[Theme Music Starts]

ANGE:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ange McCormack, this is 7am.

The royal family is no stranger to gossip, innuendo and controversy.
But this week, the rumours and speculation over the whereabouts and health of Kate Middleton reached new, conspiratorial depths.

So, after an official photo of Kate Middleton and her three children was revealed to be digitally altered, leading to more questions than answers about the Princess, how broken is the trust between the public and the royals?

Today, royal reporter Ellie Hall on the mistakes made by the Palace, and how the scandal reflects on the people next in line to be our head of state.

It’s Thursday, March 14.

[Theme Music Ends]

ANGE:

Ellie, in the past few days the Kate Middleton story has completely blown up taking over almost every conversation, news feed, group chat. As a royal reporter though, I assume you're on to this drama well before this week, when did you start taking notice? When did it start for you?

ELLIE:

So, January 17th was when we got the memo from the palace that Kate was in hospital. She'd had a successful abdominal surgery, and she was going to be there for a few weeks and then not appear in public, not do any royal events until after Easter.

At first, the big story about Kate, if there was one at all, was about how her health was being handled in a different way than the Kings.

Audio Excerpt - Royal Reporter 1:

“We have Charles with an unnamed cancer, the main player, the King. The other main player, the tinsel and fairy dust individual who captivates us with her glamour and her smiles and her seeming effortless grace is also ill, again unnamed, we don’t know what the condition is.”

ELLIE:

That was really it. There wasn't much information about her, it was mostly about the king and his health crisis. First the enlarged prostate, and then cancer. But, in that time period, small things started to bubble up.

One of them being a Spanish journalist, a few days after Kensington Palace made its initial announcement, went on a very popular Spanish TV show and said the palace is lying about Kate.

Audio Excerpt - Spanish Royal Reporter:

“(In Spanish) The palace is lying about Kate and she is in a coma.”

ELLIE:

And then, a few weeks later, a Palace spokesperson directly addressed the Spanish reporter’s claim that Kate was in a coma.

Audio Excerpt - Royal Reporter 2:

“Courtiers have been left furious after a Spanish TV show made up claims the princess of wales was in a coma and in great danger following her recent abdominal surgery.”

ELLIE:

If the Palace hadn't commented on it no one would have thought, Wait, what? Is Kate in a coma? What's going on here?

It wasn't until Prince William, at the very last minute, dropped out of a memorial service for his godfather, former King Constantine of Greece, that really everyone started looking at this timeline and going, wait, is this about Kate? Why isn't he there? Why is he dropping out of this important royal event? And that really kicked everything off in terms of conspiracy theories and in terms of people paying very close attention to everything that had happened since mid-December, and looking for things that could possibly be inserted into the timeline to be given some significance.

ANGE:

And seeing as there hasn't been a lot of clarity or transparency around what has been going on with Kate Middleton, what has flourished in the absence of clear, verifiable information online? How have you seen that unfold?

ELLIE:

It's been madness. Everyone is saying, we've never seen anything like this.

Audio Excerpt - Royal Reporter 3:

“So the internet being what the internet is, starts going into all sorts of conspiracy theories about her relationship with the Prince of Wales and all kinds of things.”

ELLIE:

And there are tons of theories going around. And some of them aren't even being reported in the UK because they're pretty dark.

Audio Excerpt - Tik Tok Conspiracy Theorist 1:

“Like, at this point, the conspiracy theory is so big that you have to assume that wherever Kate is, she actually can't come out and do a photo op. Because if she could, there is no way that they wouldn't have her in front of the camera.”

ELLIE:

There's the theory that she's dead and everyone is trying to cover this up because they're not really sure how to handle it. And that's where you get into the body double theories.

Audio Excerpt - Tik Tok Conspiracy Theorist 2:

“I’ve seen some of everything, where y’all think she at?”

ELLIE:

There's also a theory that William and Kate are going to separate.

Audio Excerpt - Royal Reporter 4:

“I think this is the affair, I think it’s affected her, she’s gone in because she has to have counselling.”

ELLIE:

All of those are theories, and then you have the ones that are sort of unserious. Like she's, getting a Brazilian butt lift, or she got bangs and she's waiting for them to grow out because she doesn't like how she looks. So you have this huge range of theories about what's going on with her.

Audio Excerpt - Piers Morgan:

“Well, this beaming family photo released to mark the British Mother's Day on Sunday was supposed to end all that, and for most of yesterday afternoon it worked. The picture of smiling Kate kills the absurd conspiracy theories, said the Daily Mail.”

ELLIE:

When this photo came out, everyone was very excited because it wasn't just an image of Kate, It was an image of Kate and her three children. It looks very much like the sort of happy, homey, down to earth type of photo that we've come to expect from this family.

Audio Excerpt - Piers Morgan:

“But just as these newspapers were rolling off the presses last night, a bombshell development. Myriad Major Global picture agencies announced they'd taken the unprecedented decision to kill the picture, deleting it entirely from their systems.”

ELLIE:

And it didn't take very long until people began looking at it and saying, hey, there's something going on here.

Audio Excerpt - Royal Reporter 5:

“The royal Photoshop saga that has gripped conspiracy theorists worldwide, and our production team.”

Audio Excerpt - Royal Reporter 6:

“They really, really messed up”

Audio Excerpt - Royal Reporter 7:

“They really have messed up.”

Audio Excerpt - Royal Reporter 8:

“They have messed up and it's plain, it's in every it's in everybody's eyesight “

ELLIE:

Now there is evidence that something is up and it is encouraging this, sort of, absolutely insane speculation just across the world.

ANGE:

Yeah and how significant is it for the royal family to have a piece of information they've given that they've published and their credibility, tied up in that, called into question by having those news agencies kill the photo?

ELLIE:

This is a huge public relations disaster for the royal family on every single level, because it gets into this issue of trust. The public trusts the royal family that when you tell us something about its members we can believe you. The palace is going to have a problem for the foreseeable future with getting people to trust them.

They did not have all of the public's trust, but with this, everything that they do is going to be second guessed. And any updates they give about, you know, the king's health, about Kate's health, people are going to look at it and say, okay, but are you really? Is this really true? Can we trust you? So yeah, the palace now has a huge credibility problem and I don't know how they can come back from this quickly, if at all.

ANGE:

After the break - how the royal family has broken the public’s trust in the past.

[Advertisement]

ANGE:

Ellie, what do you think might happen from here? Because as you said before, there's been an erosion of trust now between the public and the royal family, so anything they do will be highly scrutinised. Do you think this whole debacle will have a really profound impact on them, or because the royal family has been known to sometimes shy away from the truth before? Is this kind of just par for the course of the history of the royal family?

ELLIE:

I think that there are a lot of questions about the royal family that the world has always wanted to know the answers to. Obviously the first one is what really happened with Princess Diana? And the royal family has, for years, given only the information that they want to give that and no more. The unofficial motto is never complain, never explain. So not giving too much detail, but just giving enough. And obviously, in this case, it's not as serious. I mean, yes, Kate's health situation is serious, but we've certainly asked bigger questions of the royal family in recent years.

You know, are the members of the royal family racist? For one, that's been a question that's been thrown around ever since Harry and Meghan gave their interview to Oprah Winfrey. What's really going on with Prince Andrew? Are these accusations true?

So, if the royal family wants everyone to accept their word on these issues that are quite contentious, it doesn't look great when they can't give a straight answer to a question as simple as, is Kate okay?

A good way, perhaps, to start making this go away a little bit would be to make Kate a bit more visible in a way that she's comfortable with. Whether that's, you know, just her writing another message thanking everybody and not a message saying, I'm sorry I edited these photos. Which, you know, she was the person who took the fall for that and we can only know if she actually was there on Photoshop making these edits.

But, the royal family has a trust problem now. If the two options you can think of are actively deceiving someone or just active incompetence, that doesn't give the public a lot of reason to trust you, a lot of reason to think that you are being honest about anything.

ANGE:

And when we talk about the damage this might do, have we ever seen anything like this before? Has the royal family ever directly lied to the public in a situation like this?

ELLIE:

So there is a precedent. Back in 2020, unbeknownst to the world, Prince William contracted Covid 19. And there were some whisperings in the press that he might have gotten sick, but the Palace told reporters that not only was he not ill, he was healthy and he didn't have the virus. Everything was fine. And it turns out, at the end of the year in November, The Sun got the scoop, but it was then confirmed by other news outlets that actually Prince William had been sick and the palace had actively lied to reporters. And Kensington Palace was asked several times by the media whether Prince William had contracted the virus and were categorically told no.

So the press office actively lied, not just concealing information, but lied when asked a direct question about a member of the royal family's health. And, you know, they didn't have to do that. There are many ways they could have not answered that question, or they could have said, okay, you know, maybe let's keep it under wraps for now and then he'll give an interview where he talks about it, something like that. So that's only one example that we know of. If you believe what Harry and Meghan have said for the past few years, there are lies told to the press somewhat regularly, and information concealed and information handed out based on an internal agenda.

ANGE:

And finally, Ellie, this is an interesting time for the royal family. Charles has only recently become king, things are changing rapidly for the family and the institution. So, could this actually be a turning point for the Royal Family and their relationship with the media and the public?

ELLIE:

So there's this long history of the royal family and the UK media specifically doing favours for each other and a trade, a back and forth of information.

It's a symbiotic relationship where the royal family will give access to members of the media in exchange for good press. As a reporter watching from across the seas, it's been very, very interesting to watch the development of how the British media has covered this story because it was complete radio silence and when the whole Photoshop thing started. You initially saw a lot of newspapers, a lot of reporters downplaying it or saying, you know, this is an overreaction and this is bullying of Kate, we stand by Kate. And you're beginning to see now more and more outlets start asking questions, start raising issues of transparency, start making the point that, you know, these are people who are taxpayer funded. And all of this going on, all of these questions that we're asking, shouldn't we have some more information? Shouldn't you know that, for example, they're alive?

That sounds a little hyperbolic, but for some people online they are genuinely wondering if Kate is alive or if this has been a whole entire cover up operation and the more errors that Kensington Palace makes, the more people start getting on board with this. I saw a very funny tweet, a few days ago, someone asking if they could get a tax refund for all of the money that's being spent on Kensington Palace’s PR team, because it clearly isn't being used for good.

ANGE:

Ellie, thanks so much for your time today.

ELLIE:

Thank you for having me.

[Advertisement]

[Theme Music Starts]

ANGE:

Also in the news today,

Consumer group Choice is calling on the government to crackdown on tech companies and digital platforms for not acting sufficiently on social media scams.

The call comes after a report by the National Anti-Scam Centre revealed that Australians lost $15.9 million dollars to scams between October and December last year.

And consulting group PwC Australia is slashing jobs as the fallout from last year’s scandal over the sharing of confidential government tax information continues.

New CEO Kevin Burrowes announced that 329 staff roles will be made redundant and the retirement of 37 partners will be accelerated to, quote “realign our business structure”.

I’m Ange McCormack. This is 7am. We’ll be back again tomorrow.

[Theme Music Ends]