Attacking

The pro-royal community certainly wants to have it both ways. They want to crow about how the Princess of Wales’s new hair “broke the internet” and became one of the big pop culture stories of the week. They also want to pretend that everyone is “attacking” a poor innocent 43-year-old child who has never done one cruel or racist thing in her life! For the record, I AM concerned, just not in an “infantilizing Kate” way. I’m concerned about Kate because I think she’s been in a frightful state for the past two years and it really doesn’t look like her family is helping her or caring for her whatsoever. I’m concerned because even with a half-dozen luxury vacations this year, Kate looks like she hasn’t gotten a decent night’s sleep in months. I’m concerned because the people around Kate let her step outside yesterday with that bronde/caramel doll wig perched on her head and no one helped her. Well, Princess Diana’s former hairstylist said words about all of the “nasty comments” about Kate’s hair.

Princess Diana’s former hairstylist is weighing in on Kate Middleton’s headline-making new look. After hints of a hair transformation during a brief appearance in August, Thursday’s outing confirmed that the Princess of Wales is now sporting lengthy, highlighted tresses — her blondest and longest style ever. The change prompted a wide range of commentary online, including from hairstylist-to-the-stars Sam McKnight, who served as Princess Diana’s personal hairstylist from 1990 until her tragic death in 1997.

In a strongly-worded post on Instagram, McKnight called out anyone criticizing Kate’s look.

“I am shocked, horrified, dismayed and disgusted by all the nasty comments about the Princess of Wales today,” he wrote. “A woman’s hair is very personal to her, it’s armour, defence, confidence and so much more. I cannot believe how evil and lacking in any kind of empathy are the comments, the majority made apparently by other women, attacking a vulnerable other young woman, who has no choice, by dint of who she married, and the role she took on, to bravely face the public,” McKnight continued.

McKnight also referenced Princess Kate’s cancer treatment and recovery in his message.

“I’m sure she would rather be away from the public arena. She has brilliantly and quietly, unselfishly represented our country, the soft power we still have as a nation. Cancer affects individuals differently, but is life-changing for everyone. So FFS LEAVE HER ALONE. SHAME ON YOU,” he wrote.

[From People]

Again, they want it both ways – “Kate broke the internet/she’s our perfect popular princess/she gets all of this attention for just stepping outside” AND they want to react this way when people notice that Kate rocked up to an event with a really cheap-looking hairpiece. By talking about Kate’s hair (and it is HER hair, she paid for it), we’re actually having a larger conversation about how the royal institution chews up and destroys women. We’re having a larger conversation about what fourteen years in the institution has done to Kate’s physical and mental health. I’m honestly getting a real sense of deja vu to the fall of 2023. I genuinely hope we’re not on the verge of another months-long disappearance.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.