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<\/p>\n\n\tThe Cambridges were in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur \u2014 halfway through a nine-day Jubilee Tour of Southeast Asia and the Pacific \u2014 when topless photos of Kate appeared on the covers of the French magazine Closer and Italy\u2019s Chi. \u201cOh My God\u201d were the only English words scrawled on the cover of Closer, alongside color snapshots of Kate taking off the top of her swimsuit and the couple slathering their naked torsos with sunscreen. \u201cThe future Queen of England, such as you have never seen her \u2026 and such as you will never see her again.\u201d Chi\u2019s red-letter cover headline was less wordy, and a little premature: \u201cLa Regina E Nuda!\u201d (\u201cThe queen is nude!\u201d)<\/p>\n
\n\tKate was visibly shaken when she was shown the images, taken a few weeks earlier while the couple was sunbathing during a vacation at a secluded French chateau owned by the Queen\u2019s nephew (and William\u2019s first cousin, once removed) Viscount Linley. Visitors had to make their way down a narrow private drive that wound through 650 acres of woods and fields to find the viscount\u2019s villa, but that didn\u2019t stop an enterprising female photographer from taking the photos from a public road 1,500 feet away using a telephoto lens.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tKATE! by Christopher Andersen<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Simon & Schuster<\/p>\n
\n\tAs humiliated and violated as she justifiably felt, Kate managed to quickly compose herself. After all, at different stops throughout the Southeast Asian tour they chatted unselfconsciously with bare-breasted islanders \u201cand,\u201d Kate told a royal handler, \u201cit\u2019s all perfectly natural. They seem very happy and free.\u201d In any event, she added, \u201cWe are not going to let it [the publication of topless photos] ruin this trip!\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tIt certainly helped that the photos were flattering, for the most part. Within a short time, Kate was back to being \u201cthe picture of cool, calm and utterly unruffled elegance,\u201d recalled journalist Rebecca English, who was in Malaysia with the royal couple when they were shown the images. \u201cWe were all marveling how she was able to smile, shake hands and make small talk, without the slightest quiver or indication that anything was amiss.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe heir, however, saw red. \u201cI\u2019d never seen William as furious as when those cruel pictures of Kate were leaked,\u201d English said. \u201cHe was so angry, jaw clenched, he could barely contain his fury.\u201d The incident dredged up memories of his mother sobbing in her room after being chased by the paparazzi. It also reminded the prince that, despite his promise to Kate\u2019s parents that he would protect her, he had failed miserably \u2014 a gnawing sense of guilt that, despite the Middletons\u2019 protestations to the contrary, William wore like a hair shirt.<\/p>\n
\n\tLike his father, William had enlisted the help of royal lawyers from time to time to threaten publications with legal action \u2014 a negotiating tactic that often succeeded in getting the press to pull back, if only slightly and for a short time. This time, however, he wanted blood: an injunction and damages exceeding $2 million. The decision to move against the French publication stemmed from that country\u2019s strict criminal privacy laws, which can carry a prison sentence of up to one year.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cDiana would be absolutely devastated and utterly distraught by what William and Kate are having to deal with,\u201d said handbag designer Lana Marks, one of the late princess\u2019s close friends. \u201cBut she would be proud of how William is handling things. . . . She would want him to take a stand against this.\u201d William, Marks continued, \u201cknows more than anyone what his mother had to endure. He would not want his wife to be hounded in the same way.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tNot everyone was so sympathetic. \u201cWho wouldn\u2019t take Kate\u2019s picture and make lots of money,\u201d tweeted Donald Trump, \u201cif she does the nude sunbathing thing? Come on, Kate!\u201d The Duchess shrugged it off, but William was reportedly apoplectic. The heir was already aware that, just months after Diana\u2019s death, Trump had told radio host Howard Stern that he could have \u201cnailed\u201d William\u2019s mother. \u201cI think I could have,\u201d said Trump, who also joked with Stern about having Diana get \u201ca little checkup\u201d for HIV before having sex.<\/p>\n
\n\tIt would take five years for the case to finally reach a verdict, and then only after William wrote a letter to the court saying that the naked photos were \u201cparticularly shocking because it reminded us of the harassment that led to the death of my mother, Diana, Princess of Wales.\u201d While everyone managed to avoid jail time, the French court ordered the defendants to pay $250,000 in damages and fines.<\/p>\n
\n\tEven as William fumed behind the scenes, Kate was determined not to appear the suffering victim. They marveled at orangutans in the dense, steaming jungles of Borneo and gamely agreed to strap on harnesses and be yanked on a pulley system more than 13 stories high to the top of a lush, domed Parashorea tomentella tree. At her suggestion, the couple even took time off in the middle of the tour to take what they billed as a \u201csecond honeymoon\u201d at the Tavanipupu Island Resort in the Solomon Islands.<\/p>\n
\n\tA high point of the tour was Kate\u2019s first official speech abroad, at a children\u2019s hospice in Malaysia. In one particularly heart-melting moment, Kate gave a birthday card to a terminally ill 15-year-old named Zakwan Anuar, who had postponed a blood transfusion so he could meet the princess. Anuar had been asleep in his wheelchair but sprang to life when Kate walked into the room and held his hand. \u201cYou are very, very brave,\u201d she told the young leukemia patient, \u201cand very handsome.\u201d Anuar\u2019s mother was in tears. \u201cZakwan had almost given up hope, but today, my God, it was as if the leukemia had gone,\u201d she said. \u201cGod bless Princess Catherine. I cannot repay that kindness.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tEarlier, when the royal couple had met the Solomon Islands\u2019 governor general, Sir Frank Kabui, at a reception in London, William admitted that he and Kate were \u201cextremely excited. Both of us have never been anywhere near there.\u201d Her husband, Kate added, \u201chas been practicing his dance moves.\u201d Now as they arrived in the island nation of Tuvalu, draped in garlands of gardenias and frangipani and carried above the crowd in sedan chairs, the Cambridges had the opportunity to try out those moves. Kate and William both donned colorful straw skirts and, towering over their diminutive hosts, waved their hands and shimmied their hips as part of the fatele, Tuvalu\u2019s traditional welcome dance. Oddly, the ritual requires guests to spray the dancers with cologne to show their appreciation; the Cambridges happily spritzed their hosts with Paul Smith Eau de Toilette, William\u2019s preferred scent.<\/p>\n
\n\tAs perfectly choreographed and executed as the South Pacific tour undoubtedly was, even the most minuscule mistake generated raging headlines. There was an international<\/a> uproar, for example, when the royal couple showed up wearing clothing not by local Solomon Island designers but by a designer from the Cook Islands seventeen hundred miles away. Of course, Kate took the heat \u2014 despite the fact that William was also wearing the wrong getup. \u201cA Right Royal Wardrobe Gaffe! Kate\u2019s Solomon Islands Error!\u201d trumpeted the Daily Mail \u2019s front page. \u201cOops!\u201d the Hollywood Reporter chimed in<\/a>, \u201cKate Middleton<\/a> Commits Fashion Faux-Pas in South Pacific!\u201d In the end, it was discovered that an aide had inadvertently placed the Cook Islander attire on the Cambridges\u2019 bed, and an open suitcase obscured the correct, locally manufactured Solomon Island outfits.<\/p>\n \n\tNo matter. When they returned to the United Kingdom, Princess Catherine was again hailed as one of Britain\u2019s greatest assets \u2014 especially when it came to fashion. \u201cKate is a style icon,\u201d designer Karen Millen gushed, \u201cand a great ambassador for British fashion and fashion everywhere.\u201d What the press had already dubbed \u201cthe Kate Effect\u201d was now more in force than ever. For the second year in a row, she was named one of Time magazine\u2019s \u201c100 Most Influential People in the World,\u201d and a Sunday Times poll showed that 73 percent of the British population believed Kate was breathing new life into the royal family<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\tOnce again, Kate was on her own back in the United Kingdom, this time substituting for her husband while the heir attended the funeral of his former nanny Olga Powell. In the northern city of Newcastle, Kate met hundreds of locals who had volunteered to make the London Olympics a success, including 14-year-old triple-amputee William Hardy, who carried the Olympic torch through part of the city. Later, she met with schoolchildren, planted seeds in a community garden and spent time with members of her charity Action on Addiction, which helps families where one of the parents is battling drug abuse. Northumbria University student Megan Bartle, who was among the 2,000 people in Newcastle who showed up hoping for a glimpse of Kate, summed up the Princess\u2019s populist appeal: \u201cShe is such a brilliant role model and an inspiration. She carries herself beautifully, but at the same time she is modest and at ease with the public. It\u2019s almost as if she\u2019s saying, \u2018I\u2019m not better than you.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n \n\tFrom KATE!: The Courage, Grace, and Power of the Woman Who Will Be Queen by Christopher Andersen. Copyright \u00a9 2026 by Andersen Productions, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Gallery Books, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cambridges were in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur \u2014 halfway through a nine-day Jubilee Tour of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221025,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4883,6912,9,24,63,9492,122,124,123,486],"class_list":["post-221024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-international","tag-kate-middleton","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-prince-william","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-royal-family"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}