Princess Diana’s hairstylist has defended Kate Middleton against social media trolls criticizing her new hairdo.
The internet has been abuzz with speculation that Kate was wearing hair extensions to a royal engagement, following her debut of a new, long, blonde look.
Sources close to the princess have denied to the Daily Beast that she had either extensions or a wig.
Sam McKnight, who was for many years Diana’s personal hairstylist and was behind the soft, layered, and tousled look that she favored in the last few years of her life, posted, “A woman’s hair is very personal to her. It’s armor, defence, confidence and so much more.”
McKnight added, “I cannot believe how evil and lacking in any kind of empathy are the comments, the majority made apparently by other women, attacking a vulnerable other young woman, who has no choice, by dint of who she married and the role she took on, to bravely face the public.
“I’m sure she would rather be away from the public arena. She has brilliantly and quietly, unselfishly represented our country, the soft power we still have as a nation.”
Referring to Kate’s health struggles, notably a cancer diagnosis in March last year, he added, “Cancer affects individuals differently, but is life-changing for everyone. So FFS LEAVE HER ALONE. SHAME ON YOU.”
Kate’s new look has sharply divided opinion, with vicious criticism emerging on social media after she opened a new garden area at the Natural History Museum.
Gone, for now, are the chestnut locks that have been her signature for so many years, replaced by a much lighter, voluminous caramel blonde, triggering online speculation that she was wearing an artificial hairpiece.
The Daily Beast asked multiple staff at two London wig shops, who work daily with hairpieces, for their professional analysis.
One leading theatrical prosthetic hair specialist—known in the trade as a “wiggie”—said: “She is not in a wig. She has either got some extensions or she has got a wig called a U-bend, a half wig that sits under the top layer of your own hair. It’s her own hair, but she may have had some help for volume.”
Another specialist told the Daily Beast they also believed Kate was wearing “expensive and well-fitted” extensions.
Kensington Palace long ago stopped responding even to questions about Kate’s clothes, so the official stance of silence on her hair was no surprise, even as sources pushed back firmly against the claim she was wearing a hairpiece.
Many will, of course, share McKnight’s view that scrutinizing Kate’s hairstyle is cruel and unfair; however, the reality, as the reaction on social media proves, is that microscopic scrutiny is an inseparable part of royal life.
Kate may have just had bad luck. She has never previously been caught out on a public engagement by a “bad hair day.” This one just happened to coincide with a dramatic new colour, ensuring it drew lots of (mostly) negative attention.
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