I’m sure Princess Beatrice’s intentions were utterly sincere, fronting a campaign this week for the premature birth charity Borne, supporting mothers of pre-term babies. After all, her second daughter Athena Elizabeth Rose was born several weeks early at the beginning of the year. So when Beatrice says experiencing premature birth ‘can be incredibly lonely’ for mothers, she knows what she is speaking about.
And yet I am not the only one who thinks the Princess should be lying low right now, rather than putting her head above the parapet in what many see as an attempt to rehabilitate the family name.
Because following the very recent banishment of her parents Andrew and Fergie, the York name is mud. Her parents’ association with the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, a man who serially abused young women and girls on an industrial scale, turned it into a badge of dishonour.
It smacks of poor judgment for her to have fronted this campaign right now by appearing on a podcast marking World Prematurity Day.
And not just in my book. Hundreds of mums took to The Daily Mail online to say the pampered Princess, completely out of touch with ordinary people’s lives and experiences, was indulging in little more than a cynical PR stunt.
What an own-goal it was – one worthy of her tin-eared mother Fergie – for Beatrice to say in the podcast that she hoped the campaign would ‘bring people that have had their own stories to come and share them’.
And share them they did on the Daily Mail website, much to Beatrice’s horror I imagine. For the comments were unforgiving, pointing out at one point that her child would have been born in a private hospital with access to 24/7 nannies while many of these mums and their children endured a very different experience in the NHS.
Princess Beatrice, pictured with her father, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, and sister, Princess Eugenie, is under fire for what some are call a cynical PR stunt
The sisters have both been criticised recently for attending numerous events in the Middle East, with many believing they are cashing in on their HRH titles
‘You can’t tell me she didn’t have support!,’ said one. ‘My baby was six weeks early, 3lb 2oz. I had to drive a few miles to the hospital several times a day for six weeks to feed her. No one even told me you can’t drive after a C-section.’
Some of the mums said their babies were born not just a few weeks prematurely, as Beatrice’s was, but far earlier than that – one of them at 22 weeks, below the legal limit for abortion. Mothers reported how their babies were in an ICU for months before they were able to come home.
Some were plain angry at the Princess’s perceived affrontery. ‘Not interested in some sponging royal,’ wrote one. Another said: ‘She is as cunning as her parents.’
There were references to recent Daily Mail articles about Princess Beatrice hosting a tea party for super-rich dignitaries in Saudi. And to a Mail on Sunday article noting that Beatrice and her sister Eugenie had both travelled to host events with Arab royals and billionaires, and asking the question: ‘Are Beatrice and Eugenie cashing in on their HRH titles in the Middle East just like their disgraced father?’
Of course we do not know whether the Princesses got paid to add their royal lustre to these occasions. But why would they travel halfway across the world to fawn over billionaires if there wasn’t something in it for them?
Whatever the case, the splenetic response of Mail readers makes it clear that Beatrice should hide away from the limelight for the time being.
‘Sad stories to appeal to the public’s compassion,’ wrote one reader. ‘Baby subjects always worked…’ Another added: ‘Here we go. PR teams at great expense putting out the “Please I am a victim here”, the arrogance of the whole family to think the public will listen, the fact that they are using PR to redefine their image tells you everything! They still don’t get it!’
And yet another: ‘What depths will this embarrassing money-hungry family go to in order to try and gain sympathy for themselves. Dear God help us!’
It is sad that Beatrice’s clumsy intervention has drawn so much invective. Because there is no doubt that research charities such as Borne, and others including Rachael McGrath’s equally valuable Birth Trauma Association, offer mums an invaluable lifeline.
I was particularly struck by Rachael, explaining on Nick Ferrari’s LBC morning show yesterday how the mothers of severely premature babies suffer so much in a depleted NHS system, separated from their newborns for days, unable to even hold or cuddle little ones which can be so tiny the life-giving tubes they are surrounded by weigh more than them.
Perhaps Beatrice, as a patron of Borne, thought that if she pulled out of the podcast, she would be letting the charity down.
Yet the optics were terrible. The York brand is now toxic. She should pull in her privileged head for everyone’s sake, not least her own, and refrain from appearing centre stage at any public event in the foreseeable future.
