Literally what I wanted to write as well!
I mean we do have the historically biological Adam and Eve, i.e. we do all come from the same ancestors, but the English upper class has an even shallower pool of common ancestors than the average person (in more recent generations, too).
Last evening I remembered I hadn't been on celebitchy in ages (not since I read their article on the whole Kate vs Tattler affair) and that I wanted to check out the comments.
The comments were really good, if anyone of you is interested in learning a bit more why people dislike Kate (& Will) and want to catch up a bit on a more realistic and honest history of them, I recommend you head over and read esp the comments.
The comments aren't a hate-cesspool where every single button and seam is taken apart and every single flick of the hand (literally, people would take apart every single coat as "shoddy work" of Kate's and I see the same happen to Meg and it's just too much, it's the type I find is hating for hate's sake), but honest and accurate. I went through the first page of the article linked under "Kate M"
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There are also comments about Kate's inappropriate wardrobe, which made me remember when she used to wear jeggings to engagements, for years. So tight you could see everything and I bet they had to cut her out of those things at the end of the day. In particular what's burnt into my memory is this hideous disaster
Why she thought this is appropriate and professional attire, is beyond me.
I also read that Catherine Quinn left them, without a transition period, which is pretty shocking and hints at a bad state of affairs behind closed doors. If anyone thinks the Ssexes are the only ones with a revolving door of staff, I have a bridge to sell you. The Cambs (and the Waleses back in the day) were long famous for ever-changing staff. One gardener and his wife went from one royal household to the Cambs's at Anmer and left after 2 months, asking to be rotated elsewhere. This was a few years ago. Such things speak volumes.
She had their tennis court moved at Anmer, because she wanted "a nicer view". It was moved, cost a fortune and is now encoraching their neighbour's property (with his permission, obvs, but how frikkin selfish and shallow can you be??).
Quinn was fantastic, she also whipped Kate a bit into shape, there was a notable difference in her engagements, so I'm pretty sad that she's left (last year apparently!!).
The noted differences, incl these days, for which Kate gets praise (by me, too) are pretty small though. It's literally baby steps and things that should've happened within 1-2 years of her as royal.
The Ssexes do suck, but M out-worked K by miles. M's projects were good and actually did help some people (capsule collection, cookbook), whereas K has nothing to show for nearly 10 years. The 5 questions thing was pretty naff and useless. Research in that field has been done for ages and they brought nothing new to the table. It is literally to prop up K. KP deperately is trying to give her a longterm project for impact, but nothing works (almost any royal has some lifelong project, the Cambs don't. Charles and the Prince's Trust and organic farming, Camilla domestic abuse, Diana HIV/AIDS and landmines, Harry Invictus, Phil the Edinburgh Awards). She said herself earlier that she only became interested in kids since G came along. She blames "unhappy childhoods" on mental health issues, yet her brother has spoken about being depressed. Will has said earlier this year that quarantine was nice, as he could spend more time with the kids and didn't see them much last year. How? Where was he? He sure as heck isn't killing himself with engagements.
The beginning of K was all "she'll have only a handful of patronages, but work will be more concentrated". Cue donations for EACH dipping significantly, one charity shutting down and others complaining that Kate hadn't turnt up in years. Cue also constant press releases, after every childbirth and some inbetween, how "keen" she is "to hit the ground running" (after mat leave, once the new year starts... the goal posts kept being moved). Nothing ever happened. This was KP's literal wording in several press releases, which is why "keen" is kind of a catch-word in relation to Kate and you'll see that often mentioned in Celebitchy's comments. Someone wrote "kween of keen" and I snort-laughed.
Harry's thing was Heads Together, the Cambs latched onto that, his was Invictus and early on Will tried to latch onto that as well. So I do believe the Ssexes are very frustrated with the way things are run in the family. Whilst they are problematic, they don't talk entirely out of their arses.
The Ssexes with their work have made some difference and as their critics say they didn't want to be 2nd fiddle, I do agree, but H's (and then M's) work has been shafted because they can't outwork and outshine the heir, so the frustration is real. Imagine being Harry, having two great ideas and getting to work and your brother (or in the office co-worker) coming along for some credit and praise. That's fcked up.
I have written about this before, so I'm sorry for repeats and boring some of you who've read this, but Kate's "guest editor" stint at HuffPost has me still enraged, all these years later.
HuffPost literally moved their offices (desktop computers and all) for a day to KP to accommodate K, "for security reasons" (except Charles and Anne guest-edited magazines before and security was never an issue when the literal heir had to pop into a paper's offices, but mmmmkay).
Kate showed up late (even though she was at KP and they came to her office!!!) and a stint that was supposed to last all day, she stayed for... wait for it... 50 minutes. Met some kiddies along the way and then pissed-the-fck-off to go.... wait for THAT.. shopping. Yes. Madam was papped that day shopping in the High Street and the pic was released. This is especially huge, as at the time the Cambs sued the press at the drop of a hat and the lawyers wanted to leave the Winds's services because it became so much (I shyte you not, the lawyers would do some "pro bono"(!!!) work for the super rich Windsors (to keep them as clients and use that for their own PR, obvs, no altruism here!) and the Cambs exhausted all the free hours and the firm was about to charge the Windsors their hefty fees, which led to the Cambs receiving a bollocking from higher up to drop their shyte). Pap pics were extremely rare at the time (still are actually), the Cambs even put up signs illegally (!!!!) cutting off public paths declaring them "private property". The press was pissed at Kate for the bs she pulled with HuffPost and the press stuck together, so the pap pics were published.
The press has been pissed at the Cambs many times, but they would have "special events" wherein they'd invite a set press pack to KP and whip out the kids to perform like circus clowns, cue sudden sugary articles the next day. Journos have tweeted when they went to KP for this, it's well documented. This is ironic, considering Will complained so much about being used as kid for PR and how he'd never do that, yet, here we are. These are the people who after all made George meet Obama in his dressing gown for PR points. That was embarrassing and was ridiculed, rightly so.
For ladies who dress well and do well look at Victoria of Sweden, Letizia, Maxima... The little heirs of Europe are really well brought up and hugely accomplished, growing up multi-lingual. Leonor of Spain and Elisabeth of Belgium have given speeches in 3 languages. These two are kids, Elisabeth just turnt 18. Then you look at Britain's heir and his wife.... When teens do better than you, you really have to ask yourself some tough questions. Then K gets praise for the bare minimum and it's mindboggling.
This has been a long rant basically, but the discussions here and me heading over to celebitchy after a long time have really got me going. Haven't ever followed the Cambs as closely as many others did and way less in the recent few years, so my info has become shallower, but I see that little has in fact changed. Some things I wrote in this long-ass post are mentioned in the Celebitchy comments, but I wanted to mention some stuff extra.
At the beginning when Kate & Will became engaged I started following them a bit and was a bit of a sugar (though I just read articles and followed the pics) and couldn't understand the negative comments. After George was born I started to look closer and learn a bit about why people complained so much, started following some critical blogs etc and saw they had a point. That was the turning point for me, from (very shallow) admirer to critic. Been pretty critical of all of them, incl the Cambs ever since bothering to actually see what the nay-sayers were all about. In recent years I've pretty much only paid attention to Kate's outfits, because there's literally nothing else to talk about.