Prince William turned 43 years old on Saturday, June 21. Kensington Palace published this new photo of him, allegedly taken by the Princess of Wales. I actually prefer when they release candid “action” photos like this – while I can’t stand William, it’s cute to see the way Orla’s puppies are playing on him and around him. William will one day rule over a nation of animal lovers, especially dog-lovers. It was a smart call to give the people a debut photo of the puppies alongside William’s b-day photo, that’s all I’m saying. Incidentally, Orla supposedly had four puppies but I only count three in this pic. And we still don’t know what untitled mutt fathered these puppies! The message on the photo was “Happy birthday! Love C, G, C, L, Orla and the puppies!” Why are they doing initials now?
Anyway, William was obviously not seen at all on his birthday, mostly because it fell on a weekend and William hates doing anything in public on weekends. Reportedly, he spent the day “privately with his family in Windsor after his wife pulled out of attending Royal Ascot this week.” The Times reported that, and they spent the rest of the article talking about Kate and HER health. Happy birthday to William, let’s talk about Kate for three pages! Speaking of, this curious piece was published on William’s birthday – Tom Sykes at the Daily Beast got a big briefing, it sounds like.
Prince William and Princess Kate Middleton issued a new photo of William on Saturday, his 43rd birthday, but otherwise hid themselves away from public view as Kate “recalibrat[es] her entire life” after a bruising week in which she cancelled a high-profile public appearance. Kate’s team cited her need to find “balance” as she recovers from cancer when she failed to appear at the iconic carriage ride at Royal Ascot races on Wednesday alongside the king. By pulling out of such a high-profile event just over an hour before she was due to appear, Kate sowed panic and confusion among royal staff, although press reports in the United Kingdom have largely played down the drama.
Multiple sources told The Daily Beast they expected Kate to dramatically scale back her public appearances for the rest of the year and instead increase her online and digital footprint, remotely supporting causes close to her heart. The issuance of William’s birthday photo, which showed him playing with the family’s new puppies, while he was due to make no public appearance, seemed a textbook example of that.
One well-connected source, a former royal staffer, told The Daily Beast: “Kate is recalibrating her entire life, her entire work-life balance. Wednesday was a wake-up call, not a one-off. She has never found the public appearances, and the forensic attention and criticism that goes with them, at all easy to deal with, and it was just too much this week.”
“The last few years have been horrific; the disgusting things that Harry said about her and William and her family, the relentless speculation about her and William, the queen’s death, the king’s diagnosis which had them both thinking they were going to have to take over and then her own cancer diagnosis and treatment. It’s all taken its toll, and if she needs more time to recover, William will fight tooth and nail to see she is given it.”
Another royal insider said, “The important thing here is Kate’s recovery. It was too much, unfortunately, for her to have three appearances in under a week, and the lesson has been learned. Kate will take it much easier for the rest of the year. I’d be surprised if you see her more than three times in the next three months.”
“The last few years have been horrific; the disgusting things that Harry said about her and William and her family, the relentless speculation about her and William, the queen’s death, the king’s diagnosis which had them both thinking they were going to have to take over…” That’s quite a list. What did Harry say about the Middletons again? Nothing, right? Harry wrote disgusting things like… Kate was white-knuckling a chair because Meghan expressed sympathy for her baby brain. And the relentless speculation about Kate and William… well. Huh. I’m getting a real sense of what actually happened to make Kate pull out of Ascot at the last minute, but I’ll let everyone come up with their own theories. As for “I’d be surprised if you see her more than three times in the next three months” – that would have been true regardless of the Ascot withdrawal. She would have made one or two appearances at Wimbledon and then taken three or four months off for her summer holiday. And again, it’s really cracking me up that William can’t even have a birthday storyline to himself without everyone making it all about Kate!
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Kensington Palace.
