Prince William and Kate Middleton try to calm storm over health rumors

In the world of politics — even in the real world — the best way to fix a crisis of credibility or quiet wild rumors is to come forward: to hold a press conference and try to establish the true version of events. In the world of the British monarchy, the strategies and means of communication are more twisted and obtuse. You have to understand the key players.

That’s why the Sunday edition of the newspaper The Times — still the most institutional, serious and British medium that exists today — ran with the headline “Kate could address health mystery at public engagement,” citing friends of the Prince Williams and the Princess of Wales, the closest thing to an official version of the current situation. This version was intended to put an end to the furor over Kate Middleton’s health and whereabouts.

The main source of the long exclusive — written by the newspaper’s royal affairs correspondent Roya Nikkah — is a friend of the couple, who has known William and Kate since their days as students at St. Andrews University.

According to exclusives from tabloid The Sun, in a bid to quell the rumors, the Princess of Wales made a couple of impromptu public appearances this past weekend. On Saturday, she was seen with her husband in a farm store near his residence at Adelaide Cottage in Windsor, and on Sunday the couple went to see their three children playing sport. “Kate was out shopping with William and she looked happy and she looked well,” an alleged witness told the tabloid. There were, however, no photos of these outings.

“They are at their most open when out interacting with members of the public and I can see a world in which the princess might discuss her recovery out on engagements. If she was going to do it, that’s how she would do it,” a royal source told The Times. “They will want to be clear and more open, but they’ll do it when they feel ready. I would expect that to be her instinct and it will be her call. They’re not going to be rushed,” a friend added.

The report published by The Times is an attempt to redirect the situation, and restore the flow of information and calm that Kensington Palace tried to establish in mid-January when it announced that the Princess of Wales was to undergo abdominal surgery at a London hospital.

The official statement from the Kensington Palace — the official residence and name given to the office handling the affairs of the Prince and Princess of Wales — made it clear that Kate would spend up to two weeks recovering at the London Clinic. “Based on the current medical advice, she is unlikely to return to public duties until after Easter,” it stated.

Amid the speculation over the princess’s health, The Times report said that by “after Easter,” Prince Williams and Kate were referring to the end of their children’s school holidays, not the Easter weekend. In other words, after April 17, although Kensington Palace has not yet published a specific date or event.

“It’s not that they didn’t think there would be lots of speculation and interest [in the princess’s heath], but they had confidence that people would give them the space they asked for, which they did for about a month,” the friend told The Times.

Manipulated photo breaks calm

The speculation reached fever pitch after Kate posted an ill-fated photo to celebrate Mother’s Day. The seemingly innocent family portrait of the princess, surrounded by her three children in Adelaide Cottage, where the family currently lives, made headlines after major news agencies decided to pull it, citing manipulation concerns.

That opened the floodgates for even wilder and more bizarre theories about Kate’s health, whereabouts and relationship with Prince Williams. “If you want to call out the mistake, it was Kate not telling her team that she’d done it [edited the photo]. But she came out and said sorry,” said a friend and advisor to the couple, who said it was “hypocritical” of picture agencies to remove the image, given the widespread use of “image-cropping and photo-altering to tell a story,” arguing they overreacted.

In the report aimed at calming the storm of rumors, the sources close to William and Kate point out that the Prince of Wales — who saw how his mother Lady Di became hounded by the paparazzi — is very protective of his wife and family. “He is approaching this from his desire to protect Kate and his family and not get drawn into the media and social media craziness,” said the main source in The Times report. “Kate is smart, tough, resilient and has good common sense. They will keep their cool heads over it. The public should leave her to recover in peace and leave William to do both his job as the Prince of Wales and his job of looking after his wife and his family as best he can.”

But even in the Kensington Palace’s most conciliatory version to explain last week’s communication gaffes, Prince Williams and Kate cannot resist making a jab at Princes Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, the couple that have become their nemesis in the endless soap opera that is the life of the Windsors. “They’re not like [Prince] Harry, obsessing and scrolling through Twitter, but they know it has broken through,” said one of their friends.

“I don’t think they should engineer what they do next,” concluded the source. “The royals are at their best when they get on with their job. Don’t strategize about how to recover ground lost over Photogate, do what you were always intending to do, and when you take the next picture, make sure you take enough so you don’t have to use Photoshop.”

The next photo will likely celebrate the birthday of Prince Louis, the youngest of the couple’s three children, on April 23. It’s an ideal opportunity to leave the family snapshot in the hands of experts and avoid a new wave of social media conspiracy theories.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition