It amazes me that no one seems to realize THE KP TITANIC's comms team is running under a new chief. The BIG-yet-subtle shift in focus for Will & Kate's engagements has completely changed. All but one engagement this month was NOT related to Will & Kate's special projects through their foundation.
It's pretty obvious Lee Thompson is no longer around. Anyone spot him with William today?
I wonder if the stupid, monthly rewinds are still going to happen? Or are they going to use those until they announce Lee has departed for another organization? As they roll out Their Crisis Plan?
Where's the Proof of Life for Lee Thompson? LOL!! They're already positioning him as their fall guy, as they should have TWO YEARS AGO after the 2024 Mother's Day Photoshop Disaster!
I was wondering last night if Fleet Street really understood why William and THE KP TITANIC hired a crisis manager (on retainer). As usual, Tom Sykes was dumb enough to open his mouth and start speculating, which proves to me that the entire rota and all of the royal reporters do NOT understand what is going on.
A source is quoted as saying of Meghan: “I think she would come back with him and the children. They love to do stuff as a family whenever they can, and when they do things philanthropically, they often take the kids along privately. I can’t see a reason why he’d come over with the kids without her.”
That is a significant statement. It also goes a long way towards explaining another intriguing story in the Mail on Sunday today: that Prince William has hired an experienced crisis manager, Liza Ravenscroft, as the newest member of his PR team. Ravenscroft, described by a former boss as “bulletproof sunshine”, runs Edelman’s UK crisis and issues team and has a CV built around working “arm in arm with big names facing into the toughest times.”
Kensington Palace has been keen to stress that Ravenscroft will be operating in a “non-crisis” role. However, it seems clear that William can see at least the possibility of a crisis looming, and that crisis is the fallout of Harry regaining his security and effectively re-establishing a court in the UK.
Of course THE KP TITANIC is going to deny that they hired a crisis manager. Duh! To outwardly admit that you've hired a crisis manager tells everyone that you're IN CRISIS! Fucking duh! The last known crisis manager hired by a BRF was Andrew's "communications secretary," Jason Stein, who quit two weeks before Andrew's Newsnight interview.
Sykes is dumb enough to pin this to Harry's non-existent security win. I guess when you can't write about facts and reality, you still have to print pearl-clutching hysteria to your subscribers to keep justifying why they're paying you. Smarter journalists will keep their mouths shut when they don't know what's really going on, which doesn't include Tommy Boy.
When you put all the strands together — speculation about Meghan returning, speculation about the children returning, the absence of any serious attempt by the King’s office to shut down stories that Harry could open the Invictus Games alongside his father, and William’s apparent move to bolster crisis management expertise — it becomes hard to avoid the conclusion that preparations are indeed being made on both sides for Harry getting his security back and setting up a bigger Sussex franchise in the U.K.
Sykes keeps demonstrating that he doesn't understand WHY crisis managers get hired and WHY they differ from regular PR people, which is why he thinks tying this to Harry is his best move.
Let's take a look at the website of an actual crisis manager, Molly McPherson.
Whether you’re facing a social media firestorm, a leadership misstep, or an emerging PR disaster, immediate action is critical.
This is your opportunity to work directly with crisis & reputation strategist Molly McPherson—before the backlash gets worse.
✔ Need a rapid response to a developing situation?
✔ Struggling with media scrutiny or internal reputation concerns?
✔ Looking to refine your crisis messaging before going public?
These one-on-one virtual consulting sessions are designed to give you actionable solutions, expert guidance, and a clear path forward.
Above you see what kinds of situations a well-known, crisis PR manager in the US defines as a public relations "crisis." A social media firestorm, a leadership misstep, and a public relations disaster are the kind of things that she deals with on an every-day basis.
Does the theoretical possibility of Harry getting his UK security back after some weak-ass, manifesting attempts via the Daily Mail really qualify as a future "firestorm"? Or a "PR disaster"? If you think it does because you think it's all "Charles's fault" because he's a "weak" king or whatever bullshit excuse your pearl-clutching brain clings to, then you might be suffering from a very large case of CONFIRMATION BIAS.
What people should be realizing is that crisis PR managers also deal with reputation, and how crises can permanently affect a public figure's public reputation. How is Harry's theoretical & imaginary return of his UK security going to affect Will & Kate's reputations? HOW?! It doesn't, which is why you would never need to hire a crisis manager for it. You should be able to get by with a regular communications team and pr agencies.
But that's not what's happening here.
What's happening is THE KP TITANIC hired the services of a known crisis & risk agency that is associated with King Charles and Queen Camilla. William could have gone with an agency that didn't have staff that was associated with his father. Except he didn't.
And what kind of things does the Edelman Crisis & Risk team do?
Crisis Planning & Preparation
The best time to get ahead of your next crisis is now.
• Integrated crisis planning and simulations
• Societal Issues Navigator
• Stakeholder mapping
• Governance and risk resiliency
• Edelman Trust Management
• Disinformation Shield
• Risk sensing & predictive analytics
• Website preparation & development
• Brand Guardian
Issues & Crisis Response
Working across channels and stakeholders to respond to crises.
• Real-time alerting and reporting
• Crisis and risk intelligence
• Due diligence and impact assessment
• Integrated crisis response
• Social media community management
• Digital content planning and production
• Stakeholder communications
• Employee activism and communication
Reputation recovery
Rebuilding trust in corporations and brands after a crisis.
• Brand Trust diagnostic
• Cultural analysis and mapping
• Relaunch of brand narrative and positioning
• Influencer and advocacy programming
• Newsroom + Digital/Social content strategy
Do you really need to hire a group that does the above IF Harry was getting his security back?
Perhaps certain people need to start grasping that Kate hasn't been officially photographed with her kids without photoshop since her fall '24 perfume ad. (Trooping the Colour photos do not count as they are tied to a specific event of the attendees.) Why is that? Why is that so hard for the Will & Kate CULT to grasp? And why does that tie into the 2024 Mother's Day Photoshop Disaster? And Kate's bullshit "cancer" story? And other things that preceded such as Will & Kate's car ride with Andrew at Balmoral in late August 2023.
Some people really need to start thinking about all the holes in the stories coming out of THE KP TITANIC for the last thirty to thirty-three months, and Tommy Sykes clearly ain't going to do it.
Not my favorite subreddit, but those of us who work or have worked in medicine can always see all the holes in the "cancer" story THE KP TITANIC has put out for the last 18+ months.
People want to pretend that Kate, William, and the incompetent comms team at THE KP TITANIC would never lie, but it's so obvious that they have been since 16 January 2024.
Released a statement saying Kate had "planned abdominal surgery" the day before; however, if it really was "planned" then why didn't you just release a statement after surgery was over?
Kate not pictured leaving The London Clinic, which fueled more speculation over why she was there. Omitting a very basic photo op primed the public for the pr disasters that came later.
William picking a public pissing match with the British Army demonstrates what a DUMPSTER FIRE the behind-the-scenes situation is in their WORK office.
The World's Most Famous Mother's Day photo disaster demonstrated that Kate wasn't interested in THE KP TITANIC's pr games even though some intern wrote a message on twitter with her initial ("C") at the end.
Then THE KP TITANIC got Kate to sit on a bench and play semantic games via word choices such as "preventative chemotherapy" to get the world to stop laughing at them, post-Mother's Day photo disaster. Kate probably only agreed to do it because she was planning on noping out from public duties permanently at that moment. It's a perfect example of all the short-term thinking that got them into this mess back in the summer of 2023.
Meanwhile, William and THE KP TITANIC decided to double-, triple-, and quadruple-down on the short-term thinking and stupidity, which is where we get Kate waxing poetic about her "port" to an actual cancer patient at The Royal Marsden in January 2025. Kate was probably only doing what THE KP TITANIC's comms team told her to do because they noticed all the chatter online since her March '24 Bench video. Except, when you don't have cancer and didn't go through actual chemo, lying about having a port on camera doesn't make the problem better. It makes it WORSE!
Such is the stupidity of THE KP TITANIC's comms team. Attempting to react to the chatter online, they attempted to release articles combating my referring to Kate as The UK's Marie Antoinette, tried to say Kate wasn't all about clothes, stopped using handbags, tried having Kate wear drab, funeral wear to most of her spring public engagements.
But it doesn't matter because either they started to realize their goose is cooked or Kate did, which is why she started smoking heavily again this past spring and clearly hasn't stopped. This is why she's so thin. She has a high metabolism as an ectomorph, and now she's been heavily smoking--which decreases the appetite--to manage her stress. Her skin shows that she's been smoking a lot. Her skin was a LOT better back in January at The Royal Marsden. This is also why Kate started back up with the handbags and new clothes. She knows that it really isn't going to make a difference with the public given the news that is going to hit in the coming weeks.
And for all that I've written about Kate, the real problem always has been and still is WILLIAM. He is unquestionably the cause of ALL of these short-sighted and stupid problems, but that is a story for another day...
It is understood the King Charles III is in the process of sending royal warrants to the Lord Chancellor to secure title removals for the Dukedom of York, Prince and 'Royal Highness' from Andrew. His brother is said to have not objected.
Gotta pay attention to the small print!
Parliament doesn't have to pass a law. King Charles & his courtiers found a different pathway through the House of Lords to just remove Andrew's peerage titles from the peerage rolls.
Andrew was just the test case, which no one seems to realize. Test to see how much public reaction, how much anger, how far the actions need to go, etc., once the initial announcement was made on the evening of 17 October 2025.
And it was wrapped up in two weeks.
Because that letters patent is still coming.
We're going to be seeing this process used for William's Prince of Wales title soon too.
Will Charles send a royal warrant to the Lord Chancellor to remove William's Prince of Wales title?
No.
YES!
I don't know.
Not this year (2025) but early next year (2026).
Kate didn't get DEMOTED to Companions of Honour order for nothing!
But parliament will REMOVE Kate's ability to be QUEEN too!
As someone who works in PR I am ASTONISHED at how bad Kensington Palace is at all of this. It’s the most interesting part of the whole thing for me. Well that, and how much it seemingly vindicates H&M and Harry in particular in what he’s said about the firm and the media’s role in protecting the Heir at all costs.
Yeah I work in PR for a public company and anytime we want to put something out we have to run it up the chain - we need legal and Investor relations and executive approvals.
Even if KP and BP had their individual PR teams, which makes sense, there should still be one main central PR office that everyone answers to that manages the entire royal families PR, makes sure schedules and press opportunities and STRATEGY AND MESSAGING all aligns, before running up the chain for final approvals. There’d be a social team and a crisis team and government relations team and a branding team and a general “talent rep” kind of team, all working in tandem to serve the overall strategy for the royal family.
The fact that there are so many cooks in so many different kitchens is why the royal family has had so many PR disasters honestly for decades now. They’re truly doing it all wrong. So many Worst Practices here, not Best Practices.
It really doesn't seem like there is an overall PR team. Just the separate entities
Yeah and that’s the problem IMO. They are a business that should be run like a business. They should have the individual departments I suggested, and even more, working in tandem.
The fact that there are so many separate entities with different agendas and priorities is a huge part of their problem IMO.
But Charles has been transparent for the most part!! And photographed repeatedly. It’s so bizarre when compared to KP, and feels passive aggressive to me to be honest lolol.
They’re really so so so bad at this 😭😭😭😭 but the British public and the media lets them get away with it 🙃🙃🙃
For heaven’s sake. If she’s recovering nicely, why resort to recycling old photos?
Other sources are making a pretty good case for the fact that it’s a November photo, taken after Catherine and the children visited the baby bank.
Does nobody, and I mean nobody, know how to do PR in that place anymore? Now it's pin all of this on just-recovering-from-abdominal-surgery Kate? Why not on William since they were so proud about how he was the one that took the photo? Somehow they keep making everything ten times worse.
I’m sorry, but I don’t believe for a second that Kate personally edited that photo together in such a way that it had to be killed as inauthentic. The pulling of the photo is likely more about the refusal to provide metadata or the raw image for proof rather than silly Photoshop choices. That isn’t an issue of “mummy going wild on the computer,” it’s a larger organizational issue about trust, transparency, and KP’s overall poor approach to news orgs and the press lately.
Why is Kate taking the fall? Why is William such a lout to let an ill Kate put this on her own shoulders rather than admit KP made an error or say KP is going to reevaluate their practices and make a change?
Are college interns running Palace p.r.? Because I cannot understand how they're botching this so badly. If Kate couldn't/wouldn't pose for a legit photo, then just don't release anything. The Royals are basically dumping tankers of gas on the inferno by playing all these games.
Sorry, am I going insane? After saying they wouldn’t respond to these conspiracy theories, they
a) responded by putting out a doctored image,
b) responded to the backlash of doctored image by claiming the woman recovering from a medical issue was playing around in Photoshop, and
c) responded to the backlash of editing claims by putting out an image where the person in the photo is supposed to be Kate but could LITERALLY BE ANYBODY.
NONE OF YOU ARE FINDING THIS WEIRD? NONE?!
"Kate's Back"
Well, it is indeed a picture of Kate's back
Apparently the main symptom of her mysterious medical condition is that any photo with her in it immediately becomes grainy, blurry, or with people's wrists trying to escape into a fifth dimension.
Good Lord, I haven't followed a disaster story this closely since Oceangate Titan and this one may be even worse. The narrative is out of control and the rules have gone out the window.
They already lost control of the narrative at this point. No matter what they do now, they will be scrutinized more than they've ever been before. And they seem grossly unprepared for it.
She’s not even facing camera, how is this supposed to help? This just feeds the conspiracy theorists! headdesk
It's becoming a PR nightmare that only Olivia Pope can rescue.
Maybe the better question is that people are concerned about Kate's welfare, and most WERE okay with waiting under the timeline KP initially offered that is she will likely return by or after Easter.
However KP has mismanaged the messaging, and with that concern grows over how weird some of the updates are. The article explains why this medical time out is turning into an absolute PR crisis. It isn't so much about Kates right to medical privacy (she definitely deserves that )
It now is about institutional reliability, the heir William's arguably erratic or unusual behavior or his courtiers' comments, the mess with the all kill photoshopped/Frankensteined photo (which has never happened before with a palace released photo), the very different approaches from BP vs KP, etc etc. It's become bigger than Kate sad to say.
And ultimately now people are worried for her, in a way they wouldn't have been, because things have become so irregular and bungled. So the urgency to make sure she is safe and okay has become louder and more insistent.
“CNN is now reviewing all handout photos previously provided by Kensington Palace.”
“In editorial photography, photojournalists and editors commonly adjust a photograph’s exposure or color balance in order to more accurately reflect the scene. Most news organizations, including CNN, regard it as unacceptable to move, change or manipulate the pixels of an image. To do so would alter the reality of the situation the image is intended to document.”
“In the past, the family’s amateur photographs have been well received when posted on social media. But on this occasion, this photo was also released to media organizations as a handout and the palace wasn’t transparent about the fact it had been adjusted.
That will have damaged the trust between the palace and media organizations – many of which, like CNN, will likely be assessing all royal handouts. The editing storm has undermined the existing relationship and when public interest over any possible cover up escalates, as it has done recently, many news outlets will now have take that speculation more seriously.”
The image of a smiling Catherine, Princess of Wales, flanked by her three children, should have put a stop to the explosion of speculation o
I saw on reddit (forgot to take screenshot) that there are rumours of Cathy is selling her old clothes/jewelry for money or loan them out to her mother/sister. I wonder whether you have heard of this? It made notice that at the Knights Garter Ceremony she was re-wearing the dress, heels and pearl earrings and necklace from VE day event a month ago. She also seemed to be wearing the same Bahrain pearl drop earrings over and over again. Then, there is the big blue which is only to be seen on “approved” occasions, as you have pointed out in this blog. Thoughts??
I think those people on reddit are just trying to rationalize the very obvious change in how Kate has been dressing in public for the first six months of the year. BIG BLUE seems to be a slightly different issue as Kate tried to go without wearing it, but too many articles got published about its absence. Hence, she's worn it in most of her last five outings.
Rewind to the beginning of the year, Kate had a new (previously unseen) handbag in late January when she went shopping. She had no problem getting papped with an expensive handbag. She still has plenty of expensive stuff that we've never seen.
Kate decided to change the way she was going to dress in public after people like me started to refer to her as The UK's Marie Antoinette. I started that on Kate's 43rd birthday after all the insipid articles tiptoeing around Kate's reclusiveness. Then cue all the other people online who make snarky comments about Kate when it's not a designated hater zone.
Kate did her first public appearance on 14 January, with a new handbag and a bespoke blazer. She then dressed like the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts on 04 February and avoided having a new handbag.
Then on 07 February, Jan Moir of the Daily Mail tried to pin the "Marie Antoinette" label on Meghan. I have NO DOUBT that the headline for that column was inspired by me referring to Kate as THE UK'S MARIE ANTOINETTE multiple times in the previous weeks. Plus an article in the Daily Mail regarding Kate "get[ting] value for money from her wardrobe" on 08 February. That was also clapback about Kate's alleged frugality around clothes and accessories.
Then we had Kate repeating that bespoke blazer from 14 January a few weeks later on 11 February. That happened around the same time that KP was telling the press that they will no longer release Kate's outfit details.
Yeah, the Kensington Palace comms team--and whatever PR agency or agencies they contract out with--reads my blog and probably a bunch of other blogs & forums to measure what it is they're up against in the realm of public opinion. (That pinned post at the top of my blog isn't the deterrent for the KP comms team that so many people like to think it is.)
I started suspecting "they" read my blog back in January, when Kate was making lovey dovey comments about "her port" to a person actually getting a chemo infusion at The Royal Marsden. I harped on about Kate's port placement a couple of times last year, which is why the "cancer" timeline that came out of Kensington Palace last March has never made sense.
So guess what? Kate rewearing a bunch of her old clothes is a PR strategy. THE KP TITANIC knows the shit is going to hit the fan and when it does they need to have mitigated Kate's reputation to reduce the flames as much as they can. Having Kate wear the same ensemble to the 80th VE Day concert and the Order of the Garter ceremony is part of the plan.
Mitigation.
They're not getting ahead of their bad facts publicly. They're waiting for it to hit first. But before those bad facts come to light, they're trying to reduce all of their potential PR problems in advance. It's a similar plan with William and all their constant reminding people via multiple outlets that William is going to be the bestest king EVAH! The clothing-repeats strategy isn't as off-putting as William's all-talk-no-action fantasy of being the bestest king EVAH!
The people on reddit don't know or understand that THE KP TITANIC and Will & Kate have been prepping for their Hindenburg-level, public relations disaster for months. Jason Knauf's interview on 60 Minutes Australia didn't schedule itself!
Oh, and for THE KP TITANIC's comms team and whatever PR agencies they've hired to read through my blog? I have some words for you:
Lol, how many more stupid decisions Lee will need to take in order to be fired by W? Kp will never take the leaking accusations away by ‘ok-eying’ former staff taking about how Great W is, what kind of amazing king he is destined to be. And this is definitely approved by Lee and William, people who think otherwise are fools.
Last week they were basically confirming that they are behind many articles by admitting that Lee went to the press behind K’s back to say the stuff about Kate’s clothes, now this.
I came with the the conclusion that because W doesn’t have any work ethic, zero projects that are actually helping UK people (not his environmental stuff who isn’t helping the average Joe not his empty promises to end homelessness), zero talents, etc…. The only thing his PR has to ‘sell’ him is as the ‘most down to the earth guy, who will have lots of connection with people’ (so down to the earth that he is in second vacation and so willing to create connection with people by doing 150 engagements and only connected with environment and mental health other people with other interests aren’t on his agenda to create connections with them). Also, I don’t know who was the one that one day said that W just wanted to see ‘change’ for the sake to feel himself useful even if that means that he is clueless or is a bad decision, but Knauf’s words (which are agreed by KP) confirmed that, he wants to reinvent the wheel, just because he feels the people out there are different and are demanding it, and because his ancestors changed things too 🤡
Just HOW BAD are things behind closed doors at KP when the comms team reaches out to do a puff piece for 60 Minutes Australia?
Is William even preparing? Are they going to address that he does not do the basics of his job, and other people much older than him have to pick up the slack? William could have gone to the Dresden 80th, but instead he chose to fly off to Mustique the day before, leaving the NINETY-YEAR-OLD Duke of Kent to do the job.
I can't wait to see how they sidestep how William hasn't done a major funeral yet, even though opportunities such as Jimmy Carter's funeral were available. I'm sure KP comms team worked to keep that tidbit out of the puff piece.
"What you see is what you get." ~ Jason Knauf
Oh, really? That sounds like a famous last words statement if I've ever heard one. Jason wouldn't need to be sitting down for an interview like this for his boss if William wasn't hiding something from the public. There is literally no need for a puff piece to remind everyone that William is going to be king one day. Everyone already knows that. Unless... Unless peeps at KP are worried something might happen to jeopardize William's place in the line of succession.
"It's very difficult to have this stuff play out in the public eye." ~ Jason Knauf
Yes, and what is IT that you're worried about being "play[ed] out in the public eye." Shouldn't this piece be about how Kate has recovered, and how Will & Kate are going to be doing more as royals? You know, do their actual jobs?! Interesting how this preview is centered around reminding people that William is going to be king. What kind of "stuff" is KP worried about being "play[ed] out in the public eye?"
And then there's the obligatory "what about Harry?" card. Well, Harry's going to be initiating a divorce this year/spring, so he's going to be coming back home to the UK, regardless of whether people like it or not.
But, yes, this is 1,000,000% KP-sponsored, puff piece. All royal employees have signed NDAs for their employment. NDAs do not have magic expiration dates. We learned that when Valentine Low was writing about the blistering effect Harry's current wife had on the people who worked for her. For Jason to be speaking on camera like this means that he is doing so solely at the behest of Kensington Palace.
And let's not forget that Jason Knauf is still indirectly employed by Kensington Palace. Jason is an active director for The Earthshot Prize. Can't wait to see if they mention Jason is still in the employment of KP or describe him solely as a "former employee."
So what is it that has the Kensington Palace comms team so spooked that they're arranging puff pieces to ensure William will remain the heir to the throne? Is "it" the proper pronoun? I suspect "it" is not.
No wonder KP comms team keeps looking at my blog. (Allegedly) They're not going to get any decent ideas on how to prepare for their upcoming scandal by looking at the Wales fandom's constant, fantasyland hagiographies. I told you guys to get new jobs while you still could. Sucks to be you!
Is it still six more weeks of winter or are we down to four weeks yet? Asking for a friend...
