Is Royal PDA Really What It Seems? – Vogue

Prince William, Princess Kate, Prince Harry, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, reunited to greet mourners outside Windsor Castle on Saturday after the death of Queen Elizabeth IIand the internet is once again lousy with body language experts.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but this one has sparked a thousand hot takes, depending on how one feels about each couple. Ive seen some admirers of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex emphasizing their hand-holding as evidence of their love, while accusing Prince William and Princess Kate of a disconnect based on the physical distance between them on Windsors Long Walk. Meanwhile, fans of the newly-minted Prince and Princess of Wales (and critics of Meghan) speculated that Prince William and Princess Kate are so secure in their relationship, they dont need physical touch to prove their bond.

The shot of the fleeting former Fab Four is a striking one: its the first image of them together since that infamously tense Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey in March 2020, which also marked the Sussexes last engagement as senior royals. Their joint appearance, in all-black, was a solemn show of unity, however brief, between the beloved sons of Princess Diana and their high-wattage wives in the wake of their grandmothers death. To be fair, because the royals are ostensible silent film stars (as Tina Brown aptly puts it in The Palace Papers) who seldom speak in public, followers are left to engage in the time-honored tabloid tradition of analyzing their every move for clues into their psyche and love lives. What could possibly go wrong?

Comparing the brothers, their marriages, and their attitude to PDA has long been a flawed (albeit seemingly inevitable) exercise. Even before the Queen died last week and Prince William was elevated in the line of succession, he was always marked as a future king, and, as such, has maintained a more conservative public profile, including abiding by the unspoken royal rule against demonstrative shows of public affection. Recall that Prince William and Princess Kate kissed almost bashfully on the Buckingham Palace balcony on their wedding day, but were seen hugging in their 2010 black-and-white engagement photo, as well as in a series of shots in honor of their 10th anniversary last year. Meanwhile, Prince Harry, who remains sixth in line after stepping down from the inner sanctum of royalhood altogether, has enjoyed a bit more freedom in his public presentation, from the time he stuck his tongue out at the paparazzi as a boy. He has rejected the royal norm around limited PDA just as he has the golden rule of never complain, never explain. He and Meghan have been known to double hand-hold.

The royals, by design, are icons on which people can project whatever they please, but not every picture tells an epic story. How much of the couples public behavior is due to their roles within the firm, and how much is simply a product of their personalities, which are entwined with said roles (William, the more measured and reserved first child, and Harry, the wilder, more emotive baby of the family?) Its impossible to say for surehence, the breathless speculation.

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Is Royal PDA Really What It Seems? - Vogue