Prince William and Kate Middleton went to the Windsor Farm Shop on Saturday, which wouldn't be a big deal usually. But this surprised people on social media because the Princess of Wales hasn't been seen in public for almost three months due to a planned abdominal surgery. A video released by TMZ showed them quickly walking through the market, and some people on social media aren't fully convinced by it. released a video Monday that purportedly shows the pair speedily walking through the market… but social media users aren’t quite convinced.
As Stephanie Soteriou shared on X (formerly Twitter) her thoughts about it, comparing images from the video with another recent blurry image and an earlier photo of Middleton. She expressed doubt that the woman in the images is the same person, and it made her feel like she's losing her mind.
X user @MediumSizeMeech pointed out Middleton seems to be recovering well and questioned why she would be carrying a large bag if she had just had abdominal surgery.
A number of people used popular memes to show their disbelief. X user @toops99 wrote, “The whole world right now analysing the video of Kate and William” alongside memes including the famous “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” red string board.
@IBZDRAGON made a reference to Andrew Garfield’s emotional graveyard scene from “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” and captioned it, “The entire internet after seeing Kate Middleton without makeup for the first time.”
Some also pointed out that practically speaking, it doesn’t make sense that a high-quality photo or video of Middleton out and about isn’t available. After all, as @yolanda_parody put it, “you‘re telling me somebody was able to zoom in and get this footage of rihanna yet we can’t get a single high quality image of kate Middleton.”
For others, the publication of the video and the immediate skepticism that followed online is an indication of just how steep of a climb Kensington Palace has to convince the public to trust them again, following their lack of communication about Middleton’s status and the release of a photo that had been digitally altered.
@SmoothDunk wrote, “‘these Kate Middleton pics will silence internet critics’ I don’t think u understand how badly you’ve f–ked this. there are now people on the internet who could SHAKE HER HAND and still claim she’s four cats in a wig.”
This was more seriously echoed by Ellie Hall, a correspondent who covers the royal family and previously worked for BuzzFeed. She tweeted, pointing to an earlier interview she’d done, “This @EliotHiggins quote proved prescient: ‘At this point, I think if there was a video of Kate holding a paper with today’s date on it published, we’d still have an online army explaining how you can tell it’s an AI-generated fake from the pixels.'”
Despite the potentially serious nature of the situation Middleton and Kensington Palace are engulfed in, plenty of people are still having fun. As Teen Vogue columnist Rainesford Stauffer tweeted, “I like that the Kate Middleton conspiracy attempts to improve the situation, but in reality, it only makes it worse, which I can totally understand.”
Hear, hear.
