Where Did the Royals Go So Wrong With Kate Middleton? It's Been Years in the Making.

This article was originally featured in Foreign Policy, the magazine of global politics and ideas. A family snap of the Princess of Wales with her three children has dominated headlines and group chats since its release on U.K. Mother's Day last weekend. Princess Catherine, whom the palace says is recovering from a January abdominal surgery, is known chiefly for never putting a foot wrong during nearly two decades of intense public scrutiny--first as the girlfriend of Prince William, then as a wife and mother to future kings, and an advocate for uncontroversial but important causes, such as early childhood development. Yet, even for a woman defined by her seeming perfection--Hilary Mantel once wrote that the former duchess appeared to have been designed by a committee and built by craftsmen--the Mother's Day photo of Catherine and her family was judged to be a little too perfect. The uncanny valley of the photo was prime territory for conspiracy theories, already circulating, that the princess is missing or perhaps even dead.