Kensington Palace wanted a picture to paint a thousand words, but instead, it has posed a thousand questions.
After months of missing from public view, an image of Kate Middleton with her children that was posted on social media for Mother’s Day this Sunday was supposed to shut down speculations surrounding Kate Middleton, instead it spectacularly backfired when some of the world’s largest news agencies withdraw the picture with a kill notice after concerns it had been manipulated.
The Press On Kate Middleton’s Controversy
“It’s hugely embarrassing for the Kensington Palace, bearing in mind that William and Kate are the future of our monarchy, they’re meant to be the fresh, bold-new face of British monarchy. It’s gone horribly wrong in the immediate term. But when this media-feeding frenzy dies down, I think the Embers left behind are a reminder of a larger existential crisis that faces the House of Windsor, which- the singular popularity of the late queen masked. Now she’s gone, what do they stand for? And who is able to replace her?” says the royal biographer, Tessa Dunlop, to the press media.
The Controversial Picture
On the picture, there are quite the few areas which at a closer look are being scrutinized by the experts. For example, zooming in on the smiling photo, the jumper on Princess Charlotte’s wrist appears to have disappeared. While Kate Middleton’s zipper is clearly not aligned. While on the bottom left, the line of the wall looks like it’s been cut in half. Many more signs as such appear in the image which can be concluded as photo-edited.
The Twitter Post By Kate Middleton-striking controversy
The major plot twist occurred in this new photo shopping mystery when with the Duchess herself claiming responsibility for editing the image via a Twitter(X) post on 11th March, 2024, in the morning. According to her tweet, “Like many amateur photographers, I do ocassionally experiment with editing. I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused. I hope everyone celebrating had a very happy mother’s day. C”
The mothering Sunday post is the first time the Princess of Wales has publicly commented since the palace announced in January about her reception of her treatment for abdominal surgery but wouldn’t expand on it further.
The silence of the palace on what they view as a private matter has only prompted a wild west of self-confessed Kate Middleton conspiracy theorists online who have been very adamant online filling in the blanks.
Ironically if the point was for the mother’s day update to draw a line under those spiralling theories, then it has only fueled the fire of a line of armchair internet detectives who have launched their own deep-dive investigations on Tiktok and other platforms.
It also happens to be a common knowledge it is that the royal palace has always closely managed it’s image with the press.
According to Royal historian, Professor Kate Williams who says that Royal portraits and royal photos don’t always represent accurately what the royals look like. “Just take Queen Elizabeth I for example, she didn’t look the portraits, and we often see a bit of Photoshop and filter, I mean last Christmas photo, Louis was missing a finger, the eagle-eyed internet sleuth noticed. But the levels of Photoshop on this clearly are much greater”, says Professor Kate Williams, royal historian.
