The Royalist column at the Daily Beast has yet another hilarious exclusive about Prince William and the Princess of Wales. In case you missed it, Kensington Palace has been trying, throughout the week, to spin the Mother’s Day Frankenphoto Fiasco into their favor. As in, poor Kate is so stressed out about the manipulated Frankenphoto fallout, won’t someone please think of her health? Meanwhile, Kensington Palace staffers were the ones tossing her under the bus in the first place and making her shoulder the blame for the fiasco. The fact that all of this is playing out in the American and British media instead of being handled internally is also a KP f–k up, clownery on top of clownery, lie on top of lie. Sources now tell Tom Sykes that Kate is under intense stress and it’s all the Sussexes’ fault! Harry and Meghan forced the Waleses to surround themselves with clownish staff.

Friends of Kate Middleton have blamed “intense stress,” including the fall-out from Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s repeated denunciations of her and Prince William, as being at least partly responsible for her absence from public life, and her need to spend several months recuperating from abdominal surgery. They predicted that William and Kate would move to “clear out” Kensington Palace staff who had made mistakes later this year after an extraordinary meltdown in royal communications triggered by Kate publishing a photo in which she was not wearing a wedding ring.

The friend told The Daily Beast: “She has been under incredible pressure for several years, and is now being harassed by the media over f–k-ups made by other people. How her office could have put out a picture without her ring when it was clearly going to be one of the most scrutinized pictures of all time is just unfathomable. And she is to blame? Sorry, no. That was their failure and they should have accepted the blame. They will clear out all those people when the dust settles.”

The friend added that Kate’s office’s failure to properly vet the photo was also “to blame” for the resurgence of speculation over the state of her marriage to William.

Another friend of the family also told The Daily Beast that they believed the stress of the last few years, including the regular and damaging attacks made on the couple by Harry and Meghan, and the pressure of a whole raft of changes that came when the queen died, had triggered a stress-related illness in Kate.

The source said: “She and William have been under intense stress ever since Harry and Meghan left the family. They spent three years just waiting for the next horrific media interview. On top of that they have moved house, the kids have moved school, the queen died, and she became Princess of Wales. It’s not surprising she got ill, and it’s not surprising she needs a break from it all to get better.”

A former staffer told The Daily Beast that Kate and William’s priority would now be protecting their children. They said, “The thing that will be absolutely top of both their minds right now will be the impact this is having on their children. They are very fortunate that other parents at the school are very loyal, but the reality is that keeping this from children these days is an impossible task. I imagine the Easter holidays can’t come soon enough.”

A friend of King Charles’ told The Daily Beast that he and the queen would be “wholly sympathetic” towards William and Kate over the debacle. “The only answer is for her to get better and get back to work,” the friend said. Riffing off a reputed maxim of the late Queen Elizabeth II, the friend said, “Now more than ever, they will have to be seen to be believed.”

[From The Daily Beast]

This reminds me, in a way, of last year’s week-long gossip-cycle over Kate’s thunder-stealing appearance at the Chelsea Flower Show. King Charles and Camilla were supposed to get all of the attention on the flower show’s Media Day – Charles’s first Chelsea Flower Show as king! – and then Kate bused in children and threw a picnic on the same day, and Buckingham Palace ripped her to shreds. That’s when “sources close to Catherine” ran straight to Royalist to hysterically defend her and claim that she could do whatever she wanted and the king can’t do sh-t about it. I’m reminded of that whole storyline because palace insiders are making moves against the future queen consort and Kate is defending herself by throwing a huge pity party about the stress she’s under. She’s also reminding those palace insiders that they should remember their common enemy: the Sussexes.

Anyway, I honestly believe that Kate is getting the blame for other people’s “f–k ups,” but that’s one of the most interesting parts of this whole fiasco – WHY is Kate getting the blame, why is she being thrown under the bus, why are Kate’s few allies throwing hysterical tantrums to the Daily Beast?

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.