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LONDON – A shopping trip may never have received such scrutiny.
After more than a week of speculation and rumors about the whereabouts and health of Kate, Princess of Wales, a grainy video emerged that appeared to show her with her husband, Prince William.
That could have been the end of the story in a different time. Not so in the age of Internet-fueled conspiracy theories and plummeting trust in public institutions: a time when everything is falsifiable and therefore everything, especially anything published by the family British royal in recent weeks, remains open to questions.
The video, published by the British tabloid The SunThe image shows a man wearing a baseball cap and jacket, accompanied by a brown-haired woman wearing a hooded sweater and sports leggings. The newspaper said it was filmed at the Windsor Farm shop, near the couple’s west London home, and ran the story on its front page alongside the headline: “Good to see you again, Kate!”
Britain’s most widely read newspaper, The Daily Mail, summed up the generally sympathetic tone of the country’s media, calling it “The Picture the World Was Waiting to See.”
Gossip website TMZ, which also posted the video, said it had “drilled down into the metadata” and had “no doubt” it was a “legitimate video.”
NBC News has asked Kensington Palace for any details it can share about the video, with no response. But they would have known that someone in this very public place would probably see them, NBC News royal commentator Daisy McAndrew told “TODAY” on Tuesday.
“This was a genuine member of the public who saw Kate and William in this farm shop,” McAndrew said. “But was it created in a way that they knew perfectly well that someone would take their picture? Yes, I think we can assume that was the case,” he added.
McAndrew said he thought there was a good chance Kate would make her official return to the public on Easter Sunday.
Meanwhile, the video hasn’t been enough to convince some of the frenzied masses on social media who have been captivated by the saga and whose commitment to the royal rumor mill had reached a fever pitch just as the video surfaced.
Whether the palace or the rest of the public agree, this remains a topic of intense conversation, with related search terms among trending topics on multiple platforms.
“That’s not Kate…” said TV producer Andy Cohen, who has 2.2 million followers on X.
At the center of all this is a woman who, according to the palace, is recovering from major abdominal surgery and had always been expected to be out of action at least until the end of this month.
“Once we have answers about what has happened to the Princess of Wales over the last few months, people will feel sincerely guilty about her behavior,” Kinsey Schofield, host of the royal podcast To Di For Daily, told Britain’s Times radio. . on Tuesday.
Polls by Sky News, NBC News’ British partner, suggested that more than half of the population I had seen the conspiracy theoriesbut that trust in royalty had not been significantly affected.
At the same time, even many sober royal experts say there have been a series of decisions by the palace that, at best, do not help the royal cause before the public, giving fodder to observers seeking to discover some great conspiracy.
Photo agency Getty, one of those that removed Kate’s family photo last week, added an editor’s note Tuesday to another royal image taken by the princess, saying its photo of the late Queen Elizabeth II with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren of 2022 had been “Digitally enhanced at source”.
NBC News analysis of the image suggested that it had been subject to Photoshop errors when the editor attempted to “clone” one area of the image and copy it to another.
The photo of Kate and her children may be the biggest controversy over a royal image since 1539, when King Henry VIII sent his court artist, Hans Holbein, to paint Anne of Cleaves so he could consider her for marriage, according to biographer and royal historian. Sara Gristwood.
It is said that upon meeting Anne, Henry commented that the painting did not look very similar and that his marriage the following year was annulled a few months later.
While overall trust levels may not have been affected, for some people it seems like the debacle has marked something of an open season on royal rumors.
Many have asked: Why not just end the talk by posting a short video explanation or statement that fixes some of the recent problems? The answer likely lies in the royals’ stubbornness and their animosity toward the media, according to expert observers like Gristwood.
“I can accept that there are reasons why we are all diving so hastily down this rabbit hole,” said Gristwood, a royal biographer and historian whose books include “Tudors in Love.” But “we must also remember Prince William’s determination, like that of his brother, to protect his wife and his family and not be intimidated by the press.”
Given what we know about William’s views on the media, she said, they likely don’t want to be “bullied into doing what they had never planned to do, forcing Kate to go out in public earlier than expected and being forced to do it.” give updates on her health that they always said they wouldn’t do.”