The Princess of Wales has owned up. In a statement on X/ Twitter, she revealed that she was the phantom photoshopper: ‘Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing. 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.’

This Mothers’ Day photograph of the Princess of Wales and her children was intended to kill the rampant speculation about her absence from the public eye over the last few weeks. Instead, the photograph itself has now been ‘killed’ – in the parlance of the international news agencies that pulled it. These agencies have, understandably, a zero tolerance policy for manipulated photographs. And they weren’t happy with the clearly visible editing of the image.

The photo was taken by Prince William, to whom I want to shout: ‘You had one job!’. This I feel quite frequently now when it comes to our future king, usually about the more important aspect of his remit. His one big job is to keep his mouth shut, smile and wave and occasionally say ‘How nice’ or ‘Have you come far?’, for which he gets to live in splendour and barely worry about lifting a finger. Even blabbermouths like me would leap at that deal. But William can’t keep the old lips sealed, lecturing the Baftas about diversity or everyone about climate change and recently dishing up his two pe’n’orth on Gaza.

A post shared by The Prince and Princess of Wales (@princeandprincessofwales)

But here’s another one job William has muffed. He needed to prove his missus was still OK. Royal conspiracy theories inevitably abound, and the absence of Kate while recovering from surgery has thrown a lit match on to them. All William had to do was to gather the family, point his phone, shout ‘say Cheese!’, snap a few snaps, choose the best one and press send.

QOSHE - Blame Prince William, not Kate, for the Royal photo blunder - Gareth Roberts
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Blame Prince William, not Kate, for the Royal photo blunder

6 10
12.03.2024

The Princess of Wales has owned up. In a statement on X/ Twitter, she revealed that she was the phantom photoshopper: ‘Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing. 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.’

This Mothers’ Day photograph of the Princess of Wales and her children was intended to kill the rampant........

© The Spectator


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