I had to rewrite my earlier piece about Prince Louis’s birthday portrait quickly, so I didn’t get a chance to really analyze the what, where, how and why of it all. It feels notable that Kensington Palace waited until after noon (GMT) to release a photo of Louis on his sixth birthday, and it feels notable that the photo credit has been given to the Princess of Wales for the pic. While Kate was not credited with the Mother’s Day frankenphoto – the palace still insists that William took “the original” and Kate edited it – the frankenphoto debacle caused many media outlets to go back and take a second look at other photos “Kate” took over the years. Many of those photos were edited and manipulated, so it’s remarkable that they decided to go with a photo of Louis, allegedly taken by Kate.
The BBC noted in their coverage of Louis’s new photo that “With calls for Catherine to be given privacy while she has cancer treatment, the palace says it was aware of the difficult balance in then releasing a birthday photo of Louis, but decided to put out the picture as a way of thanking those who had sent birthday wishes.” The palace also claimed that the photo was taken in Windsor in “the last few days.” As many have already pointed out, Louis has the same missing-tooth gap that he had in the Mother’s Day frankenphoto. It’s also interesting that Louis seems to be wearing the same plaid button-down shirt which he wore underneath his sweater in the Mother’s Day pic.
If Kensington Palace is lying about when this photo was taken… well, it will be interesting. My guess is that they feel like they can lie about the timing because there’s no way to prove it either way. But this definitely looks like it was from the same “Mother’s Day photoshoot” which likely happened months and months ago. Kate is known for recycling months-old-but-never-released photos for special events, so it’s an especially stupid lie. The palace could have just said “this was taken months ago but it’s a great pic of Louis, and that’s why we released it now.”
Also: I’ve already seen some people talking about some possible edits made on Louis’s left hand/arm/wrist. It’s possible! Jeez, why didn’t they bring in a professional photographer to simply take some new shots of Louis and Charlotte? Her birthday is coming up next week!
Photos courtesy of Kensington Palace.