2013 hasn't been the best year for Kate Middleton so far. First, she missed out on the Radio 4 power list, now award-winning author Hilary Mantel's called her a dead eyed mannequin. Ouch.
In a recent lecture the Wolf Hall writer claimed that the Duchess had "no personality of her own" and was "entirely defined by what she wore".
Continuing with her rather scathing, analysis Hilary deemed to Kate's smile to be "plastic" and argued she'd been "selected for her role of princess" because she was "irreproachable: as painfully thin as anyone could wish, without quirks, without oddities, without the risk of the emergence of character". Eeek!
The author's hour-long 'Royal Bodies' speech for the London Review of Books also touched upon K-Middy's seamless transition from "perfect bride to perfect mother, with no messy deviation".
Hilary also called the pregnant Duchess "a jointed doll on which certain rags are hung" and remarked that these days, she was seen as "a mother-to-be, and draped in another set of threadbare attributions".
And if that wasn't enough the Man Booker Prize winner said Kate's official portrait, which was unveiled in January, gave her "dead eyes" and a "strained smile". The author argued the Duchess's pre-Royal life meant nothing and "her only point and purpose being to give birth". Yeeesh!
What's your verdict? Is Hilary justified in her remarks? Or do you reckon she came down too hard on the Duchess?