I promised myself and you not to get involved with the drama of the Royal Family, which has been flirting with tragedy for years. But once again it is impossible.

In the film Roman Holiday, Crown Princess Ann (Audrey Hepburn) is on a well-timed trip through the European capitals of her unnamed nation. After an especially difficult day in Rome, where she has to participate in several tedious ceremonies, and where she cannot relax or even visit the city where she is, she is exhausted.

The aides then see to it that she has a great night’s sleep, but she takes their advice that she can “do exactly what she wants” literally. Hidden from everyone, she secretly escapes from the embassy to explore the city. The idea, it seems, was to spend just a few hours in total freedom and return home, but as she had been medicated with a strong sleeping pill when the drug goes into effect, she falls asleep and is rescued by Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck), an American reporter, who is doing a story on her without the princess noticing. The next 48 hours will be intense for her, but fun too.

The 1953 film couldn’t be further from the reality of 2024 for Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales. Or close! In the film, her team has to do their best to outwit the press, pressing for news and photos of the princess. They claim she is not well. Hence the importance of Bradley’s article, which will unmask the Palace, despite exposing Ann at the same time.

If they were to re-record Roman Holiday today, Ann would be in hot water. In times of fake news and manipulable social networks, there is no space to refuse to share her life, as the hurricane surrounding Kate Middleton is proving.

Kate’s reality is not the same as in the movies

After four years of personal accusations ranging from bullying, coldness, and racism, which reached maximum volume in December 2023, when Kate was cited as the person who had questioned the skin color of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry‘s son, attacks on social media reached a frightening volume. The drama was so heavy that it is an announced tragedy, as I have said since 2020.
And who would have thought there would be even more at the turn of the year?

Although she remained firm and smiling through the holiday festivities, something was off. As 2024 began, Kate, today the most popular figure in the Royal Family and most photographed at social events (her husband, Prince William‘s shyness and almost aversion to appearing, put Kate at the front of all the official photo opportunities in recent years) simply warned the world that she was going to have “a scheduled abdominal surgery”, that “it’s not cancer” and that she would only appear again only “after Easter”.

I know that at any other time, it would seem enough, but the parade of arrogance and misunderstanding of what communication means from an extremely public person like the princess, future Queen of England, is taking on epic proportions.

The world refused to accept what was given, which was next to nothing. What seemed like a “joke” – creating a conspiracy theory about Kate Middleton’s disappearance – took on the shape of a diplomatic crisis. Until then, the signature of the wife of the heir to the throne was that she never made a mistake in public, the slip-up was catastrophic.

Show up to be believed and never complain or explain

When a Spanish journalist spread the news that Kate was in a coma, or even dead, the pressure for news stopped being fun and became aggressive harassment. Well, that’s certainly how the Princess’ team is dealing with the matter and, in doing so, making the situation worse.

The fact is that it was expected that after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, who for 70 years led the Royal Family within strict rules that no longer apply, there would be conflicts. It’s part of the turbulent years, but how it will pass is uncertain.

In a reality of overexposure culture, the mantra of “being seen is being believed” has taken on harmful proportions. BEFORE social media existed, it was necessary – in the monarch’s view – for her and her family to attend a large number of events so that there was the opportunity to be photographed and have contact with their subjects. However, nowadays, the expectation is that in addition to these controlled events, subjects have access to their personal lives all the time. A Royal Non-Stop Big Brother.

When Prince Harry compared their lives to that of zoo animals, he wasn’t exaggerating. The subjects claim that they “pay for them”, therefore as consumers, they have the right to know everything, literally, whenever they want and as often as they want. They are public people and nowadays there is no clear limit to what is private. Basically, more than politicians, they lost the right to live their lives in private. Having said that, they ARE important public figures and once the reason for going MIA is Health, people will expect 1) Details and 2) Updates. However, apparently, there was a proud refusal to comply with commoners.

This is a bad use of Queen Elizabeth II’s other mantra – never complain, never explain – and is exactly the opposite of what new generations apply and expect: honesty and transparency. And it’s the Windsors’ (not the Sussexes’) favorite mantra. And here we are.

What a disaster!

For some clumsy reason, on Sunday, March 10, Kensington Palace released a photo of the princess with her children. The effect was like throwing a lit match into a dry straw: it inflamed the drama even more.

The photo was full of problems: Kate without a ring, some signs of photoshop, and the Palace’s irritation in saying nothing really beyond that she was “recovering from the operation”. What’s going on with Kate?

When the photo was identified as edited, Kate was forced to take the blame, breaking decades of tradition of avoiding explanations, claiming that she was the one who tampered with the photos. At the moment the crisis has taken on political proportions. All because, apparently, Kate Middleton does not want to submit to the worldwide outcry on social media. A mistake that will forever be remembered in her biography.

The Queen, another cinema reference

In 2006, Peter Morgan wrote a play, which was turned into a film and won an Oscar for Helen Mirren, The Queen, which is about the moment her kingdom turned against her in 1997, when she refused to express sadness over the death of Princess Diana and remained trapped in the protocol that she imposed on her family. No one died, despite the conspiracy theories, but Kate Middleton is already experiencing a similar dilemma even without being the Queen’s consort. But the ending seems to be shaping up differently.

The fact that King Charles III is also experiencing health problems himself, but is dealing with the issue inversely more transparently than his daughter-in-law, contributes to the dilemma. It seems to me that he is out of control or leaving his son and the princess to deal with the problem alone, but it is his reign that is vulnerable, not theirs.

If on The Crown he was the one who pressured his mother to address the nation about Diana, we would hope he would be doing the same now with Kate Middleton and Prince William, right? He is the King and the Head of the family, so his opinion should have weight.

Is a happy ending just fiction?

In Roman Holiday, Princess Ann gets up to speed without being identified and at the right time, Bradley gives up on the matter and protects her, keeping the secret of the days of freedom that she managed to have for herself. In The Queen, which was the seed of The Crown, Elizabeth II managed to reverse everything and inherited the affection of her subjects until the end of her days.

There is no way that social media will allow Kate to be the alternative to the movie Roman Holiday. All she could do was follow the example of the film about her husband’s grandmother. Honestly, I would hurry!

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