There are many moments when the royals accidentally wander into self-parody and this week delivered quite a hilarious one.
Speaking during a visit to a community lunch club, Kate Middleton (married to Prince William, Harry’s older brother and heir to the British throne) revealed that she "loves washing up," while William apparently takes care of the drying. Together, we're told, they’re a "good double act."
Workshy Wills (as dubbed by the British press) and the Duchess of DoLittle (as dubbed, reportedly, by the Real Queen herself) don’t give us many moments of joy - it’s all incandescence and crying-not-crying over bridesmaids dresses - so let’s lean into this one and just enjoy.
Maybe Kate does wash dishes. Maybe she occasionally approaches a plate. Perhaps, on especially wild evenings, she even encounters a saucepan. If I were in her position, I would be looking for ways to fill my time with some kind of meaningful occupation. Anything to feel alive.
The problem is that every few months the palace PR machine seems determined to convince us that Waity Katie (another press nickname) is essentially a character from a 1950s black-and-white sitcom, bustling cheerfully around the kitchen while her husband stands nearby polishing plates and chuckling softly.
"Kate loves crisps." "Kate buys children's clothes." "Kate enjoys washing up."
Breaking news tomorrow: Kate has been spotted expressing mild interest in a cup of tea.
This latest “revelation” feels less like an authentic glimpse into royal life and more like an ITV drama written by somebody whose understanding of ordinary people comes entirely from reruns of Heartbeat, The Darling Buds of May, and a stack of faded Women's Institute magazines from 1978.
Lurking just off-camera, though, are the details we’re not supposed to think about: an eight-bedroom home (plus a few spare homes), extensive staff support, security teams, household management, and resources that bear approximately the same resemblance to ordinary family life as Mar-a-Lago bears to a semi-detached in Croydon.
Everyone knows they’re enormously over-privileged. So this relentless insistence that their privilege doesn't exist is downright insulting. But modern royal communications seem trapped in a permanent game of "Spot the Relatable Human Behaviour."
Nobody needs this performance. Nobody wakes up thinking, "I simply cannot support the monarchy until I know who handles the tea towels." We either think they’re absolutely worth the half a billion pounds a year they cost us, no matter how many sexual abuse scandals rock the family, or we don’t.
In fact, these increasingly desperate attempts at relatability often achieve the opposite effect. The more insistently a multimillionaire future queen tells us she's just like us, the more people start wondering whether anybody involved has met an actual member of the public recently.
The claim that she "loves" washing up is particularly inspired. Washing dishes occupies roughly the same category as dental appointments and renewing your car insurance. We do it because we have to. It's the sort of thing people say they enjoy only when they’re trying very hard to appear wholesome.
"I love washing up."
Of course you do. And William loves drying. And next we'll discover King Charles relaxes by emptying wheelie bins and unclogging drains.