Times
Even a royal family deserves peace when reconciling with tragedy
“However shielded from the storm Kate and William’s children are, it can’t be easy for them to fend off the realization that their mother stands at the very eye of global gossip — at the mercy of a raging meme, indeed, that insists that the role of their mother is being played by someone else. ... Logically, the only cure for such lunacy was to show the Princess of Wales alive and well, or as well as she can hope to be, given her ordeal.” — Anthony Lane, The New Yorker
The palace has no excuse for not understanding what their secrecy would cause
“While it would be easy to blame the internet or the salacious nature of royal gossip, the palace should have known better. After being fed a steady diet of the ever-smiling, perfectly styled princess for years, the public was inevitably going to question her prolonged absence and the very vague explanations for it.” — Mary McNamara, the Los Angeles Times
Blaming the royals or media is just an excuse to avoid doing any self-reflection
“If your first impulse is to make excuses — to point out that, well, technically she is a public figure, and that she should expect this kind of scrutiny — maybe you should take a step back and think about your life. Regardless of your views on the royals, they are real people and have a right to some degree of privacy, the same as the rest of us.” — Ryan Coogan, the Independent
Royals aren’t normal celebrities, they do owe the public a measure of honesty
“It’s important to remember that Middleton is not a celebrity in any normal sense. The Kardashians, people of perhaps equivalent fame, do not owe anybody any information about themselves, although they choose to give out a lot of it. But the royals do owe the public, in order to justify their existence.” — Imogen West-Knights, Slate
Any blame for Kategate lies in the very nature of celebrity itself
“Perhaps humans are just wired this way — to gawk and gossip. ... Famous people are wealthy and beloved at least in part because they’re fun to talk about. Exactly what we do and don’t know about their internal lives is part of the allure — the discourse comes with the territory, to a degree.” — Charlie Warzel, the Atlantic
