Kate Middleton’s photography is coming under fire once again.
Today, the international wire service Getty Images flagged that a 2023 photograph taken by the Princess of Wales has been “digitally enhanced at source.”
The image was taken of Queen Elizabeth and 10 of her great-grandchildren to mark the monarch’s 97th birthday, and shows several slight distortions, including the blurring of Prince Louis’s neck and some of the other children’s hair. “Getty Images is undertaking a review of handout images and in accordance with its editorial policy is placing an editor’s note on images where the source has suggested they could be digitally enhanced,” a Getty spokesperson told CBS News.
None of the edits are particularly misleading or malicious. However, they do show that the Princess has been manipulating her family photos in a way that violates the policies of most major news outlets on more than one occasion.
It comes at a difficult time for Middleton who, in January, announced she was taking a break from royal duties while recovering from abdominal surgery. Come February, wild conspiracy theories ran rampant on social media speculating about the Princess’s health and the real reason for her absence. To try to quiet the noise, Middleton released a cheerful photo of herself and her three children for the U.K.’s Mother’s Day on March 11. Yet on March 12, AP issued a kill order for the image, which featured several visible editing mistakes. “At closer inspection, it appears that the source has manipulated the image,” the AP said in its advisory. “No replacement photo will be sent.” Suddenly, the wild rumors that existed in a social media silo went mainstream. Many suggested that the Princess was actually missing.
Middleton then issued a personal apology: “Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing,” she wrote on X and Instagram stories. “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.”
Much of the rumors have quieted after TMZ published a video of the Prince and a Princess of Wales walking out of a local farm shop in Windsor this past weekend. They will likely almost completely subside by April, when Middleton is expected to make her first public appearance since December 2023. However, what won’t go away? The fact that for years, she’s been altering the images of herself, her children, and the royal family that are shared with the public.
Prince Louis’s birthday is on April 23. Traditionally, the royal family releases a portrait taken by Middleton to mark the milestone. However, her role as the unofficial documentarian of the Windsors now seems up in the air: can the public trust the image she provides? Only time will tell. But this is for certain: any photograph by the Princess is certain to be put under the microscope.