Over the weekend, the Mail’s Becky English had a big exclusive about the year to come for the Princess of Wales. The 2025 plans for Kate have been briefed extensively for months, and by that I mean that Kensington Palace has repeatedly drilled it into royal reporters’ briefings that Kate will not be “back to work” for some time, if ever. Ingrid Seward put her own spin on those palace briefings, suggesting that Kate sees her role now as just child-rearing and preparing her kids for their future roles. There’s a sense that Kate feels some creeping terror at the thought of royal work, and there’s also a sense that Prince William, King Charles and Queen Camilla simply want Kate to be a background character from now on. Well, the Telegraph’s Hannah Furness also got the “birthday briefing” about Kate. Some highlights:
Kate’s birthday plans: As she turns 43 today, her world looks mercifully different. After a birthday breakfast with her children at their Windsor home and the school run, she will probably join Prince William to walk their dog Orla as usual before a family celebration in the evening.
Plans for events in the months to come: There is no “big reset button that’s going to be pressed” because of the turn of a new year into 2025 or a birthday, said a Palace source. But her slow return will continue. The Princess’s team at Kensington Palace is making plans for engagements, expected to include a welcome resuming of her public work on early years childhood in the not too distant future.
Staying cancer-free: Sources emphasise that the Princess’s “unwavering commitment to duty and service” has not changed with illness, but that her own words in September are the ones to pay attention to. “Doing what I can to stay cancer free is now my focus,” she said then. “Although I have finished chemotherapy, my path to healing and full recovery is long and I must continue to take each day as it comes.”
Do it right once: The idea, though no one at the palace quite expresses it this way, is to do it once and get it [right]. For the Princess to thrive in a decades-long job in the public eye, she must have the chance to fully recover now. As the months since her chemotherapy ended have passed, that has meant swimming, re-emerging at school events and children’s sports clubs, and – as she has said so many times before – spending time outside in nature.
William & Kate don’t want to be king and queen: The coming year will see big decisions on Prince George’s future schooling, with visits to public schools around Windsor and London already under way ready for his move in 2026, with his two younger siblings to follow. Then there has been the matter of the King’s own cancer, and what it could have meant for Prince William and Catherine as a future King and Queen who did not want the roles for many years to come.
Kate won’t travel overseas: She will not join the Prince on a short spring overseas tour, it is understood, but will aim for key public moments just as she did last year, with the addition of some “ordinary” engagements too. The Princess will also continue with the recent pattern of using video messages and signed statements to speak directly to the public, it is said. Just as she has lost so much, it appears, she has found a new way to use her voice. “What you’ve seen from the Princess of Wales has been her speaking directly and sharing her journey with the public,” says a source. “I can see that trajectory continuing. Her using her voice to share her own story was extremely powerful.”
I’m trying to think if I’ve ever seen any other 40-something woman be so coddled and infantilized. This is the way it’s always been with Kate, even before her mysterious medical situations, and I have to imagine that the people around her treat her similarly too – like she’s a child who has to be managed and indulged. There’s also a piece of news here, that Kate will not travel. We assumed that, but Becky English sort of left it open in her piece over the weekend, that if Kate felt “well enough,” she would join William on a trip or tour. Now the courtiers are saying “of course not, who would do the school run??”
New birthday photo! I’ll let y’all discuss if there’s any Photoshop involved.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images and Matt Porteous for Kensington Palace.
-
- The Princess of Wales listens to members of the emergency services during a visit to Southport Community Centre to meet rescue workers and the families of those caught up in the Southport knife attack earlier this year. Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, died after a mass stabbing at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in the Merseyside town on July 29 Featuring: Catherine, Princess of Wales Where: Southport, United Kingdom When: 10 Oct 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
-
- The Princess of Wales speaks to members of the emergency services during a visit to Southport Community Centre to meet rescue workers and the families of those caught up in the Southport knife attack earlier this year. Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, died after a mass stabbing at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in the Merseyside town on July 29 Featuring: Catherine, Princess of Wales Where: Southport, United Kingdom When: 10 Oct 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
-
- The Princess of Wales speaks with members of the emergency services during a visit to Southport Community Centre to meet the families of those caught up in the Southport knife attack earlier this year. Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, died after a mass stabbing at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in the Merseyside town on July 29 Featuring: Catherine, Princess of Wales Where: Southport, United Kingdom When: 10 Oct 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
-
- The Princess of Wales arriving to attend the annual Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall Featuring: Catherine, Princess of Wales Where: London, United Kingdom When: 09 Nov 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
-
- The Prince and Princess of Wales and the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester attending the annual Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall Featuring: Catherine, Princess of Wales, Prince William Where: London, United Kingdom When: 09 Nov 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
-
- Remembrance Sunday at the Cenotaph Featuring: Catherine, Princess of Wales, Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh Where: London, United Kingdom When: 10 Nov 2024 Credit: John Rainford/Cover Images **NOT AVAILABLE FOR PUBLICATION IN THE UK**
-
- Members of the British Royal Family attend a Christmas service at St. Mary Magdalene Church on the Sandringham estate Featuring: Catherine, Princess of Wales Where: Sandringham, United Kingdom When: 25 Dec 2024 Credit: Cover Images
-
- Members of the British Royal Family attend a Christmas service at St. Mary Magdalene Church on the Sandringham estate Featuring: Prince Louis, Catherine Princess of Wales, Princess Charlotte Where: Sandringham, United Kingdom When: 25 Dec 2024 Credit: Cover Images
-
- Members of the British Royal Family attend a Christmas service at St. Mary Magdalene Church on the Sandringham estate Featuring: Catherine Princess of Wales Where: Sandringham, United Kingdom When: 25 Dec 2024 Credit: Cover Images
After that school run. Ingrid didn’t forget that. And she now has to add walking the dog. I don’t think William wants her with him on tours.
Jeezus. Six more years of the fakakta school runs discussion. Whatever will they have to do after they end?
Obviously she’ll be transporting the kids to their college classes and helping them with their exams.
No word from Ingrid on Catherine wearing jeans? Ingrid, who did criticise Archie, a 5 year old, for wearing such peasant trousers? Colour me shocked.
Of course Inbred Sewer says nothing about KKKhate’s jeans. The glaring Double Standards are par for the course. The English Rose will be praised, no matter what. But those mixed race royals with Black heritage will never be able to put a foot right, no matter what.
She’s being small r royal of course 😹
I thought Orla crossed that rainbow bridge a while ago.
but BUT what about the honeymoon vow renewal trip to Kenya?????
I’m trying to work out how “she has lost so much” over the last year, unless its access to the jewels.
This article made me cringe.
This phrase got my attention too! What has she lost? I understand her health but what else? Her home at Adelaide? Direct access to her children? Access to glamorous events? The press is tiptoeing at the moment…they want to spill the beans but they can’t
“Prince William, King Charles and Queen Camilla simply want Kate to be a background character from now on” – I agree with this take and I do believe she might consider it a loss, but she got stuff in return too. Like the Teva commercial and a tweet where Egg says he loves her. I think she will be queen with Egg, but she has to stay in the background until then.
What Ingrid means Kate might have lost, I have no idea.
It’s insane to me that this seems to be the case, and everyone is on board with it (especially Charles!). I realize that I’m only used to Diana as the “template” for the POW and she was one of a kind, but has any member of the BRF this senior ever just retreated out of public work almost completely like this?
She’s going to be Queen.. seems likes a lot more she could be working on, learning , doing than this .. understatement. The monarchy is doomed.
Simple things like learning another language or seriously learnings some public speaking skills. She certainly has the time. This “she works as hard as a top CEO” nonsense is ludicrous.
Or, you know, how to host visiting dignitaries & make them feel welcome. Remember when they kept their backs to, I think it was Victoria & Daniel, at some event a year or so ago?
Especially since she could do something like learning another language from her bed, Duolingo on an iPad or whatever. It doesn’t need to be strenuous. She just doesn’t care.
You all put too difficult goals for her.. She should learn pretty basic things such as how not to show your underwear or legs around foreign dignitaries…
Didn’t they all get bent out of shape when Harry made some sort of statement about nobody wanting to be the monarch? And now here are W&K claiming it over and over, of course, while also putting out PR about how they will do the job.
Why does something often looks 📴 when it comes to the pictures. Her hands look so posed and in an unnatural position to be in jeans.
So William says there will be a small r in royal when he takes over cause he doesn’t like the extra responsibility and she’s clearly benched and won’t work at all until Louis comes of age
This year will show what you are going to get from Both of them in the future it’s up to the British media to decide if it’s worth it
Unnatural because she wants to make sure she still shows off that ring! Therefore, she can’t put her hands in her pockets the way a normal person would if they were just lounging around against a wall.
People have said it here before but I fear that George and his siblings will be working royals the minute they turn 18, just so that their parents, and especially their mother, can continue to do absolutely fuck all.
As for the photo: why? What are they trying to say with this newly released picture?
Also, the whole thing about how she will be communicating from now on sounds like it will be even more curated.
It does sound like that, right? Like most of what we see from her is going to be weirdly stylized videos and social media posts (and they will probably start counting all that as engagements soon enough.)
I also don’t know how many photo shoots she can pose for while credibly insisting she can’t work.
As I said in the other post – it just really feels like something is going on here. Is this laziness, is this part of her being permanently benched, or something else? We’ve seen her at enough public events now to know that she’s fairly healthy, shes capable of walking from Sandringham to the church, she’s capable of sitting for long periods of time (Wimbledon, Christmas concert) – so why can’t she work?
It feels as if they are trying to buy time between occasions when having to produce her to the public. Photoshoots that produce pictures for half a year of different occasions, screengrabs from the cancer-free ad, etc. give her time to disappear completely. Why? I have no idea, because every one of your points are true. There is seemingly nothing that would stop her from slamming up once a week and show her face.
That annual birthday photo release is weird. If memory serves, the BRF always gave us portraits on the landmark years or special occasions: 1st/21st birthday, engagement, wedding, 20th anniversary, baby christening, accession to the throne/POW title. This is total ego at work. And their sycophantic press goes along with it.
And she already released a photo prior to trooping for proof of life. Like we get it.
aim for key public moments just as she did last year, with the addition of some “ordinary” engagements too.
Gosh almighty, we figured Kate’s well spaced out Superbowl appearances would continue in 2025 but bread and butter engagements too? Maybe this year’s total could triple from 11 to 33, if we humble peasants are to be blessed with her presence amongst us? I live many, many miles away from Ade Cottage where it is grim Oop North. Currently my rural village is snowed in but if Kate were to visit her smile would melt that snow and ice in a trice!
@Lady Digby, currently in Manchester, just got in this morning before they closed the runways!! Her radiant smile and jazz hands would definitely melt the snow and bring up the temperature 🤣🤣
😂😂😂
Why is she posing like that? The hands in the pockets looks so awkward. The ratty hair extensions are awful.
@CindyP, she’s trying to stop herself from doing her jazz hands.
“Unwavering commitment to duty and service “; what a crock. Do the DM readers actually fall for this drivel?
@Libra Fail scribblers are either drunk on crackbaby cocktails or just trolling their readers at this point.
You got there before me with this comment! I am so sick of this phrase. It’s so patently untrue it’s laughable. If I never hear it again it’ll be too soon.
Ok. She won’t be traveling because Peg wants it that way. She wants to stay cancer free and so do all of us who have had it but we still live our lives and work. I suspect that she and Ma Mids put this out there to combat that maybe Chuckles and Peg want her benched.
sometimes I wish we could respond to some of these stories with memes or gifs…because they only thing in my head as a response to “making plans to work” is that Marcia Brady “Sure, Jan” gif.
Lying liars keep lying, grifters keep grifting, and FakeyKatie Missington keeps being keen to show the world how totally unqualified she is.
So much so that various members of the rota 🐀🐀🐀 are solely tasked with making excuses for Mumblina McButtons, day in, day out — whenever they’re not busy with screeching about anything Sussex-related.
What has she actually achieved by her early years work?
Another 30 years worth of keenery.
It gives the rota and tabloids something to write about.. that’s is all that has been achieved.
Why is she still beating the dead horse of early years??? I’m not trying to be mean, but other than some charts and that claymation, what have her years of supposedly invested time in this campaign really produced?
Yeah, I hear you. It’s not even about being mean. Bc she could just not? Like what’s gonna happen. We will again be told how crucial the early years are? Like okay, thx? Unless money is being donated or another org is being spotlighted for its good work, whats the point?
They have the perfect opportunity to just stop that nonsense now. She’s had a good long break from even pretending to be an expert in a field not her own, so just give it up. Stop. Her degree is art history, then shift to programs that bring art to the underserved, promote art from the underrepresented, art therapy–maybe for cancer patients!, supporting galleries (those outside London), etc.
This!!! she could use her actual degree to do something where she actually supposedly might be able to speak with a little authority and confidence and do some meaningful work.
She has never had “unwavering commitment to duty and service”. She did royal engagements which isn’t real impactful work but going to places to wave, smile and be seen. Majority of her engagements were superficial like Wimbledon, Trooping and State dinners where her presence there doesn’t positively improve anyone’s life. The ones associated to actual charities or patronages were an extension of her being seen smiling and waving at important causes but with absolutely no beneficial impact to those who need help. Her existence as a royal hasn’t benefited anyone in all of the time she’s been there.
Im still not understanding what in the world “doing everything she can to remain cancer free” means? Is there something that this mediocre woman knows out of all of the things she’s oblivious of, that makes her the only person in the world who knows what to do to remain cancer free, because I’m certain everyone else in the world who also wants to remain cancer free would love to know, including her FIL and Fergie who were also diagnosed with cancer last year? She is the most self absorbed person in that entire family and that’s saying a lot. I can’t help but remember how excited Meghan was that by entering that family she could expand on the philanthropic work she was already doing, and this woman who’s been there for over a decade, has accomplished nothing for others.
I’m itching to get my hands in her hair and fix her extensions. Why can’t she find a good hairstylist to better blend the extensions?!!!! She has all the tim3 in the world!
I don’t believe Kate is going to return to the Early Years. I think she’s done with working and is only going attend the big events. I’d be surprised if she even attends Commonwealth Day.
Also, her kids have outgrown their “early years” and she doesn’t have any interest in causes that don’t affect her personally
How it’s works this new situation for her patronages, if she does not want to work, they can be free to find a new benefactors some who will really contribute .
Kate’s team must be exhausted from constantly making plans that never pan out. Same song, different year. When is anyone ever going to call her out on her BS?
I kinda did below. I’m happy to send it to her in writing. What’s her address? I’m totally serious.
A good friend of mine has a 9-year-old and a 6-year-old and she manages to work part-time as a nurse and run our neighborhood organization and still do the school run nearly everyday. If she can’t do it for some reason her husband does it and when she had to go to Puerto Rico after her mom’s surgery, I did it.
Here’s what I’ve learned: there are several hours between 7:30am when I get home from dropping them off and 2:30 when I leave to go pick them up in which to do work. Honestly, I think I’m more productive when I’m helping with the school run because I know I can’t mess around and need to get my to do list done by a certain time. I know this is nothing new for parents but as a non-parent I used to think, maybe the school run is way more complicated than I thought. Nope. It’s not.
Gah! Does nobody proofread their work anymore?? This is logically inconsistent: ‘… her world looks mercifully different. … she will …walk their dog Orla as usual… ‘ Is it different? Or is it the usual? WHICH IS IT? And what’s with the ‘mercifully’ different? Was her life a living hell before?? Scraping by, collecting coupons, deciding to pay the electricity or water bill this month?
They can make all the plans they want. Doesn’t mean Can’t will do anything.
Open Letter to Kate bc I know the BRF reads this stuff) She needs something that actually LOOKS and shows she has a passion to be as involved as you see Harry is with Invictus. Harry has FUN at Invictus. He’s proud of it, and he’s amongst fellow military men and women. He’s one of them. Their love for him AND his wife is wholly evident. When Kate does anything, it’s a photo op. She looks posed. I do not see passion. She spent over a year fighting to be alive. GO LIVE. Shine light on those fighting cancer. It doesn’t have to be the kind she had. It can be all cancers. Or because she states she has such passion for children, shine some unbelievably needed light on childhood cancers with no cures. I had stage 3 grade 3 carcinoma as an adult and it hurt and made me violently ill, bc hey chemo is meant to take you to the brink of death, killing all the bad and the good gets swept up in there, too. Then the hope is that the stuff that nearly killed you managed to kill all the bad stuff. Most of the good hopefully coming back over time. Not many speak of the lingering problems, but that’s another topic for another day (and likely on a different page). I cannot fathom how a child goes through cancer when I know exactly how painful it was for me at 39. She loves her children. I’ve seen her light up and smile on walkabouts or whatever as women genuinely open up to her. The children smile up at her. So why is she so tone deaf? From what I’ve seen for many years, she does photo ops and mental health causes(hahahahaha get your own therapist, actually do the work on yourself, and then MAYBE I’ll take anything you say about mental health seriously). Start or find and truly patron with passion helping Children (early years or up to the age of 18) with cancer battles, and shine a huge beacon of light on how underserved and under-researched childhood cancer is. Teach people the statistics of survival for these kids and do what Diana did. Go visit them WITHOUT the press or RR sludge even knowing, bc you’ve been where they are and YOU GET TO LIVE. Make it count. Do it for others, not yourself. Forget what Harry and Meghan are doing. Interact more openly with your own kids, and find passion in the children with cancer who need your face and title to bring them hope. You and your title can bring donations for treatment to those who cannot afford the best if at all. It can bring them money for research–especially rare cancers with NO cures (here’s an example: DIPG-I’m assuming you know how to use Google. You want the people to love you, respect you? Give to others-your money, your time (on and OFF camera) and your passion. Just DO it. This is NOT rocket science.
She’s going to have to be careful. Look what happened to the last two senior royals that wanted to step back for mental health reasons! Oh wait, no, they didn’t want that to be at the expense of the British tax payer. So Cath should be fine then 🫠🫠🫠