Several hours after the Princess of Wales’s photo-editing apology on Monday, the Daily Mail published a “new photo” of Prince William and Kate together in the back of a car, being driven out of Windsor. We were told – as in, Kensington Palace specifically briefed the Mail – that William was dropping off Kate at a private appointment before he headed out to the Commonwealth service at Westminster Abbey. The Mail published the photos closely-cropped, and within a few hours, several British and American outlets picked up the same photos and published them too. In every version of these photos, Kate (or “Kate”) is turned away from the camera, looking off to a brick wall, while William is seen in profile, staring down at his phone. All you can see of “Kate” is a sliver of eyebrow and the side of her cheek.
The thing is, as other outlets ran the photos, they didn’t crop the image as closely as the Mail did. Which has left people confused about whether this image is false as well, because the wider shot reveals significant inconsistencies with the brick in the background, and it looks like yet another digitally altered photo. The wider shot has been published in People and Page Six.
Yall!? Has no one else noticed that the most recent photo of #KateMiddleton in the car… the bricks in the car windows, don’t appear to match the bricks outside the car…
Is this another photoshopped picture… can anyone find the original they clipped it from? #KateGate WTF?! pic.twitter.com/D730OsfJCI
— Indomitable (@NdomitableNegro) March 12, 2024
Kate Middleton spotted leaving Windsor Castle with Prince William after post-surgery Photoshop fail https://t.co/qKfB2VF32f pic.twitter.com/4tjeg2WTGI
— Page Six (@PageSix) March 12, 2024
To me, this is even more sinister than the Kensington Palace clowns f–king up an edit on a “private photo” for Mother’s Day. This involves paparazzi, photo agencies and media outlets publishing a photo of deeply questionable origin, which could have been handed out by Kensington Palace. There are even conspiracy theorists positing that this photo is something repurposed from last year, although I’m coming down more on the side of “that was not actually Kate beside him.” Because you know what? I do not even believe that Kate is in Windsor right now. Anyway, another f–king mess.
Daily Mail releases two more, perfectly normal Images of Kate Middleton. pic.twitter.com/rCRDcb9kz4
— Mikey Walsh (@thatbloodyMikey) March 11, 2024
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Instar.