A picture is worth a thousand words. But the British Royal Family received many more than it perhaps bargained for when it released a now-discredited photo of Catherine, Princess of Wales and her children to mark Mother’s Day in Britain. Kate later apologized for any confusion, saying that the family portrait had been subject to “editing,” after international news organizations and photo agencies took the rare step to remove the image from distribution, with some such as the Associated Press citing its violation with their editorial standards. The imaging team at The Guardian newspaper identified 20 anomalies in the photo, which it suggests was created with “multiple frames” that “were likely used to composite a more intended final result.”
The Royal Family couldn’t have manufactured—or, rather photoshopped—a worse outcome. For weeks, speculation about the whereabouts and overall health of the Princess of Wales, who has been taking khbrknews off from her royal duties following an abdominal surgery in January, has run rampant on social media. Though Kensington Palace issued statements slapping down some of the more serious allegations (one, presented by a Spanish journalist, suggested that Kate was in a medically-induced coma), it has mostly remained silent—until Sunday, when it posted the photo of Kate and her children, purportedly taken by Prince William, to its account on X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram. But rather than support the palace’s reassurances that the princess is doing well, it achieved just the opposite, sending the online rumor- and conspiracy-mill into overdrive.
Read More: The Kate Middleton Photo Controversy Shows the Royal PR Team Is Out of Its Depth
This controversy stands to have repercussions for more than the Royal Family’s reputation (or that of Kate’s photoshop skills). More concerningly, it stands to undermine the press and the wider public’s trust in the Royal Family—an institution that, as the late…
