How Kate Middleton’s Sweet Family Picture Turned Into a Sour Royal Mess

Kate Middleton’s apology for editing an image of her and her children, followed by a carefully curated appearance in a car alongside her husband Prince William, failed to quell speculation about her health and her marriage Monday.

Her office had hoped to draw a line under the episode when Kate issued a statement Monday saying that she was personally responsible for photoshopping the image of her and her children that was published by her office Sunday, only to be dramatically denounced as “manipulated” by global photo agencies a few hours later.

“Upset at the way in which the image, particularly one which involved her children, had been mired in controversy and alarmed at the way in which news agencies issued ‘kill notices,’ a shaken princess told aides that she wanted to make amends and claim responsibility for her mistake,” the Times of London reported Monday, in a report about the thinking behind the picture—and Kate coming clean about its doctoring.

The hope, the paper reported, was that the picture would be “a heartwarming posting to the public on Mother’s Day, providing an ideal opportunity for the princess to thank the public for their support and good wishes and provide some public reassurance about her health as she continued her recovery from abdominal surgery.”

However, as photo agencies disassociated themselves from it, Kate confirmed to aides that she had doctored the image, “and is understood to have thought that ‘honesty is the best policy. She wanted to ‘own up’ and acknowledge the mistake,” the Times reported.

A “palace insider” told the Times that Kate felt “awful” about it, and said that she had just “tried to make it the best it could be” because she knew how important it was for it to be “a nice picture.” The insider told the Times, “She was also thinking of her own children, hoping that they looked good for their own sakes.”

On Monday, Kate ventured out into public view alongside her husband, with the couple sitting in the back seat of a chauffeur-driven car leaving their home in Windsor. The images, which showed Kate facing away from the camera, are understood to have been taken with the tacit consent of the couple, and are thus appearing widely in U.K. papers, in contrast to the photos of Kate snatched by an unauthorized paparazzo last week which have not been run in the U.K.

It appeared that she was dropped off at what the palace termed a “private appointment” by William, who himself then headed on to an official royal family church service in London.

Presumably intended to telegraph the message that all is well in the Wales’ marriage, the car trip instead added, for many, to a sense that the Waleses were desperately seeking to change the narrative about Kate, with speculation building that whatever is going on is considerably more serious than the palace are letting on.

A sense of chaos—or, at best, woefully lacking communications management—appeared to be enveloping the institution, even as senior royals attempted to transmit a “business as usual” message with William accompanying Queen Camilla to the annual Commonwealth Service, which was completely overshadowed by the drama.

The car trip followed Kate’s extraordinary mea culpa over the image. Her admission that she did “occasionally experiment with editing” was widely seen as a completely inadequate explanation of what had happened.

“Disturbing questions over the princess’ health have now become harder to dismiss, the Telegraph’s Hannah Furness wrote. “Was the photograph really taken this week? Was she really there? Were all the three children smiling so perfectly for the camera?”

Britain’s Queen Camilla and Britain’s William, Prince of Wales attend an annual Commonwealth Day service ceremony at Westminster Abbey in London, Britain March 11, 2024.

Henry Nicholls/Pool via Reuters

One very easy way to clear the matter up—sharing the original photograph—was rejected out of hand by the palace.

With the palace apparently determined to stick to its policy of releasing only crumbs of information (they did not respond to a request for comment from The Daily Beast), social media quickly moved to fill in the blanks and ask the obvious questions.

These included but were not limited to: Is it really conceivable that Britain’s future queen has a side hustle as Kensington Palace’s chief photo retoucher? And why did Kate look totally different to how she looked when snapped by a paparazzi photographer last week if the image was taken, as the palace said, last week? Why wasn’t she wearing her wedding ring?

The palace declined to confirm to The Daily Beast when the photos were taken or how much editing was done on them, but analysis of the metadata carried out by some media organizations appeared to show the picture was taken on Friday.

Sky News said their analysis showed that the image was taken in Windsor on an expensive Canon camera, and was saved in Adobe Photoshop twice on an Apple Mac on Friday and Saturday. The first save was made at 9.54pm on Friday, the second at 9.39am on Saturday. It is not clear if the two saves were on the same device.

Kate’s defenders may say it was an innocent photo-editing error that many people, as they take and edit their pictures, can identify with making. Some think the controversy is overblown—that Kate should simply be left alone to recover from surgery, and re-emerge after Easter, when her spokespeople initially let it be known she would resume her public life.

The last time Kate Middleton appeared officially in public, Dec. 25, 2023, alongside Queen Camilla, William, Prince of Wales, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, Prince Louis and Mia Tindall, walking to St. Mary Magdalene’s church, Sandringham.

Chris Radburn/Reuters

But this latest brouhaha isn’t down to an intrusive or over-reaching media, but Kate and the royals themselves. Hostile commentary has appeared from even previously supportive, mainstream commentators with Piers Morgan calling on the palace to release the original image.

The Daily Mail columnist Liz Jones said she was no longer even convinced that Kate had even written the messages signed with a ‘C’ that purported to come from ‘Catherine’ personally.

Omid Scobie, the biographer of the Sussexes who has been one of the Waleses biggest critics, raised the same doubt, pointing out that statements have previously been published purporting to come from Prince Harry that he subsequently said were issued without his approval.

Whatever, the mystery over Kate Middleton—the state of her health and/or her marriage—has only deepened, thanks to a picture that instead of clarifying confusion has only caused a whole lot more.