‘Played us all’: Cruel Kate conspiracy theory goes viral
Three letters and one social media post have set off a brand new furore about the Princess of Wales and her health.
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It’s the little things that are meant to make life great, like the first morning rays on dewy grass or the delicious fizz of a new bottle of tonic or watching far-right windbag Nigel Farage have a milkshake thrown at his head – and in royal land, it’s so often the little words that maketh the story.
What’s in a little name or a word? Plenty, if you ask social media, which has just gotten its teeth into the idea that Kensington Palace has just played us all.
Today, I’m here to glumly report that a firestorm has broken out, essentially over three simple letters which, some argue, proves that Kate, the Princess of Wales never really had cancer and cunningly pulled the wool over our gullible eyes.
Here’s the lay of the land.
Rhiannon Mills is Sky UK’s highly experienced senior royal editor, who was last in the spotlight after Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex had a go at her during his and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex’s 2019 tour of southern Africa when Mills had the temerity, as a journalist, to ask a question.
She is also part of the often unfairly maligned royal rota of reporters, that is, the affiliated scribes who cover Crown Inc and have working relationships with the Palace.
Point is, Mills is legit.
So it’s September, and it’s the hours after Kate surprised the world by releasing a three minute plus Land Rover ad-like video announcing she had finished chemotherapy. Release the doves! Fire up the 41 gun salute! Someone pop out for a real bottle of sparking, and none of this methode champenoise nonsense!
Back then, Mills filed a story, writing that “in March the princess confirmed that precancerous cells had been found”, language which no one really paid much attention to at all.
Until last week, when the internet got hold of the phrase “precancerous cells” and proceeded to start attaching red string to some big corkboard of madness, especially the “pre” bit.
As a doctor told the Daily Beast’s Tom Sykes, “You either have precancerous cells or you have cancer, the two terms are not interchangeable”.
Over the weekend, the Mills story started circulating on social media, and after months of relative Kate calm and a decided lack of the sort of lunacy we saw earlier this year surrounding the princess, whooshka, it all came roaring back.
Was Mills’ language a slight mangling of words or a sentence hastily typed out to meet a deadline, or did she know something the rest of the world didn’t?
Over on social media, the combination of a highly legitimate and connected source like Mills’ using “pre” to describe what doctors had found was pounced on as “proof” that the Palace had all but lied about the princess’ diagnosis.
Fuel was poured on the flames by sometimes-Good Morning Britain commentator Narinder Kaur, who posted, “I don’t know if she had cancer or pre cancer cells”.
I don't know if she had cancer or pre cancer cells.
— Narinder Kaur (@narindertweets) November 10, 2024
But either way...I've been attacked in the most vicious way.
Just because I asked why she looked aged. Just THAT
FCK MY LIFE. https://t.co/EqBMGmumdM
Kaur also retweeted a post saying it was “legitimate” to ask if Kate had really had cancer.
While Kate was missing, there was so much misinformation, so many fake photos/films from KP, that any question about what really happened during that time is legitimate, even whether Kate really has cancer. I wish some journalist would finally ask!!!https://t.co/uvhQKQr6yA
— Prof. Dr. Monika Dobberstein (@DrDobberstein) November 11, 2024
As the Beast’s Sykes pointed out on Monday, Mills’ story “cannot be easily dismissed, however, as she is a member of the so-called royal rota … The palace is often able to get simple errors made by rota journalists corrected, and the fact a correction hasn’t been made is relevant”.
He reports that “reputable journalists contacted Kensington Palace” about the Mills story, which remained unchanged for days.
It might seem like ancient history now, but for months and months of this year, insanity reigned supreme.
First, the absence from public life of Kate after having had abdominal surgery in January, a time we now know she was coming to terms with her cancer diagnosis, set off a frenzy of spittle-flecked keyboard hypothesising that was just bonkers.
Theories ran rampant and unchecked online, with wild-eyed suggestions – totally bereft of anything like credibility – that in fact something was going wrong with her and husband Prince William’s marriage, or that she had had a Brazilian butt lift.
The other positively nasty notion that did the rounds was that Kate had actually been off having a nip and/or tuck and had told the whopper about having cancer to cover up her recovery time.
Then came Mother’s Day Picturegate, when Kate did some particularly clumsy photoshopping of an image of her and her kids – a photo in which she was not wearing her wedding or engagement rings – only to then have the world’s five major photo agencies “kill” the shot from their archives amid concerns it had been “manipulated”.
A prevailing sense of furtiveness started to surround the Palace.
Then the denouement came in late March when a wan, clearly unwell Kate sat on a bench in Windsor Home Park and recorded a video revealing her shocking health news. All that ridiculousness was suddenly, Wizard of Oz-style, unmasked for the cruelty and derangement it really was.
It seemed like it was case closed – until this Mills story resurfaced, that is.
At some stage over the last week, the internet rediscovered this otherwise totally unremarkable online-only piece and leapt on Mills’ use of the phrase “precancerous cells” to suggest that, SEE, all along Kensington Palace and the Princess of Wales had been pulling a fast one and she had never actually had cancer.
To which I humbly say, for f**king f**k’s sake. Enough already.
On Tuesday, the Mills story was changed, replacing “precancerous cells” with just “cancer”, thereby dousing this all with much-needed ice-cold water.
However, today’s lesson is the degree to which the conspiracy theories about the princess haven’t and might not ever truly go away and, more broadly, social media’s willingness to believe the worst about the ostensibly shadowy monarchy.
It’s a situation that bears a degree of resemblance to the fact there are untold millions of people who are still adamant that the royal family was somehow behind the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. (One ludicrous theory was that Prince Philip worked with MI5 to have the troublesome pregnant princess killed to prevent a Muslim man becoming the stepfather of the King of Great Britain).
The holes in these Diana stories are so wide and established in courts of law in both the UK and France that you could drive an oil tanker through them, but still, they persist.
And that’s really what this latest Kate situation is about – the stickiness and obstinacy of certain paranoid theories that attach themselves to certain members of the House of Windsor.
To this day, more than five and a half years after his birth, there are those who are still foaming at the mouth as they argue that Prince Archie was actually carried by a surrogate and that Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex was never actually pregnant.
(Just in case it needs to be said – that is complete and utter bunk and this sad theory belongs well and truly in the bin).
Buckingham and Kensington Palaces hardly have a reputation for forthright communication and the informational void they tend to create are the perfect laboratory conditions for real craziness to flourish.
In the 19th century, the line was that it was dangerous to let too much light in on the monarchy but in 2024, it is proving equally dangerous not to.
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
Originally published as ‘Played us all’: Cruel Kate conspiracy theory goes viral
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