All week, the British media has been freaking out over the Princess of Wales’s “cancer free” video, which was filmed to look like a commercial for douche. I think the baseline reaction across the board was that the video was cringe, awkward and poorly conceived. What’s taken the criticism next-level is that Buckingham Palace seems to be quite upset about it too, and King Charles and Queen Camilla think the whole thing is unbecoming and tacky. Throughout all of the negative commentary, the Duchess of Sussex has been referenced repeatedly. You would think that Meghan makes a regular habit of creating bizarre videos where she walks through fields whilst her voiceover describes her medical issues. Meghan does not. During Meghan’s medical issues – her miscarriage, her suicidal ideation – Meghan spoke and wrote about the issues respectfully and movingly and never turned those issues into an cringefest douche commercial. Well, in the Mail’s latest Palace Confidential episode, they’re once again crying about Kate’s dumb video and comparing Kate to Meghan.

The Princess of Wales’ slick video announcing she has finished chemotherapy treatment has left some in royal circles worried that she is echoing Meghan Markle, according to the Mail’s Richard Eden. Speaking on Palace Confidential, Mail+’s weekly talk show, Richard said insiders feel that the three-minute clip showing Kate with Prince William and their children in the countryside is ‘the sort of thing that Meghan would have loved to do.’

They do not want Catherine to ‘turn into’ Meghan, he added. Richard also said the clip left him feeling ‘uneasy’, adding that it appeared to be an attempt to create a ‘Hollywood trailer’.

Sitting alongside the Mail’s Royal Editor Rebecca English, he said: ‘Lots of people have said to me, “Oh you know it’s just the sort of thing that Meghan would have loved to do, obviously being an actress and we don’t want Catherine to turn into Meghan.”

Richard added of this week’s video: ‘The royal family should be different. They should be dignified, not chasing this. Yes, it’s the way that Catherine might have wanted to tell her story, but she’s surrounded by advisers. And she’s got people saying, “we want to get loads of hits on Youtube or whatever, and I think the Royal Family should be above that. They don’t need to be the Kardashians.’

Rebecca English feels the Royal Family’s use of video and social media has improved, but warned that content still needs to be authentic. She added: ‘They are getting more professional and upping their game but I do see that it needs to be authentic as well. I think it’s one of these things that needs to be applied slightly carefully.’

[From The Daily Mail]

“Oh you know it’s just the sort of thing that Meghan would have loved to do.” Trust me when I say that Meghan would not have loved to make a weird video announcement that she ended chemo. Beyond the issue of Meghan living rent-free in all of these people’s heads, the whole thing is that Meghan and Harry produced their docuseries where they told their side of the story, and they used private footage which they shot themselves. Years later, Kate hired a commercial director to COPY the Sussexes and try to manipulate the public into believing that her marriage is happy and healthy.

This is actually something I’m stuck on too: “Yes, it’s the way that Catherine might have wanted to tell her story, but she’s surrounded by advisers.” I want to know the inside story of how the video came to be. Was it really just Kate hiring Will Warr on her own initiative and deciding to film this in Norfolk over the summer? Or were there meetings where the clownshow advisors and the senior staff signed off on all of this?

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Will Warr/KP.