We recently passed the one-year anniversary of the Mother’s Day frankenphoto fiasco. To recap, the Princess of Wales went missing for months, then on Mother’s Day weekend in the UK – which was Oscar weekend – Kensington Palace released a “new photo taken by Prince William” of Kate and their three children. Within minutes/hours of the photo’s release, people began analyzing the amateurish Photoshop, with many theorizing that the photo (released officially by KP, remember) was hacked together using several photos. By the time of the Oscar red carpet, Reuters, the AP, AFP and Getty had all issued “kill orders” on the image. We later learned that a few of those agencies had even contacted KP and asked for the original image before issuing the kill order, but KP refused to play ball. Early Monday morning, “Kate” took responsibility for the hacked-together image and “she” apologized for causing confusion.
As many pointed out, this wasn’t just some minor controversy – what was supposed to be a health update about the future queen consort turned out to have been a faked and manipulated image. As I wrote at the time, “There are enormous ‘political consequences,’ and now, with this f–k up, Kensington Palace has zero credibility if and when some bigger sh-t hits the fan.” Instead of acknowledging that, KP and Buckingham Palace put a different plan into action, where it was all “woe is me, people were so mean to Kate while she had cancer!” We were just supposed to forget that William and his advisors all tossed a cancer-stricken Kate under the bus and made her take the fall for the frankenphoto, remember? Anyway, I bring up this sordid history because this week’s People Magazine cover story includes some revisionist history:
Kate Middleton and Prince William were hurt by the fallout around the photo they released for Mother’s Day last year after the Princess of Wales admitted to editing the picture.
“There was a real sense then that they felt bruised by it,” royal author Robert Hardman tells PEOPLE in this week’s exclusive cover story. “It was treated like some great fraud.”
After undergoing planned abdominal surgery on Jan. 16, 2024, Princess Kate, 43, largely retreated from public view, fueling online rumors. When she shared a Mother’s Day photo of herself with her children Prince George, 11, Princess Charlotte, 9, and Prince Louis, 6, taken by William, on March 10, the image quickly became the center of controversy.
Online sleuths spotted irregularities, leading major picture agencies to pull it from circulation. The following day, Kate admitted to editing the picture, but by then, a firestorm of conspiracy theories had taken hold.
For Kate and her family, the experience was overwhelming.
“It was like being on a roller coaster for them… undergoing chemotherapy and trying to protect your children. It was like being in the middle of a tornado and not knowing when it was going to calm down,” says Ailsa Anderson, former press secretary to the late Queen Elizabeth.
Unbeknownst to the public at the time, Princess Kate had been undergoing treatment for cancer. She bravely shared her diagnosis on March 22, 2024, in an emotional video filmed at Windsor.
“It was like being in the middle of a tornado and not knowing when it was going to calm down” – again, this was not something done TO them – they CHOSE to release a hacked-together photo and pass it off as an official portrait and a health update on a missing princess. William also chose to toss his wife under the bus regarding the photo. “It was treated like some great fraud” – it was a huge fraud? Jesus. As many said at the time, imagine the Sussexes released some hacked-together image as an official portrait. The reaction from these people would have been much different. And that comparison doesn’t even completely work – again, William and Kate are the future king and queen, as they’re so fond of saying. They should be held to a different standard of truthfulness and authenticity.
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Photos courtesy of Kensington Palace. Cover courtesy of The Sun.
