As I’ve noted a few times this week, we’re seeing a new strategy unfold in real time with the mysterious disappearance of the Princess of Wales. Kate has not been credibly seen in public in over five months, although palace sources seem especially keen to run around, claiming that Kate has been out and about and running errands in recent days. The Mail’s Richard Eden got that tip last week, then the Mail’s Becky English got the same information, then People Magazine and Us Weekly ran suspiciously similar stories about “Kate is out of the house, we can report exclusively!” Well, it looks like Katie Nicholl was also on the same email chain, because Nicholl has returned to Vanity Fair with this exclusive:

Following reports that Kate Middleton has been seen out and about with her family in recent days, speculation has turned to when the princess will return to official engagements.

Reports claiming that Princess Kate is unlikely to be back at work until next year are inaccurate, sources tell Vanity Fair, and while the Daily Mail has reported that Kate could be back as soon as this autumn, no official return date has been planned.

VF has been told that Kate is in no hurry to return to work, with her focus being entirely on her recovery. According to one well-placed source, “There is no timeline, and there is certainly no hurry. It will be when Catherine feels ready and when she gets the greenlight from her medical team. But she will 100% be coming back to work, of that there is no question.”

Princess Kate has not participated in an official public engagement since Christmas Day. Her long absence from the spotlight is understood to be one of the reasons that she was keen to deliver the news about her cancer via a video message. According to insiders, Kate wanted people to see that she was doing okay.

Sources close to the princess have told VF that the royal, who is going through a course of preventative chemotherapy, has “turned a corner” with her treatment in recent weeks and is feeling a lot better.

“It has been a great relief that she is tolerating the medication and is actually doing a lot better,” says a family friend. “It has, of course, been a very challenging and worrying time. Everyone has rallied around her—William, her parents, and her sister and brother.”

[From Vanity Fair]

If you ask me, two concurrent events scared the palace: the five-month mark of Kate’s last public sighting and that very strange Daily Beast piece, where sources claimed that Kate probably wouldn’t be seen for all of 2024, and she was being looked after by her “birth family.” I also feel like we’re seeing a Buckingham Palace-versus-Kensington Palace issue. BP took over the messaging on Kate back in March, after KP kept getting caught in lie after lie. I haven’t worked out exactly what is happening, but I’ve seen enough this year to say with confidence that the KP team is not on the same page as the BP team. So… yeah, it’s interesting that “sources” are insisting that Kate won’t be gone all year and that she’s 100% coming back to work.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.