Posted by Leonard Steinberg on September 18th, 2012

So while war is raging throughout the world, our economy is about to head over ‘the fiscal cliff’, and more, world headlines are focused on the topless photos taken of Kate Middleton sunning herself in Provence. Topless tanning in France is pretty standard. Taking excessive photos of the Royals is pretty standard too. Expecting Royal-level privacy requires being in a basement without windows and no foreigners of any kind. The tanning took place on a terrace exposed to a public road. Yet the Royals are OUTRAGED that these photos were printed….outraged! The public relations machine that is supposed to deliver the Royals to us masses as pristine, pure perfection has failed. Surely if they were so virginally perfect they would not be topless or playing strip-billiards in Vegas?

We encounter the need of celebrities to have their privacy all the time in New York real estate. In my building, the En Suite Sky Garage provides the perfect means for driving into the building incognito, thus avoiding pesky photographers. But most developers fail to address this critical issue with building access and terraces: The vast majority of terraces are indeed very exposed, and screening them off from the public eye or worse, the paparazzi, is a potential value-adder. Would anyone in New York tan topless on a terrace abutting a public road that was exposed? I doubt it. There are many ways to install privacy and the solutions are not terribly expensive.

So, dearest Kate: know the principles and ethics of the paparazzi are not going to change much, so please find a more secluded spot for tanning topless next time so that we don’t have to have the headlines littered with stories on this silly subject when there really are more important thing that should be making headlines. If tanning topless is indeed so offensive, surely you don’t want non-paparazzi passers by seeing?