Omid Scobie: Princess of Wales is ‘voiceless symbol’ and ‘Stepford-like royal wife’

The Princess of Wales is a “Stepford-like royal wife” who is content to be a “voiceless symbol”, Omid Scobie has claimed in his new book.

The biographer, whose book Endgame is published on Tuesday, takes aim at the Princess, painting her as a “shiny thing” who can be cold and is prone to copying her sister-in-law’s style with none of her “outgoing nature and leadership potential”.

Scobie, 42, says the Princess was liked by Elizabeth II for being “coachable” and pliable, and uses the commentary of social media trolls to call her “Katie Keen” as a dig at her “part-time” work.

He says that her long-term Early Years project “seemed a shade performative” to the sector, and that she is “infantalised” by the press and quite unlike “strong-minded Diana”.

When it comes to the institution, Scobie claims that the Princess has “absolute confidence that they know what’s best”, and in refusing to set the record straight about media stories, “seems content as a voiceless symbol of courtly resolve, a totem of stoicism in a time of emotional overdrive”.

While she has achieved a “Queen-like detachment” — described as “vanishing into your role, giving away nothing, and allowing yourself to embody what the public sees in you” — Scobie criticises the Princess for not yet displaying the “gravitas and commanding power that the late Queen mustered so effortlessly”.

‘Dull in comparison’ 

The Duchess of Sussex, on the other hand, “assuredly took to her role as a working royal”, with her “acting experience and upbeat demeanour” making her “supremely comfortable in her public-facing role, even when she initially knew very little about it”.

“Her confidence alarmed some at Buckingham Palace, who found it intimidating or obnoxious at times,” Mr Scobie says, noting the “underdog [Meghan] was becoming the star of the show”.

“William, Kate, and their team took notice and altered course,” he claims, in the Princess’s wardrobe and approach to engagements.

“Harry and Meghan had introduced the world to a new, more modern-looking royal, and it suddenly made the Cambridges – who for years had been the monarchy’s hot young couple – appear a little dull in comparison.”

On the relationship between the then-Duchess of Cambridge and Duchess of Sussex, Scobie quotes a source saying: “She can be cold if she doesn’t like someone.”

Pushed on whether that meant the Princess did not like the Duchess from the start, the same source said: “She wasn’t a fan, no.”

Another added: “She spent more time talking about Meghan than talking to her.”

On the Princess’s current relationship with Prince Harry, Scobie quotes an unnamed person who knows the family to say she “will always look back fondly” on their shared memories, but “there is no way she could ever trust him after all their interviews”.

Quoting an off-record conversation with the Princess at a Kensington Palace media reception in 2015, when the Princess spoke of the challenges of parenting, Scobie says: “I always thought this more frank, real side of the sometimes Stepford-like royal wife was something that others should see more of.”