AFP, or Agence France-Presse, was one of the four press agencies to put a kill order on Kensington Palace’s wacky Mother’s Day photo on Sunday. Additional media agencies followed suit, and it all came to a head on Monday when someone signed the Princess of Wales’s initial to an apology for “experiment[ing] with editing” the photo, allegedly taken by her husband. At this point, I don’t think anyone believes that the initial photo was taken by William, nor does anyone believe there even was one “original” photo, nor does anyone believe that Kate actually wrote that apology. I bring up AFP because as they updated their coverage with “Kate’s apology,” they added citations to all of Photoshop fails in the photo:
#UPDATE Catherine, Princess of Wales, on Monday apologised and admitted to editing an official portrait of her released by the palace that prompted AFP and other agencies to withdraw the image ➡️ https://t.co/orPxfvwdjp pic.twitter.com/UPlxOiJmGJ
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) March 11, 2024
There are tons of people going on deeper dives and falling head first into conspiracies. They have people on British news programs analyzing metadata from the photo too, and the general consensus is that this was not AI – it was an amateurish Photoshop job, possibly on an older photo. Speaking of:
If an intern had produced the sort of editing the Princess of Wales did on her photo of her and her children, they would not get a job, a senior photographic agency executive has told Sky News. Eric Baradat, a photo director at Agence France-Presse (AFP), described Kate’s efforts as “really amateur” and said he and his colleagues “joked this morning, saying if an intern was doing that at AFP, they wouldn’t get a job, no chance at all”.
He told Sky News they soon realised there was “some very strange business going on” with the picture after it was published on Sunday. He said that “the more you look at the picture, the more you enlarge it, it becomes obvious that it’s been manipulated or altered or doctored or whatever you call it, really badly… in a way that is really amateur” and “really badly done”.
As to how the image slipped through their checks, he admitted “doubting images” was one of their responsibilities, “especially nowadays, where no image can be trusted. Basically, no single image can be trusted.” However, all the agencies have “total trust with the material that Kensington Palace is usually sending out”, especially given the picture was one without “political consequences”.
As experienced editors, he said, they should “debunk a lot of the fake [pictures]” and sometimes use software programmes to help identify them. But in the case of the 42-year-old princess’s editing efforts, “you don’t need that”, as “it’s obvious with the human eye, with somebody that knows digital images that there’s not even a need for that”.
A photo without “political consequences”? No, I disagree, although I can understand the sense of complacency within media outlets which usually cover palace-issued photos without question. If it’s a palace-issued photo of one of the royal children on their birthday, that’s something with little to no political consequences, and thus, it would not matter to AFP or Reuters if the image has been edited or manipulated. But we’re talking about the future king’s wife, the future queen consort, the woman who went missing for 70 days while her husband staggered around drunk. There are enormous “political consequences,” and now, with this f–k up, Kensington Palace has zero credibility if and when some bigger sh-t hits the fan.
Here’s a clip about the metadata on the photo, and a now-viral tweet from the Mirror’s social media person, theorizing that Kensington Palace plopped Kate’s Vogue-cover head onto the Mother’s Day photo.
"it shows the image was saved twice on photoshop. once on Friday evening, another time on Saturday morning… both on a Mac computer"
Is there a petition I can sign for Kate Middleton to release the original photo? #PhotoGate pic.twitter.com/SvCy3gWMlI
— Danny Denay #FBPE #GTTO (@DannyDenay) March 11, 2024
my analysis of the kate middleton photo saga is that they took her face from the vogue cover she did years ago and edited it in pic.twitter.com/JLXts08zp5
— Ruby Naldrett (@rubynaldrett) March 11, 2024
Photos courtesy of Kensington Palace, Instar, Cover Images.
What did you do to her, William?
Even in 1483, regular folk started questioning where the princes in the Tower went after they stopped being seen playing from the other side after June of that year and rumors were flying throughout London and then the whole country.
Not saying it’s that dramatic what’s going on, but my point is that people start questioning when Royals start missing even in medieval times.
What makes this even weirder is the fake photo. It did exactly the opposite of what it intended.
She’s definitely locked up in the Tower, without Wi-Fi. That proof of life photo of the drop off yesterday was an old one, so obviously from Christmas 2023. This is like every bad true crime show of a missing woman. Where IS she?
I love your historic point about the murdered medieval princes, FlowerLake.
Facts: K hasn’t been seen since Xmas that anyone 100% knows of. We’ve seen a few dodgy pix, but each time there’s been justification for calling the veracity’s of those photos into question.
I do believe that she’s trying to heal after a nasty medical procedure, but if this is the case, the messaging has been awful. I don’t believe she’s been 86ed. However, the simplest way to show that she’s indeed recovering or even all right seems to be impossible for KP to use. And that is rightly leading to a ton of questions.
Starting to think that Spanish tab wasn’t wrong—is she in a coma somewhere?
I was thinking more of Catherine of Aragon that was exiled to a cold castle for not giving Henry VIII the divorce he wanted. She had a skeleton crew and was not allowed to correspond with her daughter Mary.
As for Katherine of Aragon, the common folks also came in action when the duke of Suffolk went to her house to pester her about something.
They stood by holding pitchforks, giving a silent threat that way in case she was harmed.
(Katherine was a very popular queen).
Yes Peg where is your wife? Why can’t you produce her for the taxpayers? What is so horribly wrong with her that a simple picture of her maybe sitting on a couch wherever she is living. Why do all these photoshopped pictures if everything is ok?
@Agnes That was old? The photographers watermark in in the image. Wouldn’t he verify the image was taken that day?
She’s either dead or incapacitated. No kids seen, no parents around, William an absolute mess….
I’m not sure who called the photographers for the TMZ photo or why, but the look on Carole’s face was so serious, not a trace of joy; judging by that look, Kate is not well at all
If this was any other prominent person, the police would already be involved
Maybe William’s been getting tips for how to make his wife disappear, from David Miscavige, via Tom Cruise? 😆
This is what happens when you don’t modernize.
I really don’t think Kate sat down playing around for no good reason with the photo. Changing the color contrast, yes. But why move stuff around?
Also, maybe any British people can elaborate, but people are saying the weather wasn’t nearly that nice last week in England.
The weather here has been interchangeable – one day sunny and dry and the next rain all day. Still is like that.
This has never been about protecting Kate’s privacy – its about protecting him. WHAT DID HE DO?!?!?!!?
He is our future Monarch and we have every right to know.
At this point I am convinced it was Dog Bowl Part II but this time William’s victim was, at best, seriously injured.
To Alice, you aren’t the only one who thinks this is dog bowl II. The daily fail has people commenting that Billy the basher has done a dog bowl incident again with Kate as the victim. That would explain his absence from public duties as well as public intoxication.
I concur with dog bowl II but followed by an Angelina Jolie move of taking the kids and heading to safety. I don’t think Prince Eggo has seen any of them since he did his pathetic one time Willy hospital visit. And I doubt that car photo showing him and Kate is real or recent.
That is what i don’t get either. Why was the manipulation needed in the first place? I get that she may not look her best but decent lighting, smoothing of wrinkles and a nice filter would have taken care of that. But this picture was tampered with until the point where he authenticity is questioned.
Or just a recent pic of the kids no Kate, we would have been biting at the bite but would have solved the issue if she wasn’t fit for photo. Even from behind all hugging embrace or gosh darn 3 single baby pics of Kate outside the hospital for Mother’s Day! Keep the curtain up and show only what you want us to see not fakes
I would have said because she isn’t home with her family but after the pic in the car yesterday I lean toward plastic surgery or weight gain. I think she just doesn’t want to be seen right now but she should get over it. I doubt anyone would care if she didn’t look her best.
The girl will never be able to take credit for any future picture. It was “her” thing, being a good photographer. The one thing people praised her for other than her looks.
She is still calling herself an amateur? Is it because she didn’t officially study it ?How long does one call themselves that!?
The word amateur refers to the fact that it’s just a hobby for her, not her source of income. People that take pictures for a living are considered professional photographers.
She took a photography course after she graduated from St. Andrew’s, and she supposedly took the photos for the Party Pieces website after she left her job at Jigsaw.
No one “praised her for her looks” besides the british media. And we know they’re in bed with the brf and lie 24/7. She was always a plain jane with retouch.
Maybe Kate really did the edit. If so she sat around for a while working on it and couldn’t be as fragile as they are trying to put out. PW was so mad about being caught that he made her take the fall instead of sacrificing a staffer? Makes you wonder if the staff knows what is truly going on or even the media know the truth. Is he stringing them along with threats about Kate’s privacy and not publishing or promises for the story eventually? This is just weirder and weirder.
This is a possibility. I know a lot of theories are that she’s too incapacitated to even be on a computer or sit up. And that may be the case. But also it might not be the case. I truly don’t know what’s going on.
Ultimately I think we all hope she is just too lazy to do any kind of royal busy-work. The idea that she is too incapacitated is probably not one that I wish upon even WanK
Yeah, I’m honestly just hoping she is recovering somewhere.
There is no way she has free rein over the KP IG. No possible way!! KP and William approved this, if they didn’t make it themselves.
No, it’s not likely she does. Whatever was done PW was in on it. That wouldn’t stop him from blaming her either way. Nothing would ever be his fault. He could, however, have put it on a staffer and chose not to or couldn’t find anyone loyal enough to take the fall.
There is no way Kate, even if she was in Will’s best graces, has the power to direct photo strategy.
This has been @Elvira’s opinion from the beginning and I’m inclined to agree.
Kate and William purposely took control of the images that were taken and given to the media, so that would imply that they have a large degree of control to me.
I’m starting to wonder. There’s much hoopla about Kate being a skilled photographer; IMO she’s just reasonably okay, and today’s great cameras do much of the work. Photography is one of her few discernible interests though, and if people tell her she’s good and publish her pictures (see Camilla in her garden), she’d believe it. Can see her thinking she’s good at Photoshop – maybe Chris Jackson gave her some lessons. To an ordinary person the composite isn’t bad, and you’d have to have at least some familiarity with PS to do even that much, but if you’re really experienced yourself, or there’s already huge questions around the backstory, there’s obvious issues. I don’t know that Will, if he saw the final photos, or most KP staff, would spot the problems. They’re used to pictures of Kate always being PS anyway. And the BM is happy to print anything, no questions asked.
It’s no surprise this came out last weekend; Harry and Meghan were out and about on Friday (the initial PS save was Friday evening), and it was Mother’s Day on Sunday. Perfect opportunity. What’s interesting and peculiar is Will saying he took the photo. On the one hand, it’s a proof of life, and health for Kate – but not enough health to be setting up photoshoots and ready for back to work, hence the credit to Will.
But this would also imply some level of collusion, or at least agreement, between Will and Kate. It’s not impossible – sometimes the simple explanation is the truth. But it doesn’t make what’s been going on the last three months with Kate, and especially Will, any clearer.
No @windyriver, to an ordinary person it is bad.
My mother who doesn’t give two hoots about any of this, and probably doesn’t know what Photoshop is, was able to pick out a couple of things: Charlotte’s skirt and that portions of the photo were blurrier than the rest. She thought it was just her eyes at first.
@Windyriver: How can it be proof of life to release a photograph taken in late 2023 at the earliest? That’s the whole point of having kidnappers releasing photos of their victims with a current newspaper, because otherwise the photos released may be from any old time. To release a picture from last year is just a joke or a stupid move. That’s aside from the fact that the original photo was taken by professional photographers for Vogue covers and having William take credit for it. Then, you add the fact that William and KP alter the photo (poorly) in order to hide the fact that it wasn’t recent, so that’s adding plagiarism to what they’ve done. Now, to cover all these lies, they put the blame on Kate, a person I have no use for. Also, the feeble attempt to pretend that all the fuss is about poor editing by an amateur, or it’s an “informal” family photo, or it’s about Mother’s Day. Hah. The purpose was still to show Kate’s current health status. And I still think that person from AFP is missing a few screws if they thought that a photo release with that kind of purpose (proof of life) had no consequences, political or otherwise.
We can’t let them gaslight us into treating this like she changed her eyeshadow color or took some flyaways out of Charlotte’s hair. Frankensteining an image in this manner is completely unnecessary. The photo was edited to the extent that the children’s outfits were modified. It makes zero sense why a mother who is apparently well enough to sit at a computer editing her own marketing materials wouldn’t just make the nanny dress the children in new outfits to take a photo.
AND, why not just have her take a new photo of the children and then release it as a new photograph by Kate, who in her recovery is making some time for healing through her favorite hobby? Why even bother to lie that Will took the photo, when all it does is make the lie that more obvious? Everyone knows Will didn’t take the photo just like everyone knows Kate didn’t tweet out that apology.
None of this makes sense, they’re intentionally creating a circus here.
So I’m guessing there are people who will believe that Kate photoshopped the photo bc the palace said so. But that’s equally as embarrassing. Kate’s whole thing is about being a skilled photographer and this just blew this up. Amateur and would be fired. Yikes.
Exactly photography was “her thing”. Even if she did shop the photo (which I don’t think she did), she would never have taken the fall for doing so.
‘Metadata’ anyone has access to this or this has to be from the originally sent pic ?
The original image is the only true read. You can get metadata from an image off of the internet but without the original, that metadata could be incomplete. It could only include recent metadata. Plus, metadata can be removed easily.
That’s the other angle that people aren’t understanding, this photo chop job (photogate) does have political consequences: they released a MANIPULATED photo to appease the masses – this is not the first time this has been done (although by the bad editing it looks like it may be). How many times have the public been fed falsehoods and lies???? How can they be trusted. The ramifications of this is HUGE. They cannot be trusted PERIOD. And they live off the state purse.
It would be interesting if a journalist or an international news outlet started going through past photos. May I suggest starting with the grandchildren and the queen photo…
CNN is: “CNN is now reviewing all handout photos previously provided by Kensington Palace.”
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/03/11/uk/kate-royal-photograph-edited-intl-gbr/index.html
Lordy @shawna! I’m thinking KP is calling anyone they know at cnn to end that investigation.
@seraphina – I can’t reply directly but-
He is his father’s son in many ways but not in this. Charles would never let this circus develop around an image – he is very careful about competent PR- that is why Camilla is now Queen
@Orginal penguin, as far as PR game maybe but the crappy way he treats his wife and children yes.
Start with her portraits for her birthday a few years ago, in one her (right hand in a pocket) all obviously airbrushed and did not look like her at all. Unless airbrushed she does not look good, face falling, wrinkled. I don’t think she is up to photoshopping. When you don’t feel well you can’t be bothered with much of anything. I think she is depressed and has been for a long time. She has weight loss . Her brother has suffered from depression, I think her surgery was a colostomy or ileostomy due to Crohn’s . This could be traumatic for the kids thereby explaining the lack of visits. William might just be put off by it.
EXACTLY!!!
William is the future Head of State – and he tried to DECEIVE the public by releasing a frankesteined photo of his missing wife and children. This demonstrates that the future HoS of the UK cannot be trusted to be truthful!!!! This is such a massive scandal – and it is utterly insane that most of the commentary isn’t touching this particular elephant in the room, because at the core of this whole scandal is that an unelected future HoS attempted to deceive the public!!!!!!
Agree. The total disrespect and disdain for the public is appalling. William willfully sought to deceive and shows no remorse for his actions.
RIGHT!!!!!!!! And now twice within days of each other because the car pic (where Kate is looking away) is being dissected.
Lies and deception. Throwing his wife under the bus and then adding the kids to the mix. What a pathetic excuse for a husband, father and diplomat (aspiring diplomat). He is his father’s son.
That’s why Will put the blame on his sick wife. People are defending her saying all mothers do that to take a perfect pic of their family. The firm made sure that the heir is out of the discussion for the fake photo even though he allegedly took it.
This is why I’m angry this is being sold as a PR fail. Fine, the PR didn’t work. But that’s a secondary story. The primary story is William. Focus on his fails.
Would love to see what’s going on behind closed doors at Kensington Palace this week.
Forget KP; they are too far gone.
I vote that we invent drinks with which to toast every new fiasco. The first is the California Cackle; it’s starts off sour, but then finishes sweet. Next is the Montecito Mocktail, so abstainers can get in on the fun. The Proof of Life martini is just water, but KP tries to sell it as vodka and gin. It’s garnished with a ringlet.
@Tursitops HAHAHAHAHA!!! Your comment made me snort laugh! The Proof of Life martini is perfection! Lmfao
Hahaha. You got me snorting my laughs.
Cleverly done😂
😂😂😂
I’ll drink to that!
🤣 Cheers! 🥂
It really is bad – once you start seeing the errors, then you just keep seeing more and more and can’t unsee them. At first, when people were like “Charlotte’s sleeve!” – I thought they were reaching and I couldn’t see anything wrong with it. And then I saw it and couldn’t believe I didn’t see it before.
For a picture that was meant to show the public that Kate was happy and recovering and in good spirits etc…….
its just making everyone think the opposite.
Exactly; once you see one amendment, it all opens up. I first thought her arms looked way off and considering she has supposedly just had serious abdominal surgery, one would think that stretching arms out that far would be torturous.
It’s like when someone pointed out Kate’s adam’s apple in the photo. I saw it and now can’t unsee it.
I’d really love it if the people amplifying this on twitter took a look at older photos (especially the one they released with all the white grandkids and Grandma Liz).
I had wondered if Josh Olins, the photographer for the British Vogue cover shoot 2016 of the then Duchess of Cambridge, may have alerted the photo agencies. Olin may have recognized his work being Frankenstein-ed on the now infamous Mother’s Day hodgepodge. That initial Kate photo shoot got coverage again in British Vogue with backstory in January 2022, so it’s not like the Kate images have been out of the public eye for some time. Which makes you again wonder at the audacity of such a fraudulent act being perpetrated on news agencies and the public.
PhotoGate is raising questions about Kate, as on what is KP hiding. Political consequences are foreign enemies now know the future king and queen consort can be blackmailed.
It’s wild to me that the big photo agencies were giving a pass to photos which came from Kensington Palace because “why would they lie?” Obviously, they have not been paying attention, especially to everything Harry and Meghan went through. Maybe now they know better and will be more vigilant, but, geez Louise!, they’ve been lying for years.
I know, right? That’s why I’m hesitant to give them any credit for discovering this Kensington falsehood. I think that most of the heavy lifting in discovering the lies were by ordinary people online who, at first, compared the TMZ zombie-Kate photo with a suddenly reanimated Kate Mother’s Day fake out in the same week. Those online people persisted and showed the receipts; whereas the established media were all “stop with the conspiracy theories” “nothing to see here, we have a new photo release” or the latest “we just printed without examining the photos provided by KP because we thought they had no political consequences”.
Yet it briefly fooled AFP. Maybe this executive should have sat out this conversation.
If KP was a decent and credible operation none of this would have happened.
My official commentary: Hahahahahaha!
Once you are tagged as a lying-liar-pants-on-fire, you have no credibility. EVERYTHING is questioned, as it should be. People will still be talking about this months-long fiasco of obfuscation in twenty years (should the institution survive that long).
I am genuinely worried about Kate. No one has seen her since December. Will is acting like a guilty person. These weird photos. And the ‘apology’? She didn’t write that. Whatever is really happening, I hope she and the children are somewhere they feel safe.
I thought the ‘apology’ was insulting to the intelligence of the public and reflected very badly on her character.
Yes. It came across rather flippant. Like, “I’m just an amateur. It’s only occasionally. And everyone else does it. No big deal. Sorry if you got confused because that’s all it is- confusion. And anyway, I did it for my kids.”
OK CBs, I have one question and not sure if this is the correct post but there are so many –
The photoshopped image has her w/out her ring – WHY? Was this intentional or an over sight????
Maybe they thought if they removed the ring, people will focus on that and not the bad photoshop in other parts of the photo. lol. Like how actresses change their hair color/style drastically when they get plastic surgery to take attention away from their new face.
The easiest way to calm everything down would be to release the originals photos but they are being so weird about that too that nobody will believe anything now. This situation is insane.
Okay I dont have x or twitter whatever you called. You can freely use my explanation. Like me many experts dont believe her face comes from vogue because her eye reflection is different and outdoors make differences. Thats why I said her head comes from 2017 xmas card.
https://time.com/5068632/prince-william-kate-middleton-christmas-card/
@JK – Since I saw your post yesterday about the Christmas 2017 card, I’ve spent more time zooming in and comparing the photos. I believe you are 💯 correct. Looking at the top of her hairline, it’s almost an exact match, with a tiny cowlick and tinier notch. Her eyeshadow application is identical. The blurriness on the fake on right side is a smaller area than the top of her head, but it’s clearly where they added hair to cover her earring and a bit of her face. That also gives a slightly fuller lower cheek/jawline effect. Add a few highlight differences and tilt the original by a smidge to the left… and you’ve got a time travelling princess clocking eight years.
Since they refuse to release the original pic I don’t think there is one. Esp. one taken last week.
Bingo!
I keep thinking that eventually, everything will come out. And how the truth about this single incident in a string of incidents legitimately undermines the royal family as a whole. That truth about this ONE incident (that the photo was much older than they said, that they lied about Will taking it to push back against that photo of Puffy Kate in the car with CarolE, that it included bits and pieces of older photos, that the Kate apology wasn’t from her but from KP staffers) is just BAD. How do you explain such blatant manipulation and deception from a future head of state?
Ooo willy, it’s all falling down and all about to come out. Maybe get ahead of it because your staff are fking useless. Have you listened to the radio? Have you watched the television?, because I people are seen right through your kp bullsht
How have you kept keens mother quiet for so long? And WHERE is keens father
Maybe it’s time you called in a crisis manager, because a smile at camzilla won’t change A thing, because even your father has gone radio silent after his commonwealth statement?
It’s interesting, I saw references on twitter recently that Keen’s papa has been separated from Ma Middleton for a while now. It that true, I wonder?
I’ve seen that too Tiger. Apparently Pa Middleton has a new lady (well for quite awhile now). She was pictured in a blue dress at Pippa’s wedding and credited as the wedding planner.
While this is all being firmly dumped on her (for now), I love that HIS name is the credit that come sup when the image is being used and discussed.
This whole mess is fascinating.
1. I strongly suspect there are higher-level “tells” that the photos are fake, that they haven’t told us—like industry secrets.
2. There’s no reason (hasn’t been any reason) to think that *anything* the Palaces put out is true.
3. If they think this stuff has no political consequences, they’re asleep at the wheel. (Color me surprised. The press is too busy trying to convince the world that Biden is too old.)
4. Given 2 & 3, above, the fact that they’re still attributing the photoshop editing to Kate and not recognizing that she’s been thrown under the bus just demonstrates that they’re asleep at the wheel.
Ok… what, and I cannot stress this enough, THE ACTUAL FU*K! is going on with these idiots?!? Twitter is allllll over the Rose Hanbury affair story, I’m in Canada and the top 5 trending topics are all about either Can’t or Huevo in the Rose bushes (lmao calling him this from now on) None of what they’ve done makes sense! I think something else HUGE is going on and they are desperately scrambling. Wow. Never thought I’d see the day when the RF imploded (due to a self inflicted wound, no less) but as QE said…. apres moi, le deluge. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch!
I’m starting to think that instead of jumping through hoops to normalize all the weirdness maybe it’s time to accept things on face value. Neither she nor her children have been seen in almost 3 months. Her husband and his whole family are acting really guilty. In any other situation the neighbors would have called the police months ago. If they were regular people not royals everybody would think that the husband offed his wife and kids. Just sayin.
Emerson had a saying about how certain you need to be “when you strike at a king.” If this as dark as it looks, then Charles is the only one with the power to intervene. Don’t forget that the police can’t legally enter royal property without permission from the king. No one from the Met or the Crown Prosecution Service would go after William without explicit backing from Charles. The vagueness about the cancer news may give them pause even if they do have Charles’ support. What if he’s gone this time next year?
There are unsettling parallels to Trump and I’m riveted.
Maybe Christian Jones did the photoshopping and couldn’t possible be expected to take the fall. We know how well protected he is. Has anyone seen him btw? Still right next to William?
I’m kidding of course, but this is the stage we’re at. We know so much and yet so little about what’s going on.