The royal family didn’t handle her illness perfectly and questions remain. But #Kategate was social media at its worst.

By Jennifer Graham

It took just 45 seconds for Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales, to deliver the comeuppance that the world deserved for months of callous and often cruel speculation about her whereabouts. In doing so, she exposed social media at its worst, how a personal tragedy unfolding privately — a diagnosis of cancer in a 42-year-old mother — can become unseemly entertainment. We like to believe that we are morally distant from the crowds at Rome’s ancient Colosseum, but on days like today, it seems that maybe we aren’t.

The princess’s news, delivered while she sat outside on a bench, with a backdrop of yellow flowers, was nearly as shocking as the announcement that came more than a quarter century ago when Prince William’s mother, Princess Diana, died in a car crash. There is irony in this, given that, among the many shameful theories that have been floated in recent days about Kate’s condition, some people had jokingly suggested that she had died. Other speculation is equally horrific in retrospect, especially the rumors of extramarital affairs, illicit children and even a pending divorce.

The royal family, of course, inadvertently contributed to this debacle in its clumsy handling of Middleton’s illness. In the inevitable soul-searching that will go on this week, many will point fingers at the palace for its lengthy silence as people around the world began to wonder why the princess had not been seen in months and for its terrible decision to release a doctored photograph of Middleton and her children on Britain’s Mother’s Day. It’s still unclear whether other photos of the princess that have been published in recent weeks were real or not, and unquestionably they contributed to the media feeding frenzy. But it’s past time to cut the palace some slack.

As is now painfully clear, the royal family has been dealing with unprecedented circumstances: synchronous cancer diagnoses among two of its most high-profile members, a king and a future queen.

https://www.deseret.com/opinion/2024/03/22/kate-middleton-just-gave-us-the-comeuppance-we-all-deserved/