Novelist Attacks Kate Middleton During Lecture

Heavy is the head that wears Kate Middleton's eventual crown.

No stranger to scrutiny, the Duchess of Cambridge was dubbed a plastic princess by novelist Hilary Mantel during a lecture at the British Museum, the Daily Record reports. Harping on everything from Kate's looks to personality, it was clear the “double Booker Prize winner” was going in.

“Kate seems to have 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,” Mantel said. “She appears precision-made, machine-made, so different from Diana whose human awkwardness and emotional incontinence showed in her every gesture.”

The verbal jabs didn't end there. Mantel described Prince Williams' wife as becoming a “jointed doll on which certain rags are hung” and a “shop-window mannequin, with no personality of her own, entirely defined by what she wore.”

She even referenced Kate's impending motherhood as her sole purpose, adding "[The media] will find that this young woman's life until now was nothing, her only point and purpose being to give birth.”

During her speech, the author also challenged the British monarchy for allegedly sacrificing royal ladies and molding them into subjects of entertainment.