Palace Secrecy Has Made Kate Middleton Vulnerable

Kensington Palace's secrecy over the Princess of Wales' recovery from abdominal surgery fueled "completely feverish" social media speculation, driving demand for paparazzi photos and leaving her vulnerable. That's what a British morning TV show has heard after the first image of Kate taken since Christmas Day was published by a U.S. gossip site on Monday.

On January 17, Kensington Palace announced that Kate had undergone "planned abdominal surgery" in London and was expected to be out of the public eye until "after Easter" while she recuperated.

After being discharged on January 29, the princess has been recuperating at her Adelaide Cottage home on the Windsor Castle estate, a completely private property protected by the secure parameter that surrounds the castle and its associated buildings.

Despite the palace stating that they would not provide new information on Kate's recovery unless there was a significant development, speculation skyrocketed last month after Prince William canceled his appearance at a high-profile event for an undisclosed "personal reason."

As a response the palace reiterated that Kate was doing "well," however, the lack of any photographs of the princess for over two months sparked conspiracy theories and satirical memes.

Now, the first photograph of Kate since Christmas has been published, but not through official channels. Instead, it was taken by a paparazzi member and published by TMZ in the U.S. So far, the British media have not reproduced the image over privacy concerns.

The long-lens image taken in Windsor shows Kate sitting in the passenger seat of a car, being driven by her mother, Carole Middleton. Reports suggest that the royal may have been returning from taking her three children to school.

This new development will not be welcomed by Kensington Palace, which has been fiercely protective of Kate and her right to privacy while she has been recovering from surgery. However, this hardline approach to this has contributed to the demand for more information, Newsweek's chief royal correspondent Jack Royston told Good Morning Britain on Tuesday.

"The kind of secrecy that Kensington Palace brought to this situation fuelled completely feverish wild speculation online and that creates the demand that means TMZ know that they're going to make big bucks running these pictures because they know that huge numbers of people are going to go and click on this story," he said.

"And that means that they can pay big amounts of money to the photographer, which makes it worth the photographer's while to take the risk to get these pictures."

"I think that the palace could have made this all go away last week," he added.

"Kate could have taken a picture herself. She could have taken a selfie. William could have taken it. It didn't need to be a good picture. Didn't need to be a high-res image. It just needed to be a picture or a little video like Charles did."

On Kensington Palace's media strategy around Kate's recovery, Royston suggested a lack of information has led to a "snowball" effect of speculation and conspiracy theories, ultimately leaving the princess vulnerable to paparazzi driven to get an exclusive photograph or update.

"What's effectively happened is they've allowed this to snowball into a massive thing and if they'd got ahead of it then they would have actually protected Kate better," he said.

"It probably felt to them at the time like they were protecting her and shielding her by just leaving her to get on with her recovery undisturbed but actually this is not protecting Kate. Her being papped in Windsor, the [Daily] Mail is speculating that she may have been on the school run, that that's not protecting her. She was not going to feel protected in this moment."

According to the palace's timeline, Kate is still not yet expected to return to public life until after Easter (March 31) upon the advice of her doctors, this means fans are unlikely to see her for at least another month.

Newsweek approached Kensington Palace via email for comment.

James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek's royal reporter, based in London. You can find him on X (formerly Twitter) at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.

Do you have a question about King Charles III, William and Kate, Meghan and Harry, or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@newsweek.com. We'd love to hear from you.