Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/03/22/princess-of-wales-announces-cancer-diagnosis.html
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That’s sad. With three young children the public scrutiny must make a bad situation even worse. Hope her condition improves.
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Is this the reason for all the weird photoshop stuff? I feel like just leading with this news would’ve been far better. No one in their right mind would shame someone for having cancer, even if they’re part of the monarchy.
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Yet another reason I’m glad I’m not a royal.
It’s bad enough dealing with a cancer diagnosis when your medical status isn’t daily tabloid fodder for a public that has a ghoulish obsession with every aspect of your life, your family and your personal health.
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Just cross-posting my reply from the other thread:
So that’s what all the secret squirrel nonsense has been about?!
All they had to do was say that and people would have been supportive and sympathetic. Instead we got PR disaster after disaster.
preventative chemotherapy
I didn’t know that was a thing? I thought it was just used to target cancerous cells. I didn’t think there was any sort of preventative treatment if there were no cancerous cells?
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Just normal PR management, I’m guessing. 
I don’t think there was anything weird or nefarious here, just that…
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Here’s what I wrote in the other thread:
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i hope people will leave her and her family alone now, jesus. as for the whole brouhaha about her manipulated photos, SO WHAT? i mean, people manipulate their photos all the time now to make themselves look good. why should she be any different?
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Yes, I wish people’s criticism about the royal family was for the right reasons (that it’s a part of a violent class system that exploits people) rather than for some weird ass conspiracy theory reasons… Like… WHO CARES!
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A cancer diagnosis really wasn’t on anyone’s list of possible reasons why she disappeared.
Whoever is responsible for getting her to the doctor or the doctors to her seems to have been quite successful in ensuring that there wasn’t any speculation.
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Yes, because our whole entire planet seems hellbent on making everything a conspiracy theory now…
Which, you know… that’s fine. I can understand there being a focus on getting the news out of charles, since he’s like, literally on the throne, but why the need to know about Kate?
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I certainly wish her and her family the best, but being among the most public figures in the “modern monarchy”, attempting to bury such an issue was a very archaic approach to the problem. THAT is what has made it worse. Had she asked the public and the press for discretion without the misinformation and misdirection, I suspect it would have left her still under a spotlight, but in a far more sympathetic position. Her PR people should be sacked.
It was certainly first on my own personal list of explanations. It always made much more sense than most of the reasons people came up with.
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Having been down this path (obviously, with much less attention paid by the media!) I can sympathize with the “how do we break this to the kids” agonizing, and trying to not let it get to them second hand. I feel very badly for what that family is going through, and, of course
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Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the British press?
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How is her health a public issue?
Yes, because high profile women are famously given consideration and their privacy is always respected… /s
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As others have already said I don’t think she owed the public a timely announcement about her personal medical diagnoses. Her body, her business.
I still think the whole concept of a monarchy is anachronistic, classist garbage but I can see why most anyone would want to take some personal time to process a life-changing cancer diagnosis within the privacy of their family before issuing a press release about it.
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What I know about that family only comes from past actions during my lifetime…but it seems like that’s how they approach most problems. After that comes the inevitable fallout because they didn’t react in a way “the public” expected. 
Well, that’s the opposite of keeping something private for as long as possible. Now the news is out, but I’m not going to be less sympathetic because she made a misguided attempt to maintain a bit of privacy and take time to break the news to her children.
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I’m still not convinced that it wasn’t Kate or someone else who just used those new apps that combines the best smiles/faces of a group photo. Anyone who has had more than one kid (or pet) and taken their photo knows how hard it is to get everyone looking their best in one photo.
If one of your family members did that, you would go, “OH, that’s nice.” and put it on your fridge.
It’s a celebrity and everyone is Nancy Drew Hardy Boy Esquire looking for clues in the software defects. 
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The papers that have been screaming loudest for her to reappear in the public life are the ones who claim to love the royal family the most.
Imagine learning that you have cancer, trying to work out how to break the news to your young children and the worst of the media is demanding you speak to them first.
Tomorrow those self same papers will be calling her brave, demanding privacy so she can recover - AND publish columns speculating on the type and severity of her condition, ‘what ifs?’ and placing their columnists at the centre of the story.
It’s utterly grotesque.
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