Acclaimed author Hilary Mantel was today lying low at her seaside apartment after her astonishing attack on the Duchess of Cambridge caused national outrage.
Mantel refused to personally explain why she called pregnant Kate, 31, a “shop window mannequin” with a “perfect plastic smile” and “no personality of her own”.
A man who answered the intercom the 60-year-old’s beautiful seaside apartment in Budleigh Salterton, Devon, said the writer would not be commenting on her remarks.
The top-floor apartment is one of 26 houses and flats in the posh Marine Court complex, 15 miles south of Exeter, which boasts breathtaking views of the sea and a secluded stony beach.
Homes there sell for an average of £650,000.
Mantel made her controversial remarks in a lecture for the London Review of Books, in which she compared Kate unfavourably to several historical royals, claiming she lacked Princess Diana’s personality and wasn’t a “power player” like Anne Boleyn.
The writer, who won Man Booker Prizes for Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, described Kate as “painfully thin” and having “dead eyes”.
She also appeared to endorse the recent publication of photographs of the pregnant duchess on holiday, saying “the royal body exists to be looked at”.
