Princess Charlene doesnt want to be Kate & she doesnt want to be Grace Kelly

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I find it very interesting that there was a sudden shift in PR out of Monaco about one month ago. It all started when Princess Charlene had her lengthy surgery to deal with the long-term ENT infection. Suddenly, instead of Charlene running her own half-assed and confusing PR out of South Africa, The Prince’s Palace began updating the media on Charlene’s condition. Then Albert took the kids to South Africa and apparently spoke to Charlene’s doctors for what may have been the first time. After that, Albert has been speaking out about how his wife didn’t run away, nor is she in exile. The message is that Charlene and Albert are on the same page now, although I wonder why they weren’t doing this the whole time. Meanwhile, someone has really been trying to embiggen Charlene in People Magazine. This story came out late last week:

The tough cookie: Princess Charlene is the first to admit that her year has been especially “trying,” but a source tells PEOPLE that the Monaco royal is more than up to the challenge. “Just to be honest, Charlene, she’s an Olympian, and she’s a tough cookie,” a close friend of the couple says in this week’s issue.

The physical separation from Albert & the kids: The extended physical separation not only proved painful for Charlene, who relied on FaceTime to get quality with her family, it also sparked speculation about the state of the Monaco royals’ marriage. But the friend tells PEOPLE Charlene was simply following her passion, which has sometimes meant she doesn’t conform to others’ expectations of how a royal should act or look.

Charlene doesn’t want to be Keen: “She cares about saving the rhinoceroses and about teaching kids to swim. She doesn’t want to be Kate [Middleton], and she doesn’t want to be Grace Kelly,” they tell PEOPLE. “It was just Charlene being Charlene.” Adds the friend, “She’s a little bit of an iconoclast. She’s her own person, and she’s not a shrinking violet.”

Charlene misses her kids: “The kids are so overwhelmingly charming and loving,” the royals’ friend tells PEOPLE. And Albert, 63, is “such a good dad. He’s so good with them. And she’s such a good mom. I think that’s where the confluence is — that they’re wonderful parents.”

[From People]

Charlene is an iconoclast and not a shrinking violet and she’s also not the Duchess of Cambridge or Grace Kelly because she cares about teaching kids to swim. Okay. For what it’s worth, I think Charlene is more like Kate than people are willing to admit. Charlene would prefer to just be left in peace with her kids and her army of staff and not have to do much of anything besides get plastic surgery. Same with Kate. Charlene just gets away with it more than Kate because Monaco is so small and because she’s never been billed as the savior of the principality. People notice when Kate disappears for months on end. Charlene has disappeared for months at a time for years and barely anyone cares. Anyway, curious PR is curious. I really don’t get why everything is so wacky in Monaco these days.

Tour de France Stage One

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Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Charlene’s Instagram.

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