A Royal Run-Down Of The Kate Middleton Disappearance Conspiracy Theories

Have you seen Kate Middleton recently? Most people say they haven’t. While much of the news surrounding the royal family has revolved around Meghan Markle and Prince Harry in recent years, Princess Kate seems to have slipped back into the spotlight this week – by slipping out of it.

The Princess of Wales hasn’t appeared publicly in months, a disappearance that has the Internet wondering where she’s gone. After several users pointed out that she hasn’t been seen since the royal family’s public event at Christmas, social media immediately got to work spinning up conspiracy theories about where the missing princess has gone. With the hypotheses getting wilder and wilder, it seems that the Windsors have nothing to fear: the Internet’s best (and most unhinged) detectives are dedicated to the case.

Prime Suspects

If the royal family is trying to cover something up, they aren’t doing themselves any favors. Kate’s husband, Prince William, left amateur detectives’ eyebrows cocked by similarly scooting away from the public eye once he was under the microscope in the wake of her disappearance. William was supposed to speak at his godfather’s memorial service, but pulled out of the engagement at the last minute. When asked why, Kensington Palace only covered for the prince by saying it was for “personal reasons,” without elaborating any further. 

William’s father, King Charles III, also didn’t attend the memorial service for his cousin, though his absence was unsurprising due to his recent cancer treatments. Instead, he sent his wife, Queen Camilla, his rumored former mistress and the subject of much speculation regarding Princess Diana’s mysterious death in 1997. Though Princess Kate is well-liked by the rest of the royal family, taking her new royal role in much better stride than her sister-in-law Meghan Markle, the air of suspicion surrounding the Windsors seems not to have cleared since Diana’s death.

The media’s silence, of course, hasn’t helped much either. Though much of it appears to be at the royal family’s request, many are calling the near total silence about Kate’s whereabouts unprecedented, and wondering why the historically combative British press is playing so nicely all of a sudden. The British press has historically been at odds with the Windsors, though Prince Harry has recently shed light on his family’s wining and dining of journalists to get more favorable coverage from the tabloids. So where is Kate? 

The Theories

Plastic Surgery

One of the most common theories around Kate going off the map is that she’s had plastic surgery. The offshoot that has turned into a meme the quickest, for obvious reasons, is that the princess has had a Brazilian butt lift. The main rationale behind this theory is the length of time required to recover from a BBL surgery, which people say would explain her long time off the map. Most BBLs take six to eight weeks’ recovery time, however, meaning her time would already be up to be strutting out of Buckingham Palace with her new booty.

Similar theories joke about the princess recovering from other cosmetic procedures like buccal fat removal. While the theory makes for great memes, it does come up short in the believability department, since recovery tends to take under a month, and Kate Middleton is clearly too beautiful to ruin her face with that kind of procedure. Of course, that hasn’t stopped many celebrities from trying it. 

Bangs

Other people’s hypotheses are considerably lower stakes, like suggesting that Kate Middleton is simply growing her bangs out, a theory that actually makes a whole lot of sense when you think about the time required to stay out of the public eye. At least, more sense than BBLs and buccal fat removals. After all, who hasn’t wanted a few months of privacy away from cameras after a horrible haircut? Maybe Kate just has the privilege of getting actual peace and quiet while mourning an adventurous cut gone awry. If that really is the case, then good for her!

Banksy

Maybe, though, Kate is up to something far more adventurous than switching up her hair, cheeks, or, uh, booty cheeks. Maybe she’s been a cheeky political commentator all along, operating under the disguise of none other than Banksy. Banksy, a British street artist famous for politically charged stencil-and-spray paint, has gained attention in part for his anonymity. Was “he” hiding his identity in plain sight all along? Some people believe that the fact that there have been no Banksy art pieces made during Kate’s sabbatical means that she might be using graffiti as a side project on the down low. After all, there’s a reason you never see Superman and Clark Kent in the same room.

More Intense Theories

Not everyone is convinced that Kate’s disappearance is so innocent, however. While it would be nice to think she’s just growing out her hair or growing into a new butt, some people are seeing the rest of the royal family’s tight-lip policy as something more sinister: a cover-up. Arguably, the most involved connecting of dots posits that the overlap between Kate’s absence and the King’s is too well aligned to be a coincidence. In fact, some are saying that the reason the pair are out of commission at the same time is because she’s secretly donating a kidney to her father-in-law, maybe even to sway the royal success plan in her favor.

Finally, the least fun conspiracy theories say that the royal family is covering up for Kate’s disappearance because she’s secretly dead or in a coma. Especially in light of still-lingering skepticism over Princess Diana’s car crash death nearly 30 years ago, some believe that Kate might be in danger of being similarly “disappeared” by the royals just like her husband’s mother. The parallel would be striking: Prince William is said to have had an affair just a few years back, with Rose Hanbury, the Marchioness of Cholmondeley. William and Kate distanced themselves from Rose after the alleged incident.

Closing Thoughts

As of yesterday, the Kensington Palace reiterated their original statement: "We were very clear from the outset that the Princess of Wales was out until after Easter and Kensington Palace would only be providing updates when something was significant.” While the family doesn’t owe Britons (or anyone else) further details about Kate’s private life, the existence of all of these conspiracy theories seems to only have been encouraged by their silence for so long. At the end of the day, the best that we can hope for is that Kate is healthy and well, that her husband William is only out of the limelight to step up in his fatherly role for their young children, and that, contrary to some theories, the Princess of Wales has not, in fact, entered the Princess Protection Program.

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