Finding all the Princess of Wales conspiracy theories so odd. Am I in as much of a minority as it seems?

[CupOfCoffeeandaPineappleChunk]

Perhaps I'm naive. Maybe my imagination isn't as wild as it could be ( although it is general incredibly lively), maybe ive got a realistic perspective, or maybe I've got it utterly wrong. Whichever is the case time will tell.
I'm Finding it difficult to understand why pepole would think it so inconceivable that firstly she has had surgery, rather than is having a MH crisis or divorce out they're is done other strange mystery afoot. It's apparently unimsginsble that surgery is major and takes a lot of recovery to get back to full health, a)to be potentially walking around for hours on end not feeling drained and exhausted and. b) being in the public eye wanting/ needing/ being expected to look good on return to public life.

i personally underwent abdominal surgery at the same hospital as the PoW a fortnight ago And stayed in for 6 days. Apparently many pepole in the Gi unit stay up to a fortnight two weeks on, although my cuts are tiny (keyhole), I am swollen up and currently am a similar size to I was when I was 7.5 months pregnant, covered in bruises, & in almost constant severe pain despite a cocktail of drugs and can barely move around. To say I'm exhausted would be the understatement. I normaly walk 6 miles every day and work out bit I can't ever get to the street corner150ft away and back without being crippled. I'm carrying about 7kg of extra weight in swelling. Needless to say apart from feeling grim I look deathly.
I've been given a very structured list of things I can't do for 6 weeks, very basic things - I tried as it seemed so ridiculous. Clearly its not ridiculous. Abdominal surgery can be a huge deal. I've been told 6 weeks to be able to do ordinary things like mopping the floor and hovering, carrying anything more than 4 or 5 kgs the 12 weeks to get back to my usual stamina and condition.

If i was appearing in the scrutiny of the public eye I would not be going out if I did not look back to normal and feel good. Surgery makes you feel really low and you need to feel good about yourself especially when you're going to be picked apart the world over. .

People firstly have no idea what is involved I often in major surgery. Add in having to maintain an Element of appearance for the public so asks extra time to achieve that.
They seems to be huge confusion between planned/ elective vs emergency surgery. Its always planned unless you are literally rushed in as a critical emergency. Otherwise it's classed as planned I saw my surgeon for a consultation. My op was the next day. Urgent but not an emergency, therefore planned.

Is it really that strange?..

Completely agree. Hope you're back to full health soon.

And does Helen Lewis not see the irony or misogyny in her crap?

People follow the media. If the media goes into a frenzy people think that’s reality

At last, a thread for (mostly) normal people! I agree with you OP, (and wish you a good and speedy recovery)

Abdominal surgery is massive-and it’s no one’s business! I had surgery a couple of years ago, and all my GP put on my fit note for work was “surgical recovery” because it wasn’t my boss’ business, and I sure am not the Princess of Wales!

It's not just younand there's been a few of us on more of the Kate threads pointing out how ludicrous it all is.

Nobody I know in real life has mentioned it once. It is only on MN I've seen interest at all let alone the crazy conspiracies.

The majority of people aren't taking it that seriously.

It's a way of calling out the weird behaviour of the Royal Family. All the bullshit 'I was just messing with Photoshop' stuff. Like suggesting you're not capable of sweating it's showing utter contempt to the general public. Yes she probably is just recuperating, so the RF need to stop being dicks and making it worse for her.

A 'Prince' has long stopped being the epitome of a good husband.

I usually approach any story about the royals as a creative writing exercise, but the photo has fuelled the craziness.

There has been an explanation - she has had abdominal surgery and needs time to recover.

It’s truly ridiculous. The poor woman has clearly been seriously ill and was trying to give everyone what they wanted with the photograph (which was beautiful by the way). Some of the “theories” on twitter are absolutely batshit.

Totally agree.
There was a programme on R4 a week or so ago about bots being behind the relentless trolling of women. It suggested that Amber Heard was targeted for that treatment, and it shifted public opinion against her.

I think the programme was called Anti Social and is about social media phenomena. They were talking about foreign agents destabilising the west by fuelling culture wars etc. Made me think!

I don't think you're in a minority OP. Most people don't really care. It's just a load of crazy people getting worked up on the internet.

I agree with you. My mum had bowel surgery and a stoma and was in hospital for six weeks and rehab for several weeks after that These things take time to heal

a thread for normal people
I agree. It's awful to see women getting relentlessly trolled like this. Some of the stuff on the MN threads has been ridiculous, but some of it vile.

They've had an explanation.

Totally agree, it’s impossible to understand.

Hope you feel better soon, OP. x

I think part of the problem is this celebrity over sharing. In the last week I've seen several celebrities post pictures of themselves in hospital beds. Nothing seems to be private. Here we have a woman who doesn't want to over share and wants to be private, and she gets pilloried for it.

I dont care as long as shes gets well soon...im not a royalist but i don't mind kate and william..shes someone's mum and daughter isnt she.

This whole thing has fascinated me lately, and I'm not interested in the royals normally at all.

I think the reaction is very silly and disproportionate but also - one of the most photographed women on the planet has disappeared from view for a while, and it seems like her PR team just didn't plan for it or think how to comment on it for her fans.

However phoney and ludicrous it would be, it wouldn't have taken much for the occasional posts saying she's still recovering, pictures of a get well card, throwback photos, that kind of thing, it's what's expected these days on social media where they're used to being a constant presence.

No mum should ever have to think about that stuff when sick, but the Princess Kate image is a very carefully marketed and curated package with a big team behind it, so I think it's odd and unprofessional that no one thought ahead.

Then again it's made me take a look, so maybe the extra interest isn't a bad thing for them in media terms?

I wasn’t fussed about it until the Mother’s Day photo. That seemed so odd & such an mis step that it has made me wonder what’s going on.

The problem is that no-one know which ‘tweaks’ were made to the picture, as Kensington Palace refused to provide the original photograph on request to the photo agencies before they blocked it. It could have just been touched up a little, or it could be a photograph of Kate pre-2024 could have been edited into the photograph (which they told us was taken last week) to present a picture of health and happiness that doesn’t represent her current status.

I don’t want my future head of state (who I have no say over in the first place) to lie to me, and that is important to me. The could have released no photo, or an old photo which was lablled correctly if Kate didn’t want a current photograph to be released of her. Kensington Palace chose to release image (then not the original to the photo agencies when questioned). That does raise the question of, why? The fact they tried to deceive the media and the general public in the first place doesn’t give them much grace in assuming that their edits were minor.

In an age of AI and increasing uncertainty of what is true and not, I’m glad these agencies take a firm line.

edited to add: I’m not a Harry and Meghan fan either. I’m somewhat of a republican, and I’d rather an elected head of state over any of this lot. But they’re here, and shoved in my face constantly so I’ll talk about them. I’m most interested in this from the perspective of how much their PR has bungled it.

Oh come on, now. Every picture on insta is tweaked. To create lunatic fringe conspiracy theories from that is absurd.

"future head of state lie to me*
Yes, he lied about one of his children sneezing/being a bit blurry/someone blinked whatever. Good grief.
It's just got ridiculous. The same arguments on here as on all those other threads.

I’m not at all interested either, or wasn’t… until I had it on good authority that a huge story is going to break fairly soon. More about his infidelity and the health impact it’s had on her. Sounds crazy but guess we’ll see…

On Instagram yes. As far as I know the picture is still on Instagram and their other social media accounts. It’s not allowed by AP, Reuters et al. which is why they issued the kill notice. Do you think reporting standards should be lower for the royal family?

And I didn’t come up with any lunatic conspiracy theories. Just that I don’t like the royal family lying, and that I find it odd that if the changes to the photo are so minor, they wouldn’t have shared the original RAW file with the photo agencies (not the public) when requested to clear this up and prevent the kill notices. It’s not a conspiracy to say the photo was doctored. It’s true.

Neither of us know what the changes were since the original (if there even is one) hasn’t been released. They could be minor, they could be highly impactful. And most of the edits seem to be around Kate rather than the children.