‘William and Kate are nearly on the other side of this’
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Kate Middleton is reportedly unbothered by the conspiracy theories swirling about her whereabouts, with sources close to the Princess of Wales telling The Daily Beast that it comes with the territory.
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Visiting the a farm shop near their Windsor home over the weekend was the “right move,” a friend of hers tells the outlet.
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“There’s nothing you can do these days about a bunch of headbangers who have a vested interest in keeping the conspiracies going,” her pal continues. “They will keep saying Catherine is a fake. But going out was the right move because ultimately she is fine and she needed that to be seen.”
Another royal source told the website: “William and Kate are nearly on the other side of this. You can argue that they should have approached the whole thing differently, but this is a marathon not a sprint. They have decades and decades of this life ahead of them, and the message is that they intend to guard their privacy, whatever the media say they should or shouldn’t do.”
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The insider predicts that when royal watchers look back on this era, it won’t even register. But they didn’t acknowledge that Kate’s Mother’s Day photo was “a significant cock-up.”
Questions surrounding Kate’s wellbeing have gripped the public’s attention after she disappeared from the spotlight following a planned surgery in January.
To try and quell rumours surrounding her health, the 42-year-old princess shared a doctored image alongside her three children — Prince George, 10; Princess Charlotte, 8; and Prince Louis, 5 — to celebrate Mother’s Day earlier this month.
In the photo, which was posted to Instagram and X, Kate was seen smiling alongside her kids and she also extended her hearty well wishes to other mothers celebrating their special day.
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But the attempt to assuage worry backfired after the image was picked apart by forensic sleuths online. Hours after its release, four major news wire services — Associated Press, Getty Images, Reuters, and AFP — had announced they were pulling the photo from their libraries amid concerns it was manipulated.
Kate issued a statement apologizing for the “confusion” caused by her editing of a family photo.
As rumours continued to circulate online, the U.K. Sun and TMZ, published a video that allegedly showed the princess shopping with her husband at a farm shop near their Windsor home last Saturday, which the latter proclaimed is “100% her.”
The Sun heralded her return with a “Great to see you again, Kate!” frontpage and said it had decided to release the video “in a bid to bring an end to what the Palace has called the ‘madness of social media.”
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One of the eyewitnesses who saw the pair, Nelson Silva, told The Sun: “Kate looked happy … They looked happy just to be able to go to a shop and mingle. Kate looked relieved like it was a success going to a shop. It felt natural.”
Another eyewitness echoed Silva’s sentiment, adding, “It’s just a woman shopping with her husband on a Saturday afternoon just like thousands of other couples across the country. I’m delighted that she is well and everyone else can see her back on her feet enjoying life again.”
But thousands chimed in on social media to cast doubts on the veracity of the video, including Andy Cohen, who boldly declared to his 2.4 million X followers: “That ain’t Kate.”
After he shared a photo of the couple telling followers “she’s obviously recovering well,” British television personality Piers Morgan observed the “conspiracy theories have increased.”
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But as questions surrounding the video continue to persist, with #KateGate and #Katespiracy still trending on social media, a British privacy watchdog says it is looking into a report that staff at a private London hospital tried to snoop on the Princess of Wales’ medical records while she was a patient for abdominal surgery.
The Mirror reported that at least one staff member at the London Clinic tried to look at Kate’s notes during her stay there in January.
Meanwhile, Silva called anyone who thinks the video, which has been viewed over 29 million times on X, is a fake “delusional.”
“I’m not so much shocked that these comments have continued, I’m just confused how exactly they can continue,” he told The Sun. “I saw them with my own eyes. It was a completely relaxed situation.”
Heidi Again, who impersonates Kate professionally, also shot down speculation that it was her in the farm shop video.
“I 100% believe that it is Kate Middleton and William in that video,” she told The Mirror.
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