The Royal Family is comprised of many colorful individuals with personalities and priorities of their own. Collectively, though, they are usually on the same page, which is why this group is often referred to as “the Firm.” When the Firm wants to make a statement to the world, they don’t leave it up to individuals, instead choosing to speak through official statements from places like Kensington Palace.
Most people never think about how much power and control the Palace truly wields. Recently, however, controversies surrounding Kate Middleton’s health have had us taking a critical look at the Palace’s history of shady behavior. Just how shady are we talking? Keep reading to discover the shadiest things about Kensington Palace!
Understanding the significance of Kensington Palace
You’d be forgiven wondering how Kensington Palace could ever be shady. After all, isn’t this just a structure? While that is part of the answer, the truth is that the Palace has been more than that for a very long time.
Originally, Kensington Palace was a place where monarchs William and Mary chose to live back in the late 17th century, and to this day, this is where many famous royals like to hang their hats. Most recently, Prince William and Kate Middleton lived there, though they more recently moved to Windsor to provide a more normal life for their three children.
Where does the shadiness come in, then? As we touched on before, royals William and Kate don’t make personal statements, choosing instead to issue official statements through Kensington Palace. That would be fine except that the Palace has a history of scandals (including one very recent one) that have led us to believe the Palace can’t be trusted about a great many things.
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The recent Photoshop scandal
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that the most recent royal scandal concerns Kate Middleton’s health. She was scheduled for some kind of abdominal surgery in January, but she refused to say exactly what the procedure was. Making the controversy even worse was the casual Kensington Palace statement that Kate wouldn’t resume any of her royal duties until after Easter.
The simple fact that it shouldn’t take months to recover from such an allegedly simple surgery caused shockwaves of speculation online that Kate may be far sicker than the Royal Family is willing to let on. Very likely motivated to ease public speculation, Kensington Palace recently released a photo of Kate posing with her children. However, the Associated Press and other organizations refused to run the photo because it appeared to be digitally manipulated, and many online critics think that her 2016 Vogue cover was used for this “new” image.
Either way, the fact that the image was manipulated fanned the flames of speculation that the Palace had something to hide. Later, Kate (or perhaps someone pretending to be Kate) later tweeted that she had been the one to edit the photo. However, the idea that Kate is personally editing her own photos and that she did such an extensive job that it made the Associated Press think it could be a fake seems downright impossible.
Harry’s shady allegations about the Palace
No living royal has made fellow members of The Firm quite as angry as Prince Harry. He ruffled quite a few feathers by marrying an American celebrity divorcee (Meghan Markle), and to hear Harry tell the story, his romance with Meghan led to quite a few fights with his brother William over the treatment of Harry’s bride-to-be. Things got bad enough that Kensington Palace issued a statement claiming that there was no Meghan-related tension between the brothers.
However, according to Buzzfeed News, Harry later said “No one had asked me. No one had asked me permission to put my name to a statement like that.” Even as he confirmed that Kensington Palace was willing to lie, he put into perspective who they were (and weren’t) willing to lie for. “Within four hours, they were happy to lie to protect my brother, and yet for three years, they were never willing to tell the truth to protect us.”
The Palace disliking Harry might explain the weird incident when Kensington shared an Instagram post celebrating the 93rd birthday of Queen Elizabeth. Look at the photo above and you can tell Harry is almost completely obscured and not ready for a picture. Just one more way the Palace wants to sabotage the rebellious royal?
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A weird scandal with an infamous tabloid
Kate Middleton’s recent health condition isn’t the only time that this future Queen of England was at the center of controversy. Back in 2020, after Harry and Meghan stepped down as working royals, Tatler ran a story with testimony from insiders who knew Kate very well. According to them, the monarch was “furious about the larger workload” caused by Harry and Meghan stepping down. “Of course, she’s smiling and dressing appropriately but she doesn’t want this. She feels exhausted and trapped.”
According to Entertainment Tonight, Kensington Palace responded with the following statement: “This story contains a swathe of inaccuracies & false misrepresentations which were not put to Kensington Palace prior to publication.” A royal denial is par for the course, but here’s where it gets weird: a spokesperson for the publication later said, “Kensington Palace knew we were running the ‘Catherine the Great’ cover months ago and we asked them to work together on it. The fact they are denying they ever knew is categorically false.”
The editor-in-chief stood behind the reporting and claimed the story was accurate. Given how unreliable Kensington Palace has seemingly become, we’re inclined to believe him!