The One Royal Rule You'll Never Catch Kate Middleton Breaking (& Why)

Catherine, Princess of Wales, has rarely put a foot wrong since she joined the royal family. She's always perfectly poised and pleasant, and she hasn't really been personally responsible for any of the royal family's biggest PR disasters (which is more than most members of the family can say). All in all, the princess is mostly a rule follower, but she has been a bit of a rebel on some occasions. Kate has broken several royal fashion rules over the years (but she's got style, so we'll forgive her), but when it comes to some of the family's strictest protocols, she still adheres to the guidelines, one of which is that you are not allowed to hand out autographs to fans.

As kindhearted as the Princess of Wales is, she's had to refuse some fans an autograph because royal protocol prohibits her from signing her name. Why? Because the palace wants to prevent forgery. While Kate and Prince William braved a downpour to greet excited fans in Powys, Wales, in February, one fan asked the princess to sign a piece of paper for him. She was forced to tell him no. "I can't sign things, I'm so sorry. I can shake your hand, though," she said, per the Mirror. She also notably told kids at the 2023 Chelsea Flower Show that she couldn't sign their drawings. "I'm not allowed to write my signature, it's just one of those rules," she explained to them.

Even Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, who was a royal rebel like her husband, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, adhered to the no-autograph rule while she was a working member of the royal family, signing a fan's name in a book instead of her own. Harry, for his part, once signed his name on a fan's cast, which goes to show that not all royals strictly adhere to this rule. And royal signatures have been photographed after appearing on documents, so we do know what many of the royal family's signatures look like.

Still, not giving out autographs means the royals aren't giving people access to authentic signatures that are more easily duplicated than photographed ones. It also saves time — imagine the royals pausing to sign bits of paper on every walkabout. There's another time-consuming royal no-no that the Princess of Wales has been indulging in, though, that we suspect would have gotten a strict raised eyebrow from Queen Elizabeth II, had she still been alive. William and Kate have increasingly started to take more selfies with fans — something the queen reportedly detested.

In January 2023, a few months after Queen Elizabeth's heartbreaking death in September 2022, Catherine made headlines for taking selfies with fans while visiting the Foxcubs Nursery in Luton. She did so again that September while visiting youth intervention charity Streets of Growth. Taking pictures with the royals was mostly unheard of, and while there wasn't necessarily a strict rule against it, most seemed to follow the queen's lead and refrain. "Royals would always rather have a personal interaction than have people clamoring for selfies," CNN royal commentator Victoria Arbiter told Business Insider in 2019. "From a security standpoint, they're also not ideal as they warrant a certain closeness."