Many people had questions about the Duchess of Cambridge’s ensemble in London on Tuesday. The biggest question was: where are the buttons? The buttons are Kate’s signature at this point, but nary a button could be found on Kate’s Sportmax coat (with the enormous lapels). As it turns out, Kate hid her glorious buttons on her blue Seraphine Maternity dress – there were prominent buttons on the empire waist of the dress, which you can see in these photos. It costs about $90 and it has kind of retro cut.
Kate’s also been trying harder than ever to make speeches lately. The first five years of marriage, Kate rarely spoke in public. Many believed that she was terrified of public speaking, which is a pretty common fear… but one that can be overcome with training and practice, especially if you’ve signed on for one of the biggest public relations jobs in the world.
I do think she’s gotten better. She’s still just reading off of a page, but she’s doing a lot better with not having her head completely down, and not fussing with her hair. She showed some degree of comfort with the speech too, which says to me that she had probably rehearsed it. I still believe that part of Kate’s issue with public speaking is that she’s trying to do too much with her posh-sounding accent, but whatever. I’m not going to harp on and on about it. She’s actually improving and that should be acknowledged.
Meanwhile, there’s a lot of speculation about what Kate is having this time around, and of course which name she and William will chose. The betting odds are on Alice for a girl and Albert for a boy. I really hope Albert isn’t in the mix for a first name, honestly. It’s fine if they want to use Albert for a middle name, but surely they could go with a different male name from the Windsor line? And I think Alice would be a good choice!
Photos courtesy of Pacific Coast News and WENN.
I think she looks great actually – I wish i could pull off that dress but with my rack of doom I would actually look 8 months pregnant.
I understand that Royal speeches aren’t supposed to set the world on fire but every time I hear them give speeches they sound like a string of platitudes. I with their speechwriters tried to be a bit more inspiring…
Lala, re speeches, William gave a really great speech yesterday.
https://www.royal.uk/speech-duke-cambridge-charity-commission-annual-public-meeting
It’s long but it really explains the thinking behind the Royal Foundation and their approach to their charities (an approach I absolutely agree with) and pays tribute to Charles, Philip and the Queen as well as Diana.
It’s also on youtube.
I actually think even her accent has gotten less crazy and yes, she’s improving. I know people like to harp on her hair and while I’m not generally a fan of her hairstyles, I do think that for most women it’s a comfort thing. We like our hair the way we like it and that’s that. A bad hair day sucks. So if this is her, by all means, celebrate the 80s hairspray commercial. BUT when you’re giving a speech, pull it back. Don’t let it hang in your face, that looks really unprofessional.
ETA: I’m in love with her dress.
I really do like her hair this way — it seems to me a great combination of sleek and loose, so it’s both youthful and rather posh, I think.
Her accent does still bother me, it feels so forced (“fohsed” and rehearsed (“ri-hussed”).
What else has she got to do besides rehearse? My god she should ve the greatest speaker of all time by now.
I used to do public speaking competitions from 9-21. It was just a small town thing, and part of the necessary tasks to complete the year in another club. I wrote the speeches myself every year. I rehearsed them, read them over and over every year. I moved on to the second level a good handful of times, but didn’t always compete after the first round.
I was undeniably better when I was a kid than I was as a late teen / early adult. I would spend a couple of weeks working on the thing, and repeating it over in my head. I could remember a ton of it even a year after performing it. But as soon as 17+ year old Erinn got up in front of people she froze. And shook. And had to read off of the cards regardless of memorization. I would make a point to look up and pause where appropriate – but for whatever reason, nerves really got to me. I was so worried that I would skip an important section or mis-quote something and embarrass myself that I struggled to drag my eyes up from the notes. And I didn’t have that level of worry when I was younger. I think it’s a hard habit to break once you slip into it – and sometimes anxiety can just get the better of you – regardless of how well-practiced you are.
I agree Erinn. I failed a required Speech class in college because of my anxiety. I just could not do it. I consider myself a fairly outgoing person, but I have awful stage fright so I feel for Kate. And wouldn’t it be nice if we could all keep the confidence we had as children?
On the other hand, I don’t get why Kate married the future King if she has stage fright. I really like Kate’s dress and love the pics of her with the kids. I think she seems to have a genuine love for them and she shines when speaking to them.
Maybe she married him because she loves him?
I love this. She’s still crap. She can’t manage William, Harry and I without looking down. You’ve made me laugh.
She’s a hands-on mother to two young kids. I’m sure she has other things to do besides practice speeches, c’mon.
no improvement in my opinion. she might look less at the notes, but how much less? like 0,05 of a second? praising a 30 something woman mother of two kids for not playing with her hair while delivering a speech in public just once again shows the low the bar is set.
Exactly! she’s been a full-time royal for over 7 years now.
Actually, I listened to the very short “greeting-speech” she gave at a hospital very recently, and I was pleasantly surprised how comfortable and eloquent she was.
I somehow get the feeling that she wanted to make sure for the first years of her marriage that she gets accustomed to everything, and moving forward, she will be become a steady worker.
And, the Heads together initiative is actually very well received by the younger generation, which I recently discovered, so… who knows
Yes I agree with the opinion on the shorter greeting speech. She’s getting better. She seems more comfortable addressing crowds. It’s nice to see.
I suspect the work of her extremely overqualified Oxford dean turned private secretary behind this change. I think the woman’s name is also Catherine? Well done Catherine!
Me too.
Me too. Kate needed someone overqualified for the post because she, without a past work history and/or a deep history or curiosity about the world, topics or current events (perhaps), wasn’t making it prior to this. Too many rookie mistakes. She herself (and Carole by extension) was/is so woefully under qualified for this public aspect of her role because of her lack of work history outside of her family’s business and even her lack of history outside of William’s gaze for most of her 20s and 30s. Her life has been very insular relative to most people who have some experience negotiating life outside a gilded cage.
Final thought: Kate may have felt at ease with her last secretary (Rebecca Dean) but what she needed was a knowledgeable, professional older woman to help transition, polish and guide her (how to look, what to do, what to say, how to say it) in this area of her role much like Carole has done over the years in terms of Kate’s private life.
I wonder if the same or a similar level of support will be offered to Meghan Markle.
Honey: which speaks to the rumour that this hire was imposed by BP or CH. WK don’t have the self-awareness to understand that they need(ed) help nor the motivation to get a qualified person to teach / help them. They only cared for Yes men. The less qualified the better.
Harry is different because he has that self-awareness and hires people who help him. It’s one of the reasons his public image and messaging, outside of personal qualities, has been miles better than WK. MM will be fine because of that. Outside of her own personal qualities, i think she’ll receive a better quality person to guide her and or take her cues from Catherine Quinn until her own team is assembled.
@LAK (and others) — I asked this in another post but it doesn’t seem to have as much traffic as this one does.
But how would Catherine Quinn influences things? Isn’t she basically Kate’s assistant/secretary? I wouldn’t have thought she would actually have much input in what Kate does.
Lorelai: A private secretary isn’t your basic assistant. They are an executive who shapes your work life. For royal family, they advise as well as assist in an executive capacity as opposed to typing up letters and managing your diary.
Kate’s current secretary is a very experienced professional woman who was CEO of the Said business school at Oxford. Clearly Kate is willing to learn because the new secretary has been in place since September 2017 and in that short time we have seem an improvement in self-presentation, content of speeches and letters, very few cancellation of engagements and those that were cancelled were re-scheduled. Even the public speaking has improved. Kate is saying a few words on engagement even if said words are clearly rehearsed and the reporter she speaks to is pre-arranged.
This stuff is very basic for a woman with her experience, but it is the sort of help Kate should have had from the start.
Under the previous secretary, everything was lackadaical and unprofessional and clearly no one cared or they didn’t pick up on it. The letters alone are so cringeworthy that i suffer secondhand embarrassment reading them.
The very first speech written for Kate under the new secretary was miles better in content, grammer and focus and composition.
The difference between the 2 ladies’ approach can be summed up by the pictures of them when they accompany Kate to engagements. One looked like the teen office intern on a day out whilst the other looks like a professional working woman.
Harry had a similar turnabout when he appointed his own professional secretary in 2013.
What LAK said plus look at how Kate is positioned on the picture where she is seated at the table. She looks mature and, dare I say it, as if what she is saying is important and that one should actually listen to it. That never seemed to happen in the past.
Also, I think I’ve seen another picture where she is seated at a table with “grown” professional looking women as if she is at a round table event—granted in that pic Kate is grinning like a loon or like a kid who has been allowed to sit at the grown-ups table for the first time—-but to place her with those women did show how out of place Kate looked (truly) but it also lent her some gravitas I thought.
Thank you for the explanations!
I agree that Catherine Quinn is overqualified for her current gig, but she was the Chief Operating Officer at the Said Business School at Oxford. She’s a senior administrator, not an academic.
Same. I think her former private secretary Rebecca was a prime example of someone getting what they want, not what they need. Rebecca let her feel safe and comfortable, but Kate probably actually needed more structure and expertise than Rebecca could (or would) offer. I mean, her last couple of speeches have been pretty noticeably better than like all of her previous ones, her whole body language seems more confident and capable, and she pulled her hair back in a professional low ponytail today.
This. She is getting the professional quality help she needed.
I like the dress actually. So an actual win for a full outfit. Nice.
I still think kate with kids is the most comfortable she gets. Even when she wasn’t super into public speaking her best events were centered around children and parents. Which is fine…they should cater to that. And she should do more work in that arena.
I have a feeling she has that in common in Meghan
I always thought Kate should have done more with women’s sport. Since she was sporty (with her background in field hockey, volleyball, tennis, etc) and at ease with being sporty in front of people, I thought she could have done a great deal towards girls sports in schools. But nope. Just workshy as usual. In light of Brexit, the “Young Royals” really need to do to earn their upkeep more or we the people need to pay less to their upkeep.
Funnily, she’s patron of Sportsaid. Since 2013 i think. I think she’s worked with them 3 times, and that’s a generous estimate.
She shouldn’t get to pick and choose which jobs she wants to do. As future Queen Consort it is her job to do all of them, not just the ones she likes. She’s still being mollycoddled by everyone, as opposed to being even half way proficient at her job.
Serious question from an American: When did being married to a King or Queen become a job? Did QEII’S mother make speeches? And why do Kate and Meghan HAVE to work? Why can’t they be stay at home moms if they choose?
Nello: As we moved to constitutional monarchy, we started to pay the consort (and various other family members) for their upkeep and expenses out of the public purse which gradually led the public to demand a quid pro quo relationship.
That relationship solidified in the 20th century with George V and Queen Mary who in order to survive the Europe-wide toppling of monarchy married public good works to the royal family to justify their own existence to the public and continue that annuity.
It works brilliantly when the family members are worker bees because the public continue to support them and the thorny question of their upkeep is barely mentioned -see QM and the Queen/ Philip, Charles / Diana, and it falls when they are not – see William and Kate.
@LAK: You explained that perfectly and I totally get it now. Thanks so much!
@LAK, you should repost this explanation every so often for those who may not know about the history of George V and Mary. I think it might clear up some the puzzlement on various threads, as it did here.
Thank you as always for being our educator. 🙂
Past couple of appearances she’s looked really good. Comfortable and more confident.
The way she dresses is the way she dresses. Kate styles herself like Boden/Talbots, while a Meghan is H&M/Zara. Completely different.
Yep, Meghan is H&M/Zara. And that is why I find it difficult to imagine that the british upper class would accept her. British upper class is Boden and Talbots and worse. 😉
I disagree with both statements.
Zara and HM don’t have a class nor do Boden or Talbots. Mostly middle class if anything but neither are luxury brands.
Younger upper-class people tend to wear trendier smaller brands. But also brands like Burberry, Mulberry, Aspreys, Paul Smith, Simone Rocha, Fred Perry, Savile Row (like Gieves and Hawkes for men), Westwood and a host of small designers and the usual suspects like Hermes (they have an equestrian collection), William & Son, etc.
Kate has rarely had upper class style no matter the price tag. It isn’t her thing. She “worked” at Jigsaw which is another middle class brand.
I know what Talbots is because I lived in the US for a while, but most British people would have no idea what it is. That’s very American. And many people of all classes wear Zara here. You’d be less likely to see posh people in H&M or Primark, that’s true. But I agree that Kate wears a lot of middle class brands, like Hobbs and LK Bennett, in addition to the designer stuff. Truly aristocratic people live in ancient moth-eaten cashmere jumpers covered in dog hair, anyway.
Talbots used to have a location in London. Maybe ten or fifteen years ago? Mayfair? I remember this because two clients there talking about the quality for the price with great excitement. I was surprised because the designs are rather specific and American matron in tone, and the two young women wearing it were unlikely customers and wore it their own way. Was one Talbots’s shop on the high street in Kensington nearish the tube? I may be wrong. Does anyone else remember this??
@ magnoliarose
I don’t think that Kate is accepted by the British upper class either. Sure, nobody does openly insult her. But is she integrated or included?
I know a lot of commenters like to think that Kate is threatened by Meghan’s arrival in the royal family but I like to think it’s given her a boost of confidence. Suddenly, she’s not the new kid anymore and is now in the position of giving advice and instruction instead of always receiving it.
Maybe she’s finally realised how much she’s learnt and changed since first marrying William.
Agree — no matter how much you love the guy/your mother wants this/you’ve been an actress, I still can’t help but think this is an isolating and bewildering and weird experience if you’re not born into it, particularly with the level of attention and criticism both women have received, privately and publicly. They seem pretty different but I still like to think of Kate having Meghan over for tea and dishing about the various protocol things and who gets too drunk at Ascot and where you go too hide at Balmoral when you want to avoid the hunting.
I think that Kate might find out pretty soon that it is rather Meghan who advises Kate than the other way around. 😉
I agree. Hopefully they are friends and support each other. Women need to work together and society shouldn’t be rooting for cat fights.
I don’t believe one bit Kate is threatened by meghan. Kate’s only interests seem to be Bill, her babies and Wimbledon.
And Ben. 😉
Technically nobody can threaten Kate’s nor William’s position as it is a hereditary monarchy. As long as they don’t fuck up big time on an international level they will get to keep their money and status and taxpayer funds. It is not like us ordinary folks who have to prove in evaluations that we are worth the pittance we get paid.
I want friendship. I really do. My feelings will be hurt if they don’t become friends. lol
Her accent sounds like she’s trying to imitate mary from Downton Abbey.
I mean yeah… practice generally does that for a person. I will never understand how she waity’d for 8 years and did nothing during that time.
Apparently part of the problem was William’s erratic behaviour: Kate never knew when he would call. So she didn’t take any jobs so that she could be at his beck and call any time. Booty call and all. Any decent woman would have kicked out William but not Waity Katie.
Also it is probably Kate’s personality: she just ain’t worky worky. She doesn’t seem to want to develop. She seems to be content to be a homemaker. And apparently she ain’t even good at that because her mother Carole does allegedly have to help her with giving orders to her staff.
Apparently, probably, doesn’t seem to, seems to, apparently, allegedly………….
ugh my college roommate was like that. While her idiot boyfriend was out partying with his friends, she was doing his laundry and leaving him “notes of positivity” to keep him motivated for class and soccer practice. It made me so sad to see an intelligent woman with so much to offer wasting it on one guy.
I do think she has gotten better at public speaking, which is nice to see/hear. I also liked that dress a lot, even with the buttons. It’s a nice simple but pretty maternity dress.
I just want to know if she talks like this at home?! LOL Like, how do you talk when you are playing with the kids or cooking?! Why is it so hard to imagine someone talking like this at home?
Well, she should be because once Meghan seals the deal…she’ll be giving speeches and we’ve all seen that she is quite good at it. The more Kate does it, the better she’ll become. It’s just a shame she waited until the last minute to get her act together, but maybe she thought Harry would just marry some shy, posh girl like Cressida to give her cover.
This is sad the bar is literally on the floor for this chick. I can’t give a pat on the back to a grown a** woman who has had 7 years to get her s**t together with all the palace help at her disposal for giving a 5 minutes speech. Bye Kate!
The queen got to give Meghan some type of medal after she married in. She did something no one thought would be possible her presence got Kate so shook she started actually working and *gasp* giving somewhat decent speeches LMAO
Kate is getting better with her speeches. As far as baby names, I’m hoping Arthur or Victoria.
I love Arthur…..but not Victoria. Too common.
PS: Not common as in plebby, but too often used
I love Arthur too, it’s classic and timeless. Victoria is a contender I believe because of Queen Victoria’s great love for Albert and her long reign only second to HM.
Given Kate’s penchant for dressing like it’s 1940, she will probably go with a name from that era. Alice, Mary or Victoria ftw. I wonder if she will throw her mother’s name into the mix? They are allowed to name their children what they want, right?
Yes a middle name not Carole but perhaps Carolina or Carolyn?
IIRC, “Caroline” was one of the top guesses before Charlotte was born.
I seriously wonder if she has depression/anxiety issues and it ends up gripping every other aspect of her life and just simply will not let go. Dealing with those are not as simple as “get over it” or “hire a coach”. After the RF tried to steamroll Diana’s mental health issues who is to say it’s not happening with Kate?
I do think she has some anxiety, which could just be part of how she is, but I’m sure being in the public eye etc does not help at all. I wonder if she had some pre or post partum anxiety or depression, which would be sad. I have some anxiety myself about odd things and it is hard to explain to people how difficult I find some things. It also did not really manifest itself until I was older (probably mid-to-late 20s) so if Kate married Will at 29 its possible she did not have any anxiety issues then. My SIL went through a bad bout of anxiety/OCD in her early 30s (she was almost non functional.) I say that to head off the cries of “then she should not have married William!” it’s possible that any anxiety she is dealing with is a relatively new thing. Or that it manifested itself differently when she was younger.
I’m not entirely willing to say that because of her anxiety (if she suffers from it) she doesn’t have to work, but I do wonder if it plays a role in her limited events and how she is just now starting to increase her solo events. If you look at pictures of her from events from a few years ago she seems a lot…..lighter, I dunno.
She just needs some beta blockers and she’d be fine. Perfect thing for stage fright and public appearance anxiety.
Wow. That’s a pretty simplistic bandaid for a complicated issue, Bros.
Beta blockers aren’t for real anxiety. They are to keep your heartbeat down during something you have to do, like try out for an orchestra.
I have thought Kate had anxiety for years, depression after her babies, and an eating disorder since her engagement. She always looks so much better pregnant and maybe that she is eating regularly, has a schedule for food when pregnant, she is better in every area of her life.
And I don’t judge. Who knows the condition I would be in under the glare that being in the BRF bring to you? And Meghan has seemed tentative and nervous in some of her appearances since the engagement, also.
I’ve been working in a field where I give speeches and presentations all the time. And I’m always without fail a basket case the week of. And people don’t get it becuase they think since I’ve been doing these for 10 years (since college basically) that I should be super comfortable. And I’ve stopped trying to explain how my anxiety makes me overwhelmingly nervous until it’s over.
Not saying that’s the case here but I’ve dealt with something similar. It’s taken a lot of training to overwrite the issue.
^^This. I was actually just wishing this morning that everyone who hasn’t experience life-affecting anxiety have it for just five minutes to gain some understanding of what it’s like.
You’re assuming Kate has anxiety. She could just be lazy. She has already stated she doesn’t care what the public thinks of her.
In my experience people who feel compelled to publicly state they don’t care what others think are the ones who truly care the most.
I think nobody would mind that Kate had some anxieties about public speaking if Kate would actually take her royal duties a bit more seriously.
And there are some very good coaches for public speaking.
If Kate has anxiety, they why not ‘float’ the notion to a sympathetic journalist to let the public know? Harry mentioned it himself a couple years ago, saying just because he can crack a joke didn’t mean he was comfortable giving a speech. Instead we are left with assuming she hasn’t wanted to take on her royal duties.
Maybe she doesn’t want the whole world to know her issues? I was that way for a long time. There are still only a very few trusted people that know. Some people don’t want their mental health a status out there for everyone to see and judge
There’s still a lot she could do that doesn’t involve public speaking. Before marriage, she had a reputation for not RSVP-ing, or sending thank-you notes. Afterwards, she could have used that expensive education to write letters, articles, etc to support her charities/nation much as Prince Charles or Prince Phillip has done. She could have promoted photographers and artists by writing introductions to their work, she could have tweeted support for girls’ sports at appropriate times, or really any number of non-speaking activities.
Instead, we get snippets of info from her and William. She claimed to be taking flying lessons, coloring, cooking, learning to knit, and taking photographs. In unguarded moments we saw her vacation and shop.
We can only speculate as to why she hasn’t done much, but the fact that she hasn’t done much more than shop remains.
My parents don’t even know I suffer from anxiety. There’s no way in h*ll I would want the general public to know.
And again this is not to assume she has anxiety issues just a possibility. I agree with others that if that is the case she should be doing more things to make up the slack.
If giving speeches was really a problem for her, that coaches and medication cannot even help, then she should be making up for it by doing far more appearances at local events and meeting more people in small groups and one on one. She has yet to do that. She does not want to work and everyone here is trying to justify the laziness with explanations of anxiety when there is zero evidence that she actually experiences this issue.
No-one with real anxiety (that doesn’t have to reasonably under control) learns to scuba dive. The number of options for things to go wrong / outside her control would be too high that she would not have been able to undertake enough lessons to get her licence without having attacks. Maybe a few lessons but not get her licene.
Anxiety is debilitating and whilst you can develop personal strategies to cope, they don’t always work so many actively work to not put themselves in situations that may bring on an attack. Submerging herself in deep water with only an air tank (filled by someone else) as a life line is not activity that someone with anxiety chooses as a leisure time activity.
If her anxiety is considered that severe that people use it as an excuse not to undertake her royal duties properly (speeches, spending more that 30 mins at any engagement other than the fun ones, etc) for the past 7 years, then she would not be scuba diving.
Are we actually implying that anyone should take medications in order to give a speech?
Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a defense for work ethic, I am just mildly alarmed that we think it is OK to ask someone to introduce unnecessary medications that come with ‘potential’ side effects just because we feel someone should ‘be better’ at public speaking.
@Birdy you’re wrong. What triggers a person anxiety isn’t uniform. Some people can handle things that others can’t. If Kate has anxiety it’s possible for her to handle scuba diving, an activity others can’t. I’m speaking as not only someone who suffers anxiety but also a certified scuba diver. Honestly, it calms me more than a lot of other activities. It’s quiet and allows me time to truly reflect on things that I couldn’t with life’s distractions.
I never have a problem with Kate…I actually respect her hustle prior to marriage…and I always thought she was charming and would grow into the role she was obviously born and more importantly…GROOMED TO THE POINT OF DEATH to play…I LOVE that dress and the color on her…if she would only get rid of that middle part and give herself a really stylish layered haircut and find a hairdresser who knows how to work better with extensions (she only needs to give me a call, I’d hook her up)…I would be in British royalty hebben…
Not trying to be rude, but what exactly did she hustle? She barely worked, she lived off her parents, and she didn’t prepare herself very well for the role of a highly public figure. IMO, she did nothing prior to her marriage that I would want any young woman to emulate.
Hustle? Seriously? She did the opposite of hustle.
I’m not going to give her a pass for this. This is only a very slight improvement (and it really is very slight. Mute the video and see how much she looks down still), but more importantly it’s very recent. If she’d been gradually improving from the start I’d be ok with that, but her speeches have all remained equally terrible until this month. That says to me that she’s only now started to put in the effort after nearly seven years in the job. What has she been doing with herself for all that time and why is she only now starting to try?
Public speaking is hard, I know. I still hate it, but like Kate I work in a job where a lot of it is required. I wouldn’t have been given a pass for putting in less than zero effort to improve for seven years and if I suddenly showed a slight improvement after all that time my boss would be asking what the hell I was playing at before.
Actually, no she wouldn’t because I’d have been fired within six months.
You are so very right. That so-called “improvement” is barely worth mentioning. She is still reading off the page. She still sounds unconvincing and as if she didn’t want to be there. Her voice starts trembling because she is so afraid to make any mistake with her accent. She doesn’t sound as if she ment what she said. She is concentrating so much on her posh accent she makes it sound fake. She is not authentic: your accent is what makes you authentic and there is nothing wrong with having some regional accent. During a public speech: as long as you speak slowly and try non-slurry your speech is fine. But Kate? She always puts the wrong emphasis: she doesn’t mean what she says but she means to be upper class with whatever she says. She doesn’t want to do royal duties but she always wants a new dress and a new coat. She gets a blow-dry each time before royal duties but not because she wants to make an impression during royal duties but because she wants to be Disney’s pretty britty princess.
I agree, she looks down way too much. Anyone should be able to say a few words at a time and look back down, not just 1 word. She was in a play in school, she had to memorize lines back then, why can’t she do it now?
Try speaking in front of a global audience and see if you would be so calm cool and collected. Easy to criticize behind a keyboard anonymously. I couldn’t do what she’s doing. I’d be a mess. I can speak to a small audience but not when I know it would be splashed all over the place. I’d cut her some slack.
@ Joannie +1
Joannie: then she shouldn’t have married the 2nd in line to the throne.
Joannie – If she were, say, a year into the job then I’d agree with you. And I did at the time. I gave her the benefit of the doubt for three years, in fact.
It’s an essential part of the job she chose, but public speaking is terrifying. If she’d come into the marriage being scared of it, but she’d started small to ease herself into it, practised in her own time, perhaps got some coaching with the amazingly extensive royal resources she had behind her then I’d have supported her 100% of the way. But that’s not what happened. It’s been seven years and it’s the compete lack of effort over all of that time that I can’t support.
First, she is not speaking to the UN but rooms that are much smaller. Second, Diana was 19 and had no university education and she managed to get the help she needed so that when she had to make speeches, she was the best she could be. Kate was advertised as the most educated and prepared princess from day one and here we are seven years later and little if any improvement, and she can’t do what every single other married royal is currently doing, all of whom with less education than her. She is not being asked to give speeches every day and what she has said in public so far is very brief. And as stated by so many others, she has access to all the resources in the world to improve and chooses not to.
I’m going to throw this out there again, at the expense of being a Sugar. She didn’t marry a job, she married a MAN.
She is his wife, he is the father of her children. To say that she should not have married him if she was not equipped for the job is simply unfair.
I know the party line is that she actively pursued the job and therefore should excel at it (or even want to participate depending on your point of view) but at the end of the day, they are a happily married couple with lovely children and are a family.
At this point, we are actually complaining that she is DOING work and still finding fault with how she does it.
I also agree with the poster that pointed out that none of them are particularly eloquent, they just don’t garner the scrutiny of the wiglet wonder.
@ Joannie
I have to give “public” presentations regularly – respectively I have to give them as a student at a university and afterwards all my beloved co-students are invited to criticise me. Try doing that when you know that afterwards any little mistake will be publicly criticised. 😀
And yes, when you marry a British Royal you do become a public person with some royal duties. You will get some money for your duties, too, so yes, Kate is expected to perform and that ain’t no unfair burden. And she knew that befor she married.
It seems some of you have never heard speeches by the Queen or others royals. You all just focus on Kate.
Very few of them are good speakers. Even the Queen (after decades!) is just ok. Sometimes her voice shivers and it’s all just bland platitudes.
Sorry guys, if she is considered a pro then Kate is one too.
She is awful. She can’t remember simple phrases so she can keep her head up. Learning to make presentations is a confidence booster.
She focuses instead on matching every color of blue in her outfit including the fugly jewelry.
I looked up “blue seraphine maternity dress” and I must say that Kate really picked the most boring dress she could find:
https://www.seraphine.com/eu/maternity-clothes/maternity-dresses.html
If Derek Jacobi could get stage fright…………..
She looks more tired with this third pregnancy, I think – at least as far she looks in the video. As for the public speaking, some people never get used to it and improve marginally but are never comfortable with it. It’s a personality thing.
We’ve rarely seen her at this stage of pregnancy so it’s hard to judge if this pregnancy is an outlier.
Further, her botox has worn off. She inherited her father’s face which has a tendency to tired naturally. The botox lifts her face and makes her look lively.
Ouch.
That hurt from here.
I’ve got two kids roughly the same ages as the mini Cambridges and I am EXHAUSTED. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to be pregnant with a third. I’ve got resources, I am emotionally supported, and I’ve got help, the last maybe not quite at her level but I also don’t endure public scrutiny at her level. I seriously considered that I might have CFS … but was unsurprised to learn from my medical team that constant fatigue is considered normal for a woman in my situation. I feel for her.
Kate’s bar is set soooo low…
Truth. That speech was terrible. She looked down every 7 seconds and the whole thing felt stilted and unnatural. Maybe not as bad as some of her other speeches but not good either. So she’s improved from dreadful to terrible and now we give kudos? Nope.
I still think she comes across as underprepared and under-rehearsed. Public speaking is something that can be improved upon in a relatively short amount of time (unlike learning a whole new language etc) so she has no excuse. Stage fright? Give me a break, she is an exhibitionist with her clothing and past behaviour…
No, public speaking is NOT something that can be improved upon in a short period of time. I would know. I literally have breakdown while speaking publicly and i am one of the most outgoing person anyone in my circle knows. I can be giving a speech to people I know and i will breakdown or forget my lines and start fussing with my hair.
Just because you haven’t experienced the trauma of public speaking, please don’t undermine what other people struggle through.
Annie, don’t assume – I have spoken at various conferences. I just practise beforehand. It’s not easy but it’s not like leaping out of a plane….
@meow
your experience !== everyone elses experience. Like i pointed out, my experience is completely the opposite. I can practice for a whole week beforehand or maybe a few, days and still freak out during the presentation.
Thanks for belittling my experience.
YOUNG AND AULD? it’s too strained. good LAWD!
But I am picking up on her reassured confidence level and I’m here for it.
Come on Katie, you can do it!
she is SUCH a dork
also she sucks a public speaking. Boring. Her speech is basic and she didn’t memorize any of these passages shows a complete lack of preparation. She has the best resources and training available for her, there’s really no excuse for her being such a horrible public speaker.
She even had to read the part where she THANKS the group?! like wow really.
Regardless of her speech giving, she just crushed it with the quote about how “1in 4 of us” aren’t euphorically happy after the birth of a child.
As someone who struggled with PPD after my second, hearing that speaks volumes and I appreciate her willingness to say “us”
why does she get picked on for reading off the pages and fussing with her hair?
Do you guys realize how mortifying and nerve wracking it is to speak publicly?
It isn’t an easy task. Sure, these are responsibilities she signed on for willingly, but she can’t control her biological response to them. She will get better over time. Pick on her choice of clothes or her lack of work commitment, but public speak skills should be off limist.
That’s all very well, but how much time does she need? She didn’t get married last year, it was seven years ago and it’s not possible to put some effort into practising something for seven whole years without seeing any improvement whatsoever.
Yes, I do realise how mortifying it is to speak publicly. I do it multiple times a week and I hate it every time, but it’s an essential part of a job that I otherwise love, so I’ve forced myself to learn how to do it well. And it is a skill that can be learned. No one’s expecting her to be spectacular at it, but delivering a five minute speech competently isn’t unreasonable, especially with the time and resources she’s had.
I could understand if Kate had shown a gradual improvement over the seven years, however slowly. That would at least show that she was trying. It’s the lack of effort that is the disappointing part.
you fail to understand that practicing in front of a few people is not the same as giving the speech in front of the whole world.
She might never get better, so what. Maybe not everyone wants to get medicated before giving a speech, especially when ones pregnant.
If Kate gave one speech a week and remained bad at giving them, there might be some credibility to saying she will never improve. However, we are 7 years later and she perhaps gives 2 speeches a year and they are under 10 minutes each. She is not making any real effort to improve if she doesn’t actually make the effort to give more speeches. KP has no problem saying that HG makes her sick and she can’t do any work. If giving speeches caused such an ordeal for Kate you can be sure that they would have floated that out in the press years ago. They haven’t because it is not true.
How much freaking time does she need? She’s had a decade, pre-marriage, and seven years since to practice. Did your boss give you 17 years to learn the job?
17 years? What are you talking? She was a private citizen for most of her life. She was just a girlfriend living her life the way she liked it with the man she loves.
There is no training in the world to prepare someone for that role. Not with the ghost of Diana. Not with all the paparazzi, the tabloids, the expectations, the rules etc
There is no way to prepare for that kind of life.
It’s one thing to hold a speech in a classrooom or in private with a teacher, it’s a whole different level to speak in front of the world like Kate has to do it every single time.
They interrupted the f#ing news to air her first speech LIVE! Think about that. Could you do that without looking at your notes?
Her big crime is looking down too often. Wow hang her!
exactly! Like, big deal she can’t give a speech. At least shes making an effort.
If she worked for a company she would be coached or encouraged to take on a new job. Just because she is part of the royal family does not mean she gets a pass. Instead of putting so much time into her appearance I would be happier to see her in an ordinary outfit and jewelry and instead knock it out of the park with effort at her engagements.
Oh for heaven’s sake. Kate needs to treat public speaking like…oh I don’t know, her JOB…and hire a damn coach, work at it relentlessly until she’s superb at it, and get on with it. Public speaking is a key criteria for her very highly PAID position for the British people. She should treat it as such and stop being so unfailingly mediocre at it. And while she’s at it, fire her current grey, bland, uninspiring speech writers and find some who can truly motivate, unite and inspire the British people. Or, gee, maybe consider writing them herself. It’s her JOB, her privilege and her responsibility.
I couldn’t listen to the speech. She puts me to sleep. Everything about her is boring … and her shoes should be burned.
I think she tarnishes St. Andrews’ reputation. A college graduate should be able to write and deliver a meaningful 5 minute speech. An art history major should know something about Faberge eggs. Just what did she gain from her education there? Doesn’t this esteemed university have minimum standards its students must meet in terms of self expression and fund of knowledge?
True.
Of course Kate knew about Faberge eggs. Has it not dawned on anyone that she asks about things she already knows about just to make conversation? Really!!!!!
Please keep to subjects you actually know about and don’t knock St Andrews which is a brilliant university. A university cannot be held responsible for all of its students. Do people knock Cambridge because a number of spies came out of its doors or do they knock Harvard because Ted Kennedy cheated in exams there?
As for Kate and speeches; at least she is still attempting to make them. Give her some credit for that. Although she has shown exhibitionist behaviour in the past that is different from making speeches. Maybe William has spoken to the British press. Didn’t he have them all to one of the homes a few years ago? It does look to me though that Kate has bitten off a little more than she can chew but give her a bit of slack instead of this righteous indignation.