Today is Princess Charlotte’s ninth birthday. Probably the Princess of Wales’s easiest labor/delivery too, I still remember how bonkers it was that Kate gave birth to Charlotte and was up and out of the hospital in a flash, but not before she posed glowingly on the steps of the hospital with her baby girl. Happy b-day to Charlotte, I hope she and the other Wales children are doing well.
Now for the weird energy that comes with everything around the Wales family these days. Since the Mother’s Day frankenphoto fiasco, Kensington Palace has now opted to NOT release their family photos to media agencies (like Reuters, Getty, AFP) or the British press in advance. Instead, they’re just going to release photos via their own social media, with everyone getting the photos at the same time. It still feels like KP is leaving itself open to credible claims of photo manipulation, but at the moment, the critical media agencies aren’t saying much.
KP waited until around 5:20 am EST to release this “new” portrait of Charlotte. That would make it around 11:20 am in England. The Daily Mail’s top royal story, before the release of this photo, was “Kate Middleton breaks tradition again on Princess Charlotte’s birthday just a week after being late to share a new photo of Prince Louis.” A whole story devoted to how KATE needed to make haste and release a new Charlotte photo. The Telegraph’s coverage is mostly flat, basic reporting, but they mention the Mother’s Day photo fiasco and note that it appears as if Charlotte is wearing the same cardigan in her birthday photo and the Mother’s Day frankenphoto.
The vibe from this photo and Louis’s birthday photo last week is that these pics are all from the same photoshoot… a photoshoot which likely took place months ago. Still, Kensington Palace has briefed the rota that Kate took this photo “in the last few days.” Sure.
A lovely new 9th birthday photograph of Princess Charlotte taken by the Princess of Wales at Windsor in the last few days https://t.co/1WwQjrZV7h
— Rebecca English (@RE_DailyMail) May 2, 2024
Photos courtesy of Kensington Palace.