Credibility is difficult to gain and very easy to lose, and that is what happens to Caterina. Between the secrecy about the abdominal operation, the fake photo and the absence from official events since it was intervened on January 17, the British people no longer know what is fake and what is true.
An amateur video shot Saturday at a farm shop near Windsor, purportedly showing the Princess of Wales relaxed and smiling (and very thin) with her husband, has done little to clear up doubts about what is wrong with her. Kensington Palace has refused to comment, and conspiracy theories say it is not her, but a doppelganger designed with the help of artificial intelligence, and being trained to replace her.
To the speculations that he has cancer, that he suffers from depression or that he has undergone cosmetic surgery, there has been added that of a serious marital crisis due to an alleged affair of Guillem with Lady Rose Hanbury, Marchioness of Cholmondeley, mother of three children, an aristocrat married to a man twenty years older than her, who moves in the circles of the Windsor court and who invited to the coronation of Charles III. His lawyers issued a statement yesterday denying that was true. Rumors on the subject began to circulate in 2019 and have now exploded on social networks (and abroad), although this does not necessarily mean that they correspond to reality.
A much more realistic theory, according to doctors and nurses, is that the princess had the intervention because she suffers from a disease, such as Crohn’s, which causes severe bowel disorders and weight loss, and is very uncomfortable. The palace insists that he is recovering well, will not make any medical announcements, and the return to public life will not arrive until after Holy Week (he has not confirmed or denied that he will return on Easter Sunday for a mass he traditionally attends the entire royal family).
Another blow to the credibility of the Windsors is the review by the agency Getty Images of a photo that was taken a few weeks before the death of Elizabeth II, in which she appears with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and which would also have been slightly retouched.
In the United Kingdom, rumors about William’s affair or about Kate Middleton’s health are confined to social networks, and the written press does not pick them up, or only cryptically. Most of the media are very monarchist, and yesterday they used the video of Catherine (or her double) to call for an end to the speculation and to welcome her back to the world of the living.
