What if we told you there wasn’t really any controversy over Kate Middleton’s health-related retreat from the public eye? Despite what certain corners of TikTok, Twitter, and the media may have you believe, widespread serious panic over Middleton’s whereabouts simply doesn’t exist.
To hear some people tell it, the Middleton mystery is part of a larger constitutional crisis that’s grown so dire former American President Barack Obama has been called in to help fix it. The rank and file citizens of the United Kingdom, however, remain overwhelmingly unconcerned.
According to recent polling by YouGov, 43 percent of respondents in the U.K. said that they were “aware of the story but [are] not following it.” Another 28 percent said they weren’t following it too closely, and only five percent said that they were following it “very closely.” That’s less than the 7 percent who said they haven’t heard about the controversy at all (we’re about envious of them, actually).
An earlier poll found that 49 percent felt Kensington Palace shared “about [the] right” amount of information of Middleton’s health situation. Twenty-four percent said they didn’t know enough to have an opinion, and six percent said they thought the royal had actually shared too much. Just one out of five thought they were entitled to more information.
To recap, back on January 19th, Kensington Palace announced that Middleton had undergone a “planned abdominal surgery” and would be “unlikely to return to public duties until after Easter.” A simple consultation of any current calendar would confirm it is not yet Easter, and thus it should not be surprising that Middleton has not yet returned to the public eye.
To many, the conspiracy theories are about as ridiculous as being told your Amazon order is arriving on Friday, but getting upset and concocting elaborate stories about why it hadn’t arrived on your doorstep by Wednesday. Except, of course, Middleton isn’t just a package, but an actual woman who had some sort of major health issue and is likely just following doctor’s orders. “Kate may even choose to give some more details about the type of procedure she had,” ITV’s royal reporter Chris Ship recently explained on air about her plans to reemerge. “If and when she does, according to a friend of hers, a lot of people are going to feel a lot of regret about the pressure Kate was put under to appear in public during her recovery.”
Yes, you can quibble with Kensington Palace’s sense for optics and PR (this certainly isn’t the first time Kate and William’s PR squad has been criticized…just ask Harry and Meghan), but that isn’t grounds to go full tin foil hat. Whatever rabbit holes the Internet wants to drag you down, these figures are a helpful reminder that, actually, most people in the U.K. right now really are not at all concerned.
Maybe some people need to take a cue from Kate herself, and take a walk outside.
