Somehow, Kim Kardashian always seems to find a way to make horrendously questionable decisions.
From permanently altering a precious Marilyn Monroe ball gown at the Met Gala to promoting the controversy-plagued Balenciaga, it seems as though every other day she is in the news defending herself after yet another sticky situation. While some argue that she is not one to throw ethics out the door for financial gain and attention, it was one of her recent Instagram captions that demonstrated yet another one of the reality TV show stars seemingly inevitable “slip-ups.”
The caption read: “On my way to go find Kate.”
Referencing English monarch Catherine “Kate” Middleton, The Princess of Wales, the caption seemed like an innocent jest at theories of Kate’s recent unexplained disappearance from the news. But in less than a few days, the gravity of Kardashian’s post was suddenly put into perspective.
On March 22, Kate released a video on YouTube entitled “A message from Catherine, The Princess of Wales,” in which she reveals the reason for her quiet step away from the spotlight over the course of the past few months: behind the scenes, she was undergoing preventative chemotherapy for her shocking cancer diagnosis.
In the video, Kate states that her request for privacy was not one of scandal, but simply to protect her and her young family from the media in such a dire time. At the same time, she states that she has been in recovery for the last few months, once again cementing the fact that her recent silence on the topic of her disappearance from online was purely because of the time she needed, and will need going forward, to heal.
But, like Kardashian in her yet-to-be-deleted post, the media did what it has time and time again proved to be best at: drum up conspiracy.
Almost immediately after the video was released, fervent internet users took to Twitter to—most disrespectfully—argue their doubts about her diagnosis. With some posting analysis videos of the announcement to pick apart what seemed suspicious to them, Kate’s efforts to clear the conspiracy surrounding her name did nothing but double the number of those who were already tentative about believing the true reason for her leave of absence. The most common claim was that her video announcement was an AI deep fake video, or an AI-generated video, used to “cover-up” the legitimate reason for her vanishing.
Sloppily providing a sea of evidence for their case, the astonishing remarks made by those posting their irresolute theories online are staggeringly insensitive. One YouTube user pointed out that Kate is wearing a ring in one clip, but then the ring disappears in the next shot. Another claimed that because Kate was wearing the same shirt she wore in a previous video from a year prior, it had to be proof that the announcement of her cancer was all an elaborate scheme. Some online also brought about the notion that the Princess looked older than she had in previous years, arguing that possibly the woman in the video was not even the real Kate, but a body double.
These outlandish conspiracies do not build a support system for the sick mother, monarch, and social figure.
They trivialize her illness, disrespect the privacy of her and her family, and add salt to the wound that is her diagnosis.
With such allegations going against exactly what the Princess very reasonably requested amidst her diagnosis—time and peace to heal—, it evidently shows just how unsympathetic the media can be in order to create a spectacle, exhibiting no empathy or respect for someone who is battling cancer. Even in the case that the video is, in fact, engineered or generated by technology, it is perfectly understandable that someone fighting off such a weighty and significant illness would not want to sit down to film a public service announcement but rather rest and recover.
Needless to say, the media’s utter disregard for Kate’s privacy amidst such a formidable turn of events is yet another demonstration of the extreme lengths that will be reached for the sake of publicity and attention. Rather than wishing the monarch well during her chemotherapy treatments, the internet has once again found a way to turn a sincere subject into a way to stir up drama and earn financial gain.
