String of Princess Kate magazine covers confirm huge change
The Princess of Wales has pulled off a massive feat of near-miraculous proportions – while her sister-in-law Meghan has not.
It would take a PhD thesis of no short length to truly answer the question,: does royalty matter?
Luckily, TIME magazine is here to save us from having to twist ourselves into intellectual knots and to excessively overquote Foucault.
Last week, Princess Kate was nominated for TIME magazine’s Person of the Year along with Kamala Harris, Yulia Navalnaya, Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, among others. That’s some prestigious company for a woman who’s never held a full time paying job and is never getting access to the nuclear codes.
This would be interesting news in and of itself, but then Google released its annual Year in Search report, laying bare what eight billion of us have been tippity tap two-finger typing into that search bar for this year. I’ll spare you the suspense – a whole lotta Kate.
In 2024, the princess was the second most searched for person on the planet, behind He Who Cannot Be Shamed. In the United States, she was the most searched for non-politician.
Taylor who now? Elon huh?
But we’re not done yet. At the same time all this Kate-ness was coming out, the two biggest mainstream celebrity magazines in America, People and Us Weekly, were simultaneously splashing her across their covers for the umpteenth time this year.
It’s a Kate-athon! A Wales-a-palooza! Princess to the power of pi!
Here you have it: Kate’s cultural dominance has been irrefutably confirmed, double checked and signed off.
It’s a high note for the Princess of Wales to end 2024 on after a bonkers, sad and downright bizarre year, including her supposed disappearance, the ensuing mass hysteria, the doctored Mother's Day shot and then the revelation she had cancer.
The end result is that Kate has achieved the previously unthinkable – she has transcended her own previous level of cultural dominance and has become even more of a figure of unremitting, worldwide obsession and pervasive fascination.
What it really comes down to is what the princess has come to represent this year: Strength, stoicism, bravery.
If she was loved before, she is now respected and seen in a way she was not necessarily before, the mother-of-three having taken on a certain mythic quality she did not previously possess.
The converse has played out this year for her sister-not-in-arms, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex whose 2024 has been marked by a certain stagnation and floundering. If the princess stands for fortitude and resilience after the last 12 months, what does the duchess stand for?
The year started with such promise for the House of Montecito.
A Grace Kelly approved red carpet turn in January in Jamaica with the boss of Paramount along with Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex seemed to presage a big year for the couple, an assumption that got a massive boost when the duchess unveiled her lifestyle brand American Riviera Orchard (ARO) in March.
Come April, they announced they had two new Netflix series simmering away, his about polo, hers about entertaining.
They also branched out on the charity front, taking themselves off on two dupes of a royal tour, first to Nigeria and then Colombia.
Except none of this has really managed to land.
The tours were successful in that they made for plenty of good photo opportunities but failed to meaningfully improve their standing as humanitarian leaders.
ARO has faced a series of setbacks, having its trademark application knocked back before the duchess was forced in December to seek a three month extension from the US patent office to get things in order.
Meanwhile, the ARO website launched on March 14 but is still naught but a holding page inviting fans to join the waitlist. They are still waiting, nine months on.
The world continues to be deprived of the chance to buy the Meghan approved napery and marmalades and various whatnots and tchotchkes that I’m not sure anyone is specifically crying out for. (Though her taste is excellent if you ask me).
Then last week, Harry’s Polo debuted – only to be met by biting reviews (a “tedious inside-look”; “a dull indulgence about a rich person’s pursuit”; “destined to fall … into obscurity at the speed of light”) and a resounding lack of public interest. (As of the time of writing, it had failed to make the top ten most watched shows on Netflix, according to website FlixPatrol).
The fear of the flop is real.
As yet, no date has been set for the launch of Meghan’s entertaining show, which finished filming in June last year.
Which brings us back to the question of, what does the duchess now symbolise? Celebrity? TV? The hunt for the almighty dollar? Entrepreneurialism?
Meghan’s post-palace brand has gone from being a valiant truth-teller to a confused hodge-podge and her wider relevance has clearly suffered.
2025 could change all that, with ARO’s unveiling and her new show.
TIME ended up handing Person of the Year to Donald Trump. The United States is the land of the comeback, so who knows what Meghan’s third, fourth and fifth act might hold.
And there’s definitely a PhD in that …
Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles
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