Nothing captures the attention of the world quite like a missing princess, eh? Kate Middleton has not been seen in public since December 28—unless you believe the few shakily edited and/or blurry photographs that have come out since then, which many do not.
In their initial statement about Kate’s “planned abdominal surgery,” Kensington Palace said that the princess would likely be away from public duties until Easter. However, since then, inadvertently or not, they have fanned the flames of doubt by releasing terse statements and, crucially, a doctored photograph of Kate with her kids that was then pulled from major newswires for being misleading.
The internet, being the internet, has come up with plenty of theories on Kate’s whereabouts, ranging from the patently absurd to the potentially plausible. Let’s review them, shall we? Starting with the silliest.
Her abdominal surgery is really a BBL (Brazilian butt lift).
One of the earlier theories that made the round on Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, and elsewhere on the internet was that the surgery Kate got was actually a Brazilian butt lift. The average recovery time for a BBL is around two to three months, which would line up with the palace’s initial statement that the Princess of Wales would be out of commission until around Easter. There’s no way to really disprove this theory, as Kensington Palace has not gone out of its way to deny it. That said, there’s no compelling reason to believe she got a BBL, of all things, in the first place.
She’s growing out her bangs.
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This one is mostly a joke. If anyone has access to an elite squadron of hairdressers and high-quality extensions, it would be the Princess of Wales.
The photo of Kate and William in the car was also a fake.
After the British Mother’s Day photo debacle, social media was understandably skeptical of the next photo of Kate. On March 11, the Daily Mail published a paparazzi photo of Prince William and Kate Middleton in the car; the photo shows only the back of Kate’s head and is so blurry her features are basically unidentifiable.
It’s rumored that British tabloids don’t usually publish paparazzi photos of the royals without express permission, so some suspected that this image was fed to the outlet by royal staff and that it, too, had been doctored. Their “evidence”: Some pointed to the bricks visible from behind Kate’s window, arguing that the pattern doesn’t match the bricks outside the vehicle. Others believe the image was another picture of the back of Kate’s head that had been photoshopped into the car.
