It's a wild time to be a professional Kate Middleton lookalike

• Heidi Agan has worked as a Kate Middleton lookalike for 12 years. 
• Agan told BI she was shocked to be "part of a worldwide conspiracy theory on TikTok." 
• She wants the world to know she is not the woman seen in the recent TMZ video of Kate and William. 

The past 24 hours have been wild for professional Kate Middleton lookalikes. Just ask Heidi Agan.

"I woke up to being part of a worldwide conspiracy theory on TikTok," Agan told Business Insider on Tuesday.

Agan has spent the past 12 years acting as the Princess of Wales for corporate events, private parties, and advertisements. But she was shocked to learn that people believed it was her, not Kate, in a new video released by TMZ and The Sun on Monday.

"It's obviously flattering on one hand because it means I look like her, and people think I do," she said. "But on the other hand, it's a little bit crazy."

Speculation has swirled around the video — which shows Kate and Prince William walking through Windsor Farm Shop — following the recent controversy surrounding a photo the couple shared of Kate and their children on March 10, which was Mother's Day in the UK. Kate admitted the picture was Photoshopped after multiple photo agencies, including the Associated Press and Reuters, said it had been digitally altered and should not be published.

"I can tell you categorically it was not me at Windsor Farm Shop. I've literally had to give people an alibi of where I was," said Agan, who was working at the Starlight Dance and Musical Theatre School in Northampton — over 70 miles away from Windsor — on Saturday when the video was reportedly filmed.

And Agan, who has spent over a decade studying the royal couple, truly believes the video shows Kate and William.

"I'm not an expert by any means, but I 100% think it is them," she said. "I think the unfortunate image that came out on Mother's Day has sparked people's curiosity even more, to the point where it has turned into a massive conspiracy theory, but I don't think that was their intention at all. I think the rumor mill is just out of control now."

Public interest in Kate's whereabouts has reached a fever pitch in the two months since Kensington Palace announced she was undergoing a planned abdominal surgery and wouldn't resume public duties until after Easter. With the exception of the altered Mother's Day photo, only two pictures of Kate have been released since Christmas.

But business has been booming for Agan, who was expecting a lull in lookalike jobs following the news of Kate's health in January.

"I expected it to be a lot quieter with Kate being out of the public eye, but business has increased," Agan said. "Which is strange because before, when she was pregnant and sick, people would kind of back off a bit, I think out of respect. So the fact it's gone the other way this time is a little strange."

It's been quite the journey for Agan, who began working as Kate's lookalike around her and William's wedding in April 2011.

"I was waitressing, and a lot of people started telling me that I looked like her and asked to be served by me," Agan recalled. "I didn't believe that lookalikes were a thing. I didn't think they existed, but it got to be so much that I eventually decided to send my pictures to a few agents. I got my first job four days later and quit waitressing."

Agan, now 43, has since traveled the world as a professional Kate lookalike. She's gone to Australia with her "fake Prince William" to film a commercial for Chinese milk and once stayed in penthouse hotel rooms with a police escort in Prague while on the job, she said.

"It is nice to get that sort of snippet of what life is like for them, but I wouldn't want to live like that all the time," Agan said. "It's nice to come home to normality."

There have been some strange moments, like when a picture of Agan's feet began circulating the internet. And she's had an unfortunate taste of some of the dark trappings that come with fame.

"There's always certain people that believe you're real and will try to follow you home, and people can get quite nasty on social media," Agan said. "But that's something I've just had to learn to be accustomed to. It's part of the job now."

"Usually, people are really respectful and just want a picture and then go on their way," she added. "It's not often we encounter anything that we're not able to deal with."

But life as Kate's lookalike has also opened up a world of opportunity.

"Obviously, being self-employed is great. It gave me a lot more freedom to spend time with my children," Agan said. "It's been a wild ride, it's been amazing, and I wouldn't change it for anything in the world."

The job has even given Agan a second family through her tight-knit crew of professional lookalikes, although their gigs have been affected by the real royals' recent feuds.

"There's a group of us that work together a lot, and the whole Harry and Meghan situation was really sad for us," Agan said. "We're all really good friends, and obviously we still speak, but job-wise, we don't really get to work with them anymore. It really is funny sometimes how the real-life royals mirror what we're doing because we lost our Harry and Meghan as well."

And acting as the royal family is bittersweet when a real death hits the British monarchy.

"When the queen died, the queen we worked with retired, so that was another person that we kind of lost, and it'll be the same with the King Charles lookalike," Agan said. "So, on the one hand, it will be nice because work will increase. But, on the other hand, we lose a member of our family — that's morbid."

But the royal family's current wave of controversy hasn't fazed Agan, who pays no mind to rumors about Kate and truly believes she and Will were "trying to do the right thing" with the Mother's Day photo.

"I think they knew that people were wondering how Kate's health was, so they released the Mother's Day photo," Agan said. "That backfired, so then she apologized. That backfired, and now they're out and about in Windsor, and that's backfiring. Until she actually does a proper royal engagement, it doesn't seem like they're going to be able to appease everybody."

"Obviously, there are people who are hell-bent on a conspiracy theory," she added. "That's their opinion, and they're entitled to it."

While she plans to work as Kate's lookalike for as long as she can, Agan is also grateful that every time a gig ends, she just gets to be herself again.

"To be in the public eye like that all the time, it has got to be really, really hard, and I'm just happy I don't have to live that way," she said. "I can do my job and come home and unwind — I'm not sure that they can."