Angela Mollard: And we thought Princess Di had no privacy. Here we are again. Blame social media

The mother-in-law Kate never met was hounded by paparazzi, snapped by gym spy cameras, could never drop her guard. The intrusions in the chase for Kate are worse, writes Angela Mollard.

In the febrile world of royal news where the merest snippet of information can make a scoop, you know when things have gone too far.

Exactly 30 years ago and working in London, I witnessed such a moment.

Pictures of Princess Diana, her legs spread wide as she worked out on a leg press machine, were published in a Sunday newspaper in November 1993.

They’d been secretly snapped by gym owner Bryce Taylor who’d painstakingly installed a hidden camera in the ceiling above the equipment.

“I know people will hate me for what I’ve done,” Taylor told the Sunday Mirror, which devoted its front page and six others – including a centrefold – to images of the princess exercising. “But I’m not ashamed.”

There was no question the photographs of Diana in bike shorts and a leotard were intrusive.

The princess won a legal victory preventing them ever being published again and the money Taylor would have earned for the images was given to charity.

Yet three decades later here we are again with a new Princess of Wales seemingly subjected to an even greater breach of her privacy.

A staff member at the hospital where Kate underwent abdominal surgery in January has reportedly attempted to access her medical records.

Both the hospital and the privacy watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office, is investigating.

As we now know the Princess has cancer. She has spoken of the shock of learning her diagnosis and the care she and William have taken in telling their young children.

It doesn’t require much joined-up thinking to understand how the Princess of Wales might be feeling right now.

And yet as she undergoes chemotherapy treatment, the Princess has to contend not only with concerns about her own health but the insatiable appetite for information that, presumably, prompted the security breach, and has the frenzied speculation about her absence.

Amid recovery from surgery, dealing with a cancer diagnosis, a photoshop disaster and claims her husband is having an affair, some hospital sneak has been diving into Kate’s medical records. Picture: Getty Images

For the first time since the 90s when the deteriorating relationship between Diana and Charles was the chief topic of conversation even among people who thought they were above such things, we are back in similar territory.

Except for reasons which will become clear, this time it’s far worse.

Here is a very ill woman who’s undergone serious surgery and subsequently learned that she has cancer and will require ongoing treatment.

Meanwhile, she’s been accused of compromising the royal family’s trust and integrity for photoshopping a picture and now editors are clearly trawling through all her charmingly photographed and generously shared images to check for more doctoring.

Even though she has a communications team which had clearly lost control of the narrative, she took the rap.

And now as she faces the horrible unknown, she discovers some hospital sneak has been diving into her records, presumably to secure themselves an exclusive like the one Bryce Taylor boasted about 30 years ago.

Coming on top of the claims in her brother-in-law’s book Spare that she is a cold, non-hugger who doesn’t share her lip-gloss and, as we now know, one of two royals he and Meghan accused of racism, you have to wonder how she is still functioning.

Easter Monday will mark 20 years since we first learned 22-year-old Kate Middleton was Prince William’s girlfriend.

A newspaper published photographs of them skiing together in Switzerland and, while such intrusion was questionable in the cautious post-Diana years, the newspaper argued it was in the public interest as she could become his wife.

Much has changed in those 20 years. Not only does everyone carry a phone – making them citizen paparazzi – but we’ve ushered in an age in which privacy is no longer a given but a commodity.

Social media has trained us to expect to know everyone’s secrets, keyboard warriors have saturated the space previously occupied by qualified commentators, and the personal megaphones offered by X and TikTok means misinformation and conjecture spread like toxic lava.

We have lost the ability to be uncertain, to be comfortable with not knowing.

If Diana represented the axis of royalty and celebrity, her sons and their wives, with their websites, podcasts, books, TV series and Instagram accounts, have fully entered the fray. Mystery has been replaced with relatability and – while transparency can be beneficial, notably in the case of both the King and Kate’s cancer diagnoses – it’s not a bottle you can recork.

The more we know, the more we expect to know.

If The Crown has blurred the distinction between fact and fiction and cast the royals as pop culture fodder for a new generation, we’ve also come to suspect that disquiet exists behind the smiles and handshaking that constitutes their day jobs.

When suspicions swirled that Charles had a mistress it turned out to be true.

When fears grew over Diana’s weight loss she later revealed she had an eating disorder.

When William and Harry stopped sharing an office, we later learned they were barely speaking.

History has shown us where there are whispers, there is likely truth. So what happens next?

In the wake of Diana’s death, the contract between the palace, press and paparazzi was extensively revised. But no contract will curtail the runaway train that is social media. Only our consciences can do that.

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Originally published as Angela Mollard: And we thought Princess Di had no privacy. Here we are again. Blame social media