Princess Kate’s Polarizing Cancer Video Is Future-Proof

Princess Kate’s video update on her cancer and chemotherapy treatment released by Kensington Palace earlier this month may have made critics uncomfortable but featured intimate clips that “will live on for years,” a new episode of Newsweek‘s The Royal Report podcast has heard.

Kate released her three-minute video update on September 9, announcing that she had completed her chemotherapy treatment and is now focused on staying “cancer-free.” To accompany the statement given in voice-over form by the princess, a collection of clips of the royal and her family, shot at the Wales family home in Norfolk, England, in August, were included.

The stylized video did not win the approval of older commentators and tabloid columnists, likening it to a glossy perfume ad and being described as “Hallmark,” “cringy,” and “clichéd.”

In contrast, the video has proven a hit on social media, with Newsweek chief royal correspondent Jack Royston telling Royal Report listeners that it targets a key demographic that the monarchy must win over.

“There’s this whole additional audience of people who will just enjoy all those little moments that people love, separated from the kind of overall original context of Kate’s long message and the long video, and that will live on for years, in my opinion,” Royston said, referencing the touching clips including Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis.

“I’m fully expecting clips of this video to keep popping up on TikTok for years to come…So it’s going to live on in a dissected form that doesn’t have all of that stuff that these Daily Mail columnists have got so angry about.”

“I think that some of these hot takes on it have missed the point and have missed that aspect of it,” he continued.

“Because it’s already been doing very well on TikTok without all of that kind of slightly negative hostile debate, which has been much more present on Twitter…Twitter reacted to Kate’s video in quite a hostile or mocking way despite the fact that she was talking about being treated for cancer.

“TikTok is totally different. TikTok was all just enjoying the little family scenes, and it’s a tale of two social media platforms, but TikTok is by far the bigger one, and it’s by far the more popular with young people and that core audience that the monarchy needs to speak to nowadays.”

Royston suggested that the video is future proof because of its appeal to creators and users on social media platforms who can use isolated clips and moments for alternative content.

“[Young people] are much more on TikTok, whereas it’s the kind of older generation, probably Generation X and millennials, older millennials who are still all over Twitter, and they’re the ones who are actually getting more annoyed about it. Whereas young people don’t care about those things,” he said.

“So I think they’re viewing it through the prism of wanting the video to only possibly be about what it’s supposed to be about. And the way that audiences consume content isn’t like that anymore.

“Videos that appear on social media are no longer only about what they’re supposed to be about. They are whatever fans want to make them about, and the fan content generated out of this video has all been positive towards Kate, and I think that will actually be what endures.”

Newsweek reached out to Kensington Palace via email for comment.

James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek‘s royal reporter, based in London. You can find him on X (formerly Twitter) at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek‘s The Royals Facebook page.

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