There is no explanation as to why society has such an insatiable curiosity about the House of Windsor royal family, but they do. From the historical 70-year reign of Queen Elizabeth II to Prince Harry’s abdication of the throne, it seems as if society cannot get enough of the royal family. The most recent news-making headline in regard to the family is about none other than the Princess of Wales, Catherine (Kate) Middleton. The million-dollar question regarding the princess is…where is she?

Kate Middleton was last seen in December of 2023 as she walked alongside other members of the royal family during their Christmas Day church service in Sandringham. Not too long after, in January of 2024, Kensington Palace announced that Kate had undergone a “planned abdominal surgery” and announced that Kate would likely not return to public duties until after Easter. Kate’s husband, Prince William, also took a brief break from royal duties to be with Kate while she recovered, but he resumed royal duties shortly after.

Immediately, the public was very skeptical about the entire situation. People were questioning what surgery requires three months of recovery and if surgery was the real reason why Kate would not be seen for a while. After this, the conspiracies continued to keep flooding in.

After not being seen for two months, Kate was spotted for the first time sitting in the passenger seat of a car, wearing sunglasses, beside her mother. The general media came together in agreement that that was not Kate Middleton. People were denying that it was her based on the fact that the pictures of her were blurry and taken from a distance by the paparazzi. People also thought it was suspicious that Kate was wearing sunglasses. To add to the speculation, Kate shared a photo of herself and her children on Instagram while celebrating Mother’s Day in the U.K. It wasn’t long before people noticed that some things were off with the photo, including some editing around Princess Charlotte’s sweater and the questionable position of Prince Louis’ hand. Then the question arose – if there was nothing wrong with Kate, why would there be a need to release an obviously fake photo of her?

Amid speculation of the Mother’s Day photo, Kate took to X, stating, “Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing. I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused.” People did not buy this explanation and went as far as to call it “Messy PR” from the palace.

Kate was again publically spotted on March 18th with Prince William as they exited a shop. The public was not satisfied with this and claimed that that wasn’t actually Kate and that it was a body double of hers.

There are many conspiracies circling around Kate. A lot of people presume that she is divorcing Prince William amid infidelity rumors with British model Sarah Rose Hanbury. Some people’s conspiracies even stretch as far as assuming that Kate has died, and the palace is delaying the release of the news for whatever reasons. However, maybe Princess Kate really just needs extra time to recover from surgery. Hopefully, the world will get their answers after Easter!