BBC: Prince William, almost 42 years old, still needs to ‘find his own voice’

Prince William’s 42nd birthday is coming up on June 21st. He’s still being called a “boy” in the British media, and they’re still treating him like he’s new to the “job,” like “how can a boy of 42 be expected to have a longterm vision for his role as Prince of Wales and king?” It’s always been insane to watch the media’s willingness to infantilize both William and his wife. Well, I think this new BBC piece is some birthday keenery for Huevo: “Prince William’s role is changing – what does he really want to do with it?” There are several mentions of Prince Harry and Meghan, who have f–k all to do with “William’s role,” except to show that the man is full of violent rage constantly. Some highlights from the BBC:

William’s 2024 struggles: “There can’t be too many people whose wife and father have been diagnosed with cancer so close together. It must feel as if he is in a lonely place at times,” says royal commentator Richard Palmer.

Sharing the burden with his father?? While the King has returned to work with a burst of energy, it’s unavoidable that there will still need to be adjustments for his health. That’s going to mean Prince William being pushed ever more clearly into the role of heir, sharing the burden. “It must feel like the weight of the world is on him. The future of the monarchy rests on his shoulders,” says royal author Prof Pauline Maclaran.

Family problems: It doesn’t help that there’s an ocean-wide gap between Prince William and his brother Prince Harry. And swirling around the Princess of Wales’s illness, as she continues with cancer treatment, has been a toxic swamp gas of social media gossip and crazy speculation.

What does William actually want? At the centre of this storm, what does Prince William himself want to achieve? If you turn off all the background noise about the royals, what does he want to do with his role? The key word, according to sources close to the prince, is “impact”. Rather than ribbon-cutting, photo opportunities and easy gimmicks, he wants to deliver projects that make a tangible, measurable difference. “He’s asking: ‘How can I use my platform for good, to create positive change,” says a royal source. “He has big ambitions for what he can deliver.”

Community Impact Days: In practice that means his projects to reduce homelessness, promote mental health issues and support environmental business through his Earthshot project. Prince William has described his role as “social leadership” and his visits have been labelled as “community impact days”.

Criticism of William’s projects: The anti-monarchy group, Republic, called his homelessness projects “crass and hypocritical… given the excessive wealth we gift him”. There’s also the accusation that any ambition to tackle housing problems will always ultimately depend on political interventions which are outside his remit. “It’s a tall order and it’s not entirely clear how he’s going to achieve it. But many people will think he should be applauded for trying,” says Richard Palmer.

The rival California court: Another nagging friction is the tension between Team William and Prince Harry and Meghan, who can almost seem like a rival Californian court. While William was digging away in Cornwall, they were getting the rock star treatment in Nigeria. Prince William has the challenge of getting serious ideas across, when he’s caught up in an improbably scripted soap opera.

Finding his voice??? “The next few years will see him thinking through what kind of monarch he wants to be and what kind of monarch the country will need to have in the mid-21st Century,” says historian Sir Anthony Seldon. “He has been defining his own agenda, much of it overlapping with his father’s interests and passions.” But it’s at a time of so many unknowns for Prince William, who has such a big public platform but now has to find his own voice.

[From BBC]

The wider view is that a nearly-42-year-old man, the current Prince of Wales and future king, still hasn’t found his own voice and that he’s being overshadowed constantly by his younger, more charismatic brother. The same brother who was supposed to do all of the work and credit William, the same brother who was supposed to stick around forever just so William could hide behind him. I like how there’s not even a mention of Earthshot either – that was supposed to be William’s big thing, it was organized by his staff and given to him fully formed… and he’s already bored with it and few people give a sh-t about it.

Also: those “community impact days” are so funny – William and Kate were in their 40s before they realized that they should give money to local groups when they were visiting various British towns. And even then, they’re only giving away a few thousand pounds and attaching all of this bureaucracy to the money.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.