We needed a new ***gate: Kategate
Kategate, the royal scandal about the Princess of Wales’s disappearance from public view For the first time in recent memory, however, something odd has happened: The coverups and fumbles have become bigger than the stories themselves. The entire thing is now called “Kategate.” The longer Kategate goes, the less in control the royal family seems.
For a family and institution that’s been known to operate like an impossibly efficient machine, Kategate becoming an international news story can’t help but feel like a failure on multiple fronts. So what happened to that machine? Why does this scandal feel so big? And why do we care so much?
Without Queen Elizabeth
One of the lasting legacies of Queen Elizabeth was that she was extremely good at her job. The saying “never complain, never explain” is such a simple and perfect distillation of the PR strategy. For the queen, it was easier to perform her duties if she kept her cards close.
The queen precisely understood that she and her family were a symbol and that favorability is crucial to the monarchy. Prior to her death, the queen’s approval ratings were extremely high. For comparison, right before King Charles’s coronation in the spring of 2023, polling found that Britons’ support for the monarchy fell.
A key to Queen Elizabeth’s success was that she knew how to live her life in the public eye but remain as neutral as possible. As journalists, politicians, historians, and Vox have noted, Queen Elizabeth was exceptional at not getting caught up in trends, fads, or politics, but rather positioning herself as a symbol. She always understood how much of her role as queen was symbolic, and thus kept her private life opaque.
There’s a reason that, despite the number of royal embarrassments she and her family lived through and how polarizing some of her descendants have become, Queen Elizabeth remains largely beloved. She didn’t have a perfect record, but her surviving family members aren’t as good at playing the game of giving the public nothing to talk about, especially in the face of scandal.
Prince Charles is sick
In early February, King Charles announced that he had been diagnosed with cancer and would be stepping away from royal duties. Although Buckingham Palace hasn’t confirmed what kind of cancer King Charles has, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said it was caught early. There’s also a rumor that Charles’s cancer is much more serious than thought and that Charles has a history of supporting alternative medicine which may clash with his oncologists. Whatever the case, Charles’s absence has left the royal family without their leader.
One facet that’s strange about Kate Middleton’s disappearance is that it has been flanked by peculiar absences by other members of the royal family in addition to Charles’s aforementioned recovery. In late February, William skipped the funeral of his godfather King Constantine of Greece. Lots of questions with no answers. But do we really need to know all?