Novelist and Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel is facing criticism after launching a "venomous" verbal attack on the Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton.
The author called the Duchess a "machine-made" princess and "designed by committee," The Daily Mail reported. The newspaper republished the author's speech in its Tuesday edition along with front page photos of the two women and, according to an Associated Press report, a headline saying Mantel deemed the Duchess: "A plastic princess designed to breed."
Mantel criticized the wife of Prince William in a tangent to a speech on how the public and press glorify royalty, characterizing her as "a jointed doll on which certain rags were hung ... a shop-window mannequin," the AP reported.
The Daily Mail called Mantel's words "an astonishing and venomous attack on the Duchess of Cambridge."
Many supporters have come to the Duchess' defense, including Prime Minister David Cameron, who called the comments, "completely misguided and completely wrong," the AP reported.
Some argued that Mantel's real target was not the Duchess, but the press. Journalist Catherine Scott said Mantel's speech was "an attack on how some parts of the media canonize royal women ... while also rendering them voiceless and purposeless," the AP reported.
Mantel, 60, won the acclaimed Booker Prize twice for her novels "Wolf Hall" and "Bring Up the Bodies."
Kate Middleton, 31, is due to give birth in July and Tuesday made one of her first public appearances since announcing her pregnancy last December, the report stated.
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