Like so many of the husbands, boyfriends, and fiancés who reside in the former British Empire, Ari Voukydis, a 48-year-old comedy writer in Los Angeles, never paid much attention to the daily deluge of royal gossip. His wife was far more engaged in the low-impact tales of bad manners and Real Housewives–esque microaggressions that leak from Kensington Palace, and, at least for a time, he was happy in his royals-free information bubble. Not a single fact about the Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton, had ever penetrated his thoughts.
Then, this past Sunday, the missing royal issued a doctored family portrait, inadvertently bringing Voukydis and his wife closer than they’ve ever been.
“I literally couldn’t have picked Kate Middleton out of a lineup,” he told me. “Now I know how to recognize Pippa’s silhouette in a poorly lit car and how to pronounce ‘Marchioness of Cholmondeley.’ My wife and I are now both in full tinfoil-hat mode.”
In case you need a refresher on the biggest tabloid story of the year, Middleton, the wife of heir apparent Prince William, has been out of the public eye since Christmas. The supposed reason for this absence was a scheduled abdominal surgery, which the Crown said would sideline her until Easter. The royal gossip apparatus tends to grow ravenous in silence, and the internet surged with all sorts of wild conspiracy theories speculating on the real reason Middleton had vanished. Some floated that she was going under the knife to receive a BBL; others asserted that the surgery was cover for alleged infidelity; and so on. But the story went truly nuclear this week when Middleton submitted, then quickly retracted, a cheery photo of herself and her three kids, which the Associated Press determined to be counterfeit due to some irregularities in the composition. In response, Middleton rushed out a baffling damage-control campaign, claiming that she had simply been experimenting with photo editing.
This, my friends, is a royal scandal for the ages, and is exactly why it seems that people who typically fall outside the core demographic for crown-related drama—namely, straight men—have, for the first time in their lives, found themselves absolutely swept up in the chaos at Kensington. When I—a certified straight man—posted about the phenomenon shortly after the news broke, my mentions quickly filled with hundreds of quote tweets, mostly from women sharing their tales of how the men in their lives have too found themselves stricken with Middleton fever. “Two weeks ago my partner thought I was nuts. He’s now totally invested,” wrote one. “My husband knew the goss before I told him! This is from the man who asked, ‘What have we seen her in before?’ when we started Suits this summer,” another added.
These husbands, boyfriends, and fiancés were previously unmoved by the endless drip of Markle-related content. They had half-watched the Oprah interview with bemused indifference. They would not have been caught dead reading Spare or tuning in to the Diamond Jubilee, and there’s a good chance they tapped out of The Crown halfway through Season 1. But one of the most powerful institutions in the world passing along a botched Photoshop job to dampen a growing mystery? At last, we’re all in, talking about the Princess of Wales in the boys’ chat.
“It was especially fun because I actually got to break a royals scandal to her, which is the first time that has ever happened,” said Andrew Evans, a 37-year-old resident of the Commonwealth (read: Toronto, Ontario.) “If anything, I think she was confused that I knew about the photo before her. There were so many theories to lean into: Is she really sick? Is she refusing to be photographed? Is she not even supposed to be around in the area? It definitely has given us something to talk about, like finding a TV show you’re both into.”
The men I spoke to about their sudden fascination with the Middleton debacle have their own explanations for why the controversy has captured their imagination. Voukydis, for instance, can’t stop thinking about the “1,000-year-old, trillion-dollar corporation that can’t do basic PR damage control”—which is the sort of realization that makes you wonder just how much in the world is hanging by a thread. Drew, a 29-year-old in Washington who works in consulting and asked to be identified only by first name, has already embarked on the greater apocrypha of royals lore, which has only sharpened his intrigue. (Drew’s wife has directed him toward British tabloid material that notes Middleton’s apparent lack of wedding ring in the doctored photo, a detail that coincides neatly with rumors of William’s infidelity. Down the rabbit hole he goes!)
“She had been mentioning that something was going on with Middleton for a few weeks, maybe even a month, and I had been half-listening, as I imagine she does when I tell her about some NBA news,” Drew said. “I was just nodding along, retaining no information. She’s probably excited that I’m actually listening now.”
The only question left is if this Middleton saga will remain potent enough to keep the husbands, boyfriends, and fiancés around for the long haul. When the keening temperament dies down and, ideally, the fate of the Princess of Wales is no longer shrouded in darkness, will they keep tabs on the House of Windsor with the same diligence? Evans doesn’t think so. In fact, he believes that his basic instincts are already kicking in.
“When the royal drama returns to its baseline of decorum-related pseudo-scandals, I’ll probably revert to my standard position: Please remove these weird people from my money, please repossess their properties, and send them to a remote island to tend sheep or something,” he said.
I tend to agree with Evans. I’m likely always going to be a casual fan when it comes to the royals, and that’s OK. A good relationship requires one to compromise on the bespoke hobbies you will never share. My fiancée’s eyes roll back into her head if I ever espouse the virtues of, I don’t know, Jonathan Hickman’s run on X-Men, and unlike her, I am physically unable to process the dramatic vectors of Vanderpump Rules. So we must celebrate those rare moments in life when something so operatically strange happens in one of our respective discourse chambers that it manages to shatter the glass ceiling and bring us all together. Thank you for this gift, Kate Middleton. It proves that we really aren’t so different after all.
