Photos of the Princess of Wales attending Rememberance Sunday events last weekend are receiving harsh commentary from trolls.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”credit-name” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Black Han Sans|||on|||||” text_text_color=”#000000″ header_4_font=”|||on|||||” header_4_text_align=”center” text_orientation=”center” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]
Words by Georgia Aspinall<\/strong><\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2024\/11\/imago778484355-scaled.jpg” alt=”Kate Middleton” title_text=”. 10\/11\/2024. London, United Kingdom. Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales and Sophie ,at the Remembrance Sunday servic” force_fullwidth=”on” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”] The Princess of Wales continued her steady return to royal duties last weekend, attending the Remembrance Sunday service at The Cenotaph in London and the Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall. Kate stood alongside the Duchess of Edinburgh to watch the wreath-laying ceremony from the balcony of the Foreign Office.<\/p>\n Wearing her Catherine Walker military-inspired midi coat, Kate also sported diamond and pearl drop earrings that belonged to the late Queen Elizabeth, as well as her silver Queen’s Dragoon Guards brooch in a nod to her role as the regiment’s Colonel-in-Chief. She also wore three poppies, which she does every year in honour of\u00a0her great-grandmother’s three brothers, who all died in the First World War.<\/p>\n It was a marked occasion not just because of the sombreness of the event, but also as one of very few public appearances Kate has made this year following her cancer diagnosis. Kate completed chemotherapy treatment in September and made her first step back into royal duties last month when she accompanied William to visit the families of victims of the Southport stabbing.<\/p>\n It comes as no surprise then that all eyes were on the Princess of Wales when she\u00a0stepped out\u00a0last weekend \u2013 but\u00a0some of the public\u00a0critiques of how she looked have been shocking. When pictures of Kate began filtering through on social media, a cruel commentary emerged with trolls picking apart her appearance.<\/p>\n \u2018Is this the same Kate Middleton who was a breath of fresh air to the #RF not long ago? She looks so unhappy and seems to have aged 40 years in as many months,\u2019 one person wrote on X. \u2018Mother of earth, what the hell happened to Kate?\u2019 another said. \u2018The poor woman is not even 50 yet & looks like she’s going on 60. She’s going through some stuff in that family [and] it’s showing on her face.\u2019<\/p>\n British\u00a0TV presenter Narinder Kaur\u00a0commented on X:\u00a0\u2018Genuine question \u2013 why has Kate aged so much? Isn’t she only 42? Is she a smoker? It’s the only explanation.\u2019 The presenter, who regularly appears on Good Morning Britain and Loose Women, was then subject to intense backlash from those defending Kate, calling her remarks \u2018dreadful\u2019 and \u2018disgusting\u2019.<\/p>\n <\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”custom-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_font=”Libre Bodoni|||on|||||” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#333333″ header_2_font_size=”40px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”] Kaur has since apologised, posting a video saying, \u2018I put out a stupid tweet, my intention was not to be malicious or nasty\u2026 it was stupid to ask about the ageing, I put my hands up and apologise if it caused offence.\u2019<\/p>\n Of course, Kaur was just one of many commenting on Kate\u2019s appearance \u2013 find any Instagram post with pictures of the Princess from the weekend and you\u2019ll see countless others\u00a0leaving disparaging remarks. In fact,\u00a0even\u00a0on Google Trends it shows that there has been a spike in searches for \u2018Kate Middleton looks tired\u2019, \u2018Kate Middleton ageing\u2019 and \u2018Kate Middleton looks old\u2019.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a painfully common reaction to any woman in the public eye that doesn\u2019t have the skin of a\u00a0nine-month-old baby. Apparently, we\u2019re so used to seeing photoshopped, filtered and tweakment-filled faces that anyone who dares to develop even the slightest wrinkle, dark circles or\u00a0just doesn\u2019t get a great night\u2019s sleep before a photo opp, is subject to intense\u00a0scrutiny.<\/p>\n What makes this even more depressing is the fact that the public are all very aware of Kate\u2019s health issues this year. Trolling any 42-year-old woman for supposedly looking \u2018old\u2019\u00a0(which, by the way, she doesn\u2019t at all)\u00a0is one thing, but when that woman has spent a year battling cancer?\u00a0Jesus wept;\u00a0we have truly descended into another realm of cruelty.<\/p>\n Had Kate appeared on that balcony with pristinely taut skin and a youthful glow, the same people would probably be firing off conspiracies about how she secretly underwent surgery during her time out of the public eye. There are, in fact, breakout searches on Google Trends for \u2018Kate Middleton plastic surgery\u2019.<\/p>\n All\u00a0of this comes after Prince William described 2024 as the \u2018hardest year\u2019 of his life, saying that Kate\u2019s cancer diagnosis \u2013 and his father\u2019s \u2013 was understandably dreadful for the family. \u00a0\u2018Trying to get through everything else and keep everything on track has been really difficult,\u2019 he told reporters during his recent visit to South Africa. \u2018I\u2019m so proud of my wife, I\u2019m proud of my father, for handling the things that they have done. But from a personal family point of view, it\u2019s been, yeah, it\u2019s been brutal.\u2019<\/p>\n Can we not put our\u00a0archaic beauty standards to rest for one measly second then, and give the Princess of Wales a break from the constant trolling\u00a0of\u00a0her appearance? It might be that, for people who do comment these things online, they don\u2019t expect Kate will ever see them, but\u00a0even if she doesn\u2019t: we do. When women at large are scrolling social media and see the comment section of any beautiful woman being trolled for having eye bags or fine lines, it\u00a0further roots into our\u00a0psyches\u00a0that visibly ageing makes you somehow less valuable or worthy.<\/p>\n Fighting against beauty standards doesn\u2019t just come in sharing meaningful quotes online or posting ourselves without makeup, it also comes in uplifting other women for however they look at any age.\u00a0It\u00a0comes in challenging the opinions of others online who perpetuate ludicrous standards, or just simply keeping your mouth shut when that inner voice of internalised misogyny pops up and makes you think \u2018She looks a bit rough, doesn\u2019t she?\u2019<\/p>\n Because that\u2019s the thing, we\u2019re all fighting the same fight here and no one is expected to have absolutely absolved their brain from any\u00a0unkind thoughts\u00a0\u2013 the perpetuation of the male gaze is, unfortunately, a powerful beast. But what we can do is note those moments we think something that is probably body-shaming or age-shaming or any-other-shaming-that\u2019s-mostly-done-to-women, and clock ourselves before we say it out loud, or online. Not least because it will protect others from unnecessary cruelty, but ultimately yourself too.<\/p>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#111111″ divider_position=”center” divider_weight=”2px” module_class=”custom-divider” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”0px||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”0px||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_text module_class=”credit-texts” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|||on|||||” text_orientation=”center” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”] Photo: <\/b>IMAGO<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kate Middleton has been subject to harsh commentary since returning to royal duty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":4706,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature"],"acf":[],"modified_by":"akindell","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4703"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4711,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4703\/revisions\/4711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Kaur was one of many commenting on kate’s appearance over the weekend<\/h2>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]