Kate Middleton’s fake-photo fiasco proves the secretive royals must come clean

The mantra of Britain’s greatest monarch, the late, great Queen Elizabeth II, was very simple: Never complain, never explain, and rarely be heard speaking in public.

That was the consistently successful formula that made her one of the most beloved global public figures of my lifetime.

And conversely, those royals who’ve chosen to do the complete opposite — like the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who never stop complaining, explaining and yapping in public — have made themselves incredibly unpopular.

But the conspiracy theories about Kate Middleton’s secret health crisis and disappearance from public life, made worse by the manipulated family photo she posted yesterday, when added to the unsettling confusion over what cancer King Charles is suffering from and how serious his condition is, have shown that the old palace way of handling the media has become increasingly obsolete and unworkable.

The problem is social media.

With an absence of facts, platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and TikTok have become 24/7 hotbeds of wild royal gossip and intrigue.