‘Boring’ Prince William and Princess Kate Urged to Take a 'Leaf Out of Harry’s Book'
Critics say the royal couple’s polished but predictable public image has tipped from steady to sleepy.
For years, Prince William and Kate Middleton have had the luxury of moving safely through their royal roles. With little competition, their calm and dependable style was enough to keep critics at bay. But with Prince Harry back in the UK last week, cracking jokes and drawing smiles at public events, attention swung back to the Waleses. Suddenly, William and Middleton’s measured, low-key approach has been rebranded not as reassuring, but as dull.
The sharpest jab came from royal commentator Amanda Platell, a long-time Daily Mail columnist, who is interestingly known as one of the harshest critics of the Sussexes. Platell, who days earlier had slammed Harry’s trip to Windsor as a ‘shameless stunt,’ stunned readers when she turned her fire on the future King and Queen. “William and Kate have become the Prince and Princess of Boring,” she wrote, adding, “This is why they need to stop skulking around and take a leaf out of Harry’s book.”
Her change of tone was impossible to miss. In her own words, “Ahead of Prince Harry’s whirlwind four-day ‘pseudo royal tour,’ many, myself included, dismissed it as just another desperate and calculated attempt to ingratiate himself into the royal fold. After all, that’s what he and his wife, Meghan, depend on to make their Netflix millions. Yet I have to confess I was perhaps too cynical. Harry’s visit brought us something we have not seen for a very long time from the royals — laughter and joy. Which leaves many of us asking why William and Kate have decided to hide away and become the Prince and Princess of Boring.”
Still, Platell is hardly the first to slap the ‘boring’ label on William and Middleton. In fact, long before Meghan Markle entered the royal orbit, critics had begun to wonder if the Waleses were a little too safe, a little too beige. Back in 2014, another columnist, Jan Moir, branded them ‘Mr and Mrs Bland,’ declaring after their US tour that "the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have become a terrible, terrible disappointment to us all." Moir further wrote, “From the tips of her favourite nude shoes to the top of his Homer Simpson forehead, Kate and Wills have proved themselves to be as dull, dull, dull as Windsor moat water.”
But the point of discussion here could be whether William and Middleton see this as a warning or as proof that, in the monarchy, being called boring may be the safest criticism of all. Even royal historians have occasionally voiced doubts. Christopher Lee, the late BBC historian, once predicted in 2014 that as William and Middleton grow older, they’d be seen as “nice people but rather dull and inoffensive,” adding that while they were approachable, they lacked the gravitas of old-style royalty, the one needed to embody the fairy-tale prince and princess image the public still craves.
“They love bending down and talking to kids and doing ordinary things,” Lee had said. “They are ordinary, but they are celebrities rather than old-fashioned, ‘don’t ask questions, don’t touch me’ royalty.” In his view, accessibility might make them likable but not inspiring. “I don’t think they rate with the Beckhams,” he had remarked, “But I put them in that slot.”
