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Kensington Palace issues rare statement after story about 'exhausted and trapped' Kate Middleton is published

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Kate Middleton (Photo: Getty Images)
Kate Middleton (Photo: Getty Images)

  • Kensington Palace is addressing the "inaccuracies" in a recent article written by Tatler titled Catherine The Great.
  • The article makes claims that Kate Middleton has been feeling "exhausted and trapped" recently.
  • "This story contains a swathe of inaccuracies and false misrepresentations," a spokesperson for the royals said.


Kensington Palace rarely feeds into media scrutiny of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, but they responded on Wednesday to a story published claiming Kate Middleton has been "exhausted" since Harry and Meghan's exit from the royal firm.

"This story contains a swathe of inaccuracies and false misrepresentations which were not put to Kensington Palace prior to publication," Kensington Palace said of Tatler's July/August cover story titled Catherine the Great.

Tatler defended their story saying: "Tatler's Editor-in-Chief Richard Dennen stands behind the reporting of Anna Pasternak and her sources. Kensington Palace knew we were running the 'Catherine the Great' cover months ago and we asked them to work together on it. The fact they are denying they ever knew is categorically false."

In the story, Tatler claims that following Harry and Meghan's move, Kate has had to take on many more royal engagements – "It was a gruelling attempt to buffer the barrage of bad news destabilising the House of Windsor on a near-daily basis," Anna Pasternak writes.

"As a good friend of hers points out, 'Kate knows what the country needs and wants. Championing how to raise your children is perfect.' Yet, privately, said another friend, 'Kate is furious about the larger workload. Of course she's smiling and dressing appropriately but she doesn't want this. She feels exhausted and trapped. She's working as hard as a top CEO, who has to be wheeled out all the time, without the benefits of boundaries and plenty of holidays.'

"Some say that beneath the yummy-mummy exterior is a spine of steel; that, in many ways, she's reminiscent of the late Queen Mother, whom Cecil Beaton described as 'a marshmallow made on a welding machine'. Because surviving, let alone thriving, in the House of Windsor is no mean feat."

According to People, a royal source confirmed there is no truth to the story while another told Harper's Bazaar Kensington Palace had no knowledge of the article at all until this week. 

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