SEQUEL TO ROYALLY BUMPED || After a whirlwind of a year, Mila Abbott is finally enjoying her life as a princess and mother. As wife to the new first in line to the British throne, Mila is adjusting to juggling royal work and being a mother, and the...
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The thing I hate about social media is how people can twist truths and make things bigger than they really are. When I joined the royal family, people loved me because I was a 'normal' person from a normal family joining the biggest, poshest family ever. I was relatable. Yet there were people who hated me because I was bringing the royal family down with my 'broken' family, my clumsiness and 'common' accent compared to what they call the Queen's English. That's despite me coming from a middle-class area of southern England, where our accents are usually considered posh.
Social media for royals is a fickle thing. We're not allowed to have our own accounts – even though Kai and I have fake ones so we can keep up to date with everything – and yet the palace team controls our official social media accounts. With that, we're allowed to contact the team and upload our own things if it passes their 'acceptable' standard. We've posted quite a few personal photos, like Christmas photos of Kai, Emma, and me, or ones we took in Egypt, and some photos Kai's taken with his camera, and people love the candid look of it all because the palace doesn't touch the photos up and allows us to post a message.
The curse of social media is seeing what people who hate us think. Free speech is a wonderful thing until it hurts someone else. If you're a public figure in any way, then people having free speech can do so much damage. Then the expectation is that if you're a public figure and you can't take the bad things people say about you, that's too bad because you should never have become a public figure.
It's a tricky situation. Some of the more hurtful people say about me really stings. I've read some awful things about me, like how people would love to kill me or torture me, or worse, the things some people want to put me through sexually that involve torture. Those things are quickly taken down when the palace reports them, but I have still seen them.
I still know what people say and think. To the public, all I've done is fall in love with a prince – the reality is slightly different, but still – and because of who I've fallen in love with, people are allowed to say what they want about me, have gossip columns about me, and threaten me. Sometimes I wish I could take it all back just so I didn't have to see some of the more horrible things, but the minority is always the loudest.
I know what every social media page is going to say about the news before I even look.
"Will you stop worrying, Peach? It's fine." Kai turns his laptop to show me.
My eyes scan the posts. A lot of them are in pure shock at Hugh abdicating as they never thought he would, even with the diagnosis. Some comments are going into how they think Kai will be a great king despite him not being born for the role.
"Yeah, and where are the comments about me? I know there'll be some. I swore on live TV, Kai." I've got my leg elevated at home; turns out I've sprained it. No more heels for a while, which works for me. I hate those things, they always bring trouble.
