This Is Not Princess Catherine

Let’s clear up a few things.

Heidi Agan is not Catherine, Princess of Wales. She has never met Catherine, formerly known as Kate Middleton. She has never been contacted by Kensington Palace, nor is she secretly working with the royal family as part of a cover-up devised to hide the princess from public view.

Ms. Agan is, however, a slender 43-year-old British brunette whose visage bears a resemblance to Catherine’s.

She’s turned looking like one of the most famous women in the world into a job, performing at parties and events as a look-alike for hire. Recently, Ms. Agan has found herself at the center of an international news cycle as rumors swirl about Catherine’s whereabouts following a previously announced surgery earlier this year. When Catherine was said to be caught on camera earlier this month, skeptics were quick to claim that the person in the video was not the absentee royal, but rather a doppelgänger — and some suspected it was Ms. Agan.

She wants to set the record straight. This conversation has been edited and condensed.

How did you become a Catherine impersonator?

It was 12 years ago. I was working as a waitress, and everybody just kept saying how much I looked like her. It was around the time of the wedding. I didn’t even think look-alikes were real or that you could make money doing it. Eventually, I sent my picture off to a few agents and I got my first job a week later. I quit waitressing.

Is this a full-time job for you?

It was. The pandemic killed everything off, and the entertainment industry, I think, has struggled to recover. I work at the head of a dance and musical theater school now, as well.