Royal commentator/author Sally Bedell Smith has been making a lot of public statements these days about the Duchess of Sussex and the Princess of Wales. A few weeks ago, Smith went Full Deranger and claimed that Meghan and Wallis Simpson “have similar qualities: very narcissistic, very controlling, very dominating,” and that Prince Harry has the same weaknesses and need for domination as the Duke of Windsor. Bedell Smith was also quoted extensively by Maureen Dowd in a recent NYT column. Dowd asked her if the Sussexes might return to the UK to help out while Kate is receiving chemotherapy and Smith sniped: “Kate doesn’t need Harry and Meghan to console her. She has her parents and a sister, and she’s very close to King Charles.” So, you get the idea. As always, Kate = perfect, Meghan = the devil. Well, Bedell Smith also had some thoughts about Kate’s cancer-announcement video:

Kate Middleton overcame her “inherently shy” nature to deliver some difficult news. In a video released on March 22, the Princess of Wales told the world that she was undergoing treatment for cancer discovered in post-operative tests following her January abdominal surgery. Royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith tells PEOPLE that Princess Kate, 42, was “sincere, dignified, poised, and she was forthright” in her delivery, but the announcement likely wasn’t easy.

“She is inherently shy, and for her to do that took a lot,” Bedell Smith adds. While the health update was extremely personal, Princess Kate acknowledged the many others who are also facing cancer, echoing something the late Queen Elizabeth may have done.

“When she ended with ‘You are not alone,’ it rang a bell with something that Queen Elizabeth would have said,” Bedell Smith explains. “It was very similar to what Queen Elizabeth said during COVID when she said, ‘We are all in this together.’ She was mindful there are very few people who read about that or watched that who doesn’t know someone who has cancer. She was mindful of that,” the journalist and biographer continues. “It was a way of reassuring people not only about her condition but helping them have courage.”

“There was not a trace of self-pity. She projected honesty,” Bedell Smith says. “It was the right balance.”

[From People]

I’ve never believed that Kate is “inherently shy” – she’s too much of an exhibitionist to be “shy.” But I do think Kate is awkward, and an especially awkward public speaker, which is why her video surprised so many people – there were no placeholder “ums” and none of her regular hair-flips or fidgeting. Beyond that, People Magazine once again repeats the claim that Kate wrote her speech all on her own… which I still don’t believe, and I find it to be an incredibly suspicious lie, like “of course Prince William took the Mother’s Day photo.” They keep showing us that they lie constantly about the smaller stuff, which makes you think about the bigger stuff.

Photos courtesy of Kensington Palace, Getty Images.