Kensington Palace Is Done Talking About the Kate Middleton Photo Drama, Expert Claims: The ‘Explanation Has Been Made’
That’s all, folks. Kensington Palace is moving on from the Kate Middleton Mother’s Day photo editing controversy. (Even if much of the internet hasn’t.) A royal expert doesn’t expect the palace to say anything more on the subject. The reason? They’ve already released an “explanation” from the Princess of Wales herself.
Kate apologized for the edited Mother’s Day photo on March 11
One day after Kensington Palace released an image of Kate and her three children to mark Mother’s Day in the U.K., Kate admitted to having edited it.
Taken by Prince William, the photo released on March 10, 2024, showed Kate smiling alongside the couple’s children: Prince George, 10, Princess Charlotte, 8, and Prince Louis, 5. It marked the royal mother of three’s first official photo since undergoing abdominal surgery in January 2024.
“Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing,” Kate said in a statement. “I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused.”
“I hope everyone celebrating had a very happy Mother’s Day,” she added before signing off with “C” for Catherine.
Kate and the palace have given the ‘last word’ on the photo editing controversy
“That statement could have come from Kensington Palace itself,” Katie Nicholl, a royal expert and author, told Entertainment Tonight. “But I think it’s quite important that it came from the Princess of Wales.”
“I think that’s probably the last word we’re going to hear. Either from the princess or, indeed, from Kensington Palace on the matter as far as they’re concerned.”
“The explanation has been made,” the New Royals author said. “An apology has been offered for any confusion. And I think you will notice the photograph is still on the couple’s social media channel. They’ve not chosen to take it down.”
At the time of writing, posts containing the family photo still remain on William and Kate’s official X and Instagram accounts. (An altered photo disclosure has since been added to the latter.)
“The fact that Catherine has apologized for any confusion caused should hopefully put an end to [the controversy],” Nicholl added. “I think that’s certainly the hope at the Palace.”
Palace sources say only ‘minor adjustments’ were made to Kate’s photo
While “keen-eyed observers have noticed some unusual things” about the photo of Kate and her three kids—leaves, zippers, sleeves, tiles—“my sources at Kensington Palace say that these were minor adjustments,” Nicholl continued.
“And I think that’s a really important detail here. We’re not talking about superimposing the Princess of Wales into an image because she wasn’t well enough to be there. And that’s some of the wild speculation that is flying around on the internet at the moment.”
“The fact that it looks like a bit of a botched job shows you that it was an amateur that was doing this, and that’s what she said,” the expert went on. “She’s an amateur photographer who sometimes plays around with digital enhancement—and that’s what happened here.”
“In this day and age, it’s probably quite normal for all photographs to be Photoshopped,” Nicholl added. “You wouldn’t put a magazine cover story out without Photoshopping and airbrushing that image, usually.”
