How Kate Middleton Learned from Princess Diana's Mistakes

Yahoo

16-05-2025

Kate Middleton is learning from the mistakes her late mother-in-law Princess Diana made—specifically with the press—and attempting to improve her royal experience in the process.
Unlike the late Princess of Wales—who used to communicate with the media frequently—Kate's approach to the press is more tightly controlled.
It's also significant, author Edward White shared, that Kate didn't marry Prince William until she was nearly 30 years old; Diana, meanwhile, was barely 20 when she married Prince Charles.In so many ways, this generation of royals is taking lessons learned from the generation prior and improving the overall royal experience.
This is perhaps most notably happening in the raising of royal children, but Kate Middleton is also learning from the mistakes of royals who have gone before her in other ways, too. When it comes to her late mother-in-law Princess Diana, for example, Kate handles dealing with the press differently to forge a better way forward for herself, a new book claims.
In Edward White's new book Dianaworld: An Obsession—which hit shelves April 29—the author unpacks why Diana's celebrity seemed to eclipse that of any other, including pop stars, movie stars, and basically every other royal ever. The current Princess of Wales (Kate) has learned amply from the former Princess of Wales (Diana)—especially in how Diana dealt with media attention, including the paparazzi who chased her down until her final moments in Paris. In one regard, though, it seems Kate is actually harkening back to the past, pre-Diana's entrance into the fold when she married Prince Charles in 1981.
'Kate Middleton is much more reminiscent of the older generation of royal figures in the way that she comports herself,' White told Fox News (via Marie Claire). As opposed to Diana—who had just turned 20 years old the same month she married Charles—Kate was 'almost 30 when she married William, and that was deliberate from both sides. The big lesson that she probably learned from Diana's life is don't rush into becoming a royal.'
For context, Diana was barely in her 20s and had only spent time with Charles a handful of times—and even less just the two of them alone—when they married. Kate was 29 when she married Prince William and had already known him for nearly a decade, first as friends, then as roommates, and then as a couple. Unlike Kate, the former Lady Diana Spencer 'didn't know what she was getting herself into' when she married Charles, White said.
'She was so young and very, very sheltered when she entered the royal family,' he said.
As for how each handles the ever-present press, Diana and Kate have employed very different tactics. The controversial media figure Piers Morgan—who worked with Diana in the 1990s—recently appeared on the 'Him & Her Show' podcast and said that 'Diana worked the media exactly the same way the media worked Diana.'
'I used to have lunch with Diana,' Morgan said. 'I used to talk to her on the phone quite regularly,' adding that he 'used to send her stories that we were going to run and she would edit them and fax them back.'
Kate, though, tends to follow more in Queen Elizabeth's footsteps when dealing with the media. The future queen doesn't give a lot of interviews—nor did the late Queen—and Kate prefers to use social media to deliver her own messages rather than depend on media outlets to handle that task. Queen Elizabeth and Kate's method of dealing with the press is more tightly controlled than Diana's, which could—and very often did—go off the rails from time to time.
'Diana dealt with the press scrutiny in the way that she felt that she could, and in the way that she felt she had to,' White said. 'I don't think anybody was advising her to behave the way that she did with them.' Kate, on the other hand, 'handles the press scrutiny really well' but she 'had to switch herself off and only focus on duty.'
For Kate, 'the best way of dealing with the scrutiny is by giving [the media] nothing. By stepping through the hoops of shaking hands, cutting ribbons, and smiling, being dutiful and not being too big for your boots. Those are all the things that the monarchy is built on.'
'Diana's life is more reminiscent to me of a pop star's life,' White added. 'Someone once said, 'If you don't know who you are before you're famous, then fame is the thing that you become. It is the thing that will define who you are.' I think that's what happened to Diana, at least for many years.'
Read the original article on InStyle