What Kate Middleton and the palace PRs don't get about the internet
In the conspiracy era, if you don’t tell your story someone else will
Last week my friend Nicole James sent me a rather blunt text message:
Like the rest of the world she was caught up in the hysteria surrounding the question ‘Where is Kate Middleton?‘ after the princess had not been seen in public since Christmas Day.
Catherine, the Princess of Wales, is very much alive and was pictured on Monday in a car with her mother, Carole. Either she was caught by paparazzi (most likely) or the PR department of the palace finally realised that in order to quell the growing speculation surrounding her whereabouts that she needed to be seen and a photographer just happened to be positioned by the side of the road as she was driven past (much less likely, but not out of the question).
Prior to the image surfacing on TMZ, the Wales’ public relations strategy had followed the playbook of the late Queen Elizabeth and centred around the mantra ‘never complain, never explain’. The policy requires giving scant information about personal matters. The idea is that if publicists don’t provide breathless detail then they won’t get caught in the trap of having to respond to every question, twist or turn.
The first step Kate’s team took was to announce in early January that she’d had “planned abdominal surgery” and would be taking until the end of March to recover. The rather woolly statement shook royal watchers prompting some to wonder what exactly “abdominal surgery” was and why she had to “postpone her upcoming engagements” if it was indeed “planned”.
While the rumour mill had started to stir it wasn’t until Kate’s husband, William, pulled out of a memorial service due to an undisclosed “personal matter”, that it kicked into high gear. His unexplained absence last Tuesday, during Kate’s already “mysterious” sick leave, was just too much for those prone to a plot. Within hours the internet was convinced she wasn’t recuperating but instead “missing”.
The almost universal adoration of Queen Elizabeth is often cited as proof that the ‘never complain, never explain’ approach to communications is effective, but as this episode has shown it’s in no way fit for the internet age.
Rather than being a blanket that stops an outbreak of fire, ‘never explain’ is the PR equivalent of a flame thrower, where information vacuums become fuel for wild online speculation that quickly develop into crack pot theories. In the conspiracy era if you don’t control the narrative then online commenters will control it for you.
In Kate’s case amateur sleuths and pundits - mainly on Twitter/X - theorised that the reason she was MIA was because she:
Had Brazilian Butt Lift (BBL) surgery
Is seriously ill following the operation, possibly in a coma
Is growing out her fringe/bangs
Is donating a kidney to King Charles, who was recently diagnosed with cancer
Got lost at the Willy Wonka scam event
Has an eating disorder
Found out that William was cheating on her
Has been killed
Is the artist Banksy
Has entered the princess protection program
Is going on The Masked Singer
Of course, none of these are rooted in much truth. I’m 99 per cent certain that the princess is indeed recovering at home just like the statements from the palace have indicated. But the lack of detail provided by aides did little to convince anyone. Indeed they had the opposite effect and laid the ground for a guessing game.
We’ve seen this type of information black hole followed by online frenzy before. In the U.S. the days-long search for missing content creator Gabby Petito prompted armchair detectives to fill TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit and Twitter/X with bizarre theories that spread misinformation about the tragic case. In the U.K. when Nicola Bulley disappeared and the police admitted they had no leads, citizen ‘cops’ stepped in to ‘investigate’.
In adopting the ‘never explain’ plan the palace was clearly trying to protect William and Kate’s privacy. I’m sure they thought that by saying the least, hinting at what the issues were by using phrases like “personal matter” and “abdominal surgery” that they were carefully balancing their needs with the requirement to explain their absence from planned events.
The palace’s big mistake, in my view, was that their statements were tailored for the mainstream media.
The two institutions have had a long running deal where access to the royals is exchanged for favourable coverage and a level of privacy. The palace knew that newspapers, magazines and TV networks needed some explanation, but also that they would parrot their spin and not speculate too much. What they didn’t appear to consider was that internet commentators would not be so compliant.
The royals serve a public who live in an information environment that goes far beyond the mainstream media. Many get their ‘news’ from social platforms where conspiracy rages, mis/disinformation thrives, individuals with a handful of followers can reach millions of views and they’re largely free to make unverified statements with few consequences. The palace either failed to understand this or didn’t think it mattered. They didn’t foresee that online pundits were the ones who would shape this story and they don't have anything close to the same pact that they have with the media with them.
There are three dynamics that they overlooked, and each one makes ‘never explain’ a poor strategic choice…
Oversharing is now standard practice. Vagueness will not be tolerated.
Online audiences have come to expect that those in the public eye will share all details of their lives with them. To not do so is seen as gatekeeping at best, and a cause for suspicion at worst.
Full transparency is preferred but if a public figure wants to keep something private then they should avoid teasing or baiting their audience. Being vague is frowned upon and sometimes seen as attention seeking. It’s also a sure fire way to lose control of the narrative. Blank spaces are nearly always filled by commentators.
Institutions are not trusted. Unless you have receipts don’t expect to be believed.
Confidence in major U.S. institutions is at an all time low according to data from Gallup, and in the U.K. a King’s College London report found that it has markedly declined since 2018.
The palace’s PR plan seemed to rely on people trusting what they said because they were an official source. They didn’t seem to consider that some skeptics would not accept their statements as fact. As the royals moved to reassure people that all was well with the Wales’, many questioned how that could possibly be true when William cancelled an appearance at short notice and Kate hadn’t been seen for months. Those “facts” were far more powerful than the palace’s claims that there was no cause for alarm.
Everything is smoke. Conspiracies thrive on social platforms.
Because of the rise of deepfakes and mis/disinformation, audiences are more skeptical than ever. In many ways that’s a good thing, but one consequence is that audiences are hyper vigilant of scams and scammers. This can mean that the smallest inconsistency is analysed and investigated even by well meaning people. Those with less pure hearts deploy the same tactics to ‘expose’ people who upset them. Know as ‘authenticity policing’ they seek to prove that a target is a fake by close analysis of their behaviour.
Exposing conspiracies is a niche pastime but nearly all audiences enjoy engaging with juicy ones. They get outsized attention online and this encourages some bad actors to create fake ones for profit or status.
The palace did nothing to account for this phenomenon and should have made sure each statement was water tight to avoid the inevitable picking over of every word.
I hope it goes without saying that anyone, even a future queen, has the right to keep their medical information private, but if I were advising the royals then I would have guided them towards a more transparent approach. Kate didn’t need to give every cough and spit but she could have been a little less opaque. The proof that a more open approach works is apparent in how King Charles has handled his cancer diagnosis. Clear statements were issued and recent imagery have meant that few conspiracies have emerged.
While the narrative around Kate is still out of her control she does have a chance to grasp it back. If she choses to share her experience once she’s recovered it’ll turn down the heat and set the record straight. Until then, it’s the internet who owns her story.
This week I’ve been…
OBSESSING OVER:
Raymonte on TikTok, who’s built a two million strong following by approaching strangers in stores (mainly Target) and hyping them up by telling them they look “good as f*ck” and are “a bad-ass b*tch”. His breakout video has been watched more than 16 million times…
Whether Hollywood’s hottest producer is collaborating with publishing’s hottest author? This Thread made the internet think so.
Margot Robbie, producer of Barbie and Saltburn, had a tête-à-tête with Sarah J. Mass, the author of the wildly popular A Court of Thorns and Roses and the Crescent City series last week.
Mass has sold more than 38 million books after cornering the ‘romantasy’ genre. In the UK more than half of Mass’ books sales were to women aged between 13 and 34, who are hooked on her fairies, dragons and sex formula. Given their heroine on a mission themes I can’t think of a better producer than Robbie to make the inevitable adaption to the big screen.
Sabrina Carpenter’s extremely good hair
WATCHING: As TikTok’s newest star Reesa Teesa almost doubled her followers since the last highly flammable edition which focused on her explosive rise. Meanwhile part one of her Who TF Did I Marry?? series has been watched nearly 40 million times.
LISTENING TO: RAYE and enjoying her music more than ever knowing that she picked up six BRIT Awards in front of the Polydor record bosses who slept on her talent
highly flammable is produced and written by Rachel Richardson. She’s a content creator, commentator and consultant at Beginning, Middle and End. Want more? Check out Threads, Twitter/X and Instagram.