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On Wednesday, Paris Match published their new issue, with exclusive photos of Prince William and Kate on the cover. Paris Match got their hands on photos of the Wales family on vacation in Courchevel just last week. Which would have been the Wales family’s third vacation of the year – in late December/early January, they were in Courchevel with James Middleton. Then in February, they were in Mustique (and not in London for the BAFTAs). And then this ski holiday at a borrowed chalet in April, the last real week of the ski season. Paris Match published extensive photos of William drinking, Kate without her hairpieces, and the kids getting skiing instructions. Interestingly enough, the British tabloids did not report on Paris Match’s exclusive photos. The NY Post managed to buy the same pics for publication though, so the photos and story are filtering down into the American media. Oddly, the one British outlet that had coverage of the photos managed to frame it as “oh, Paris Match could get sued for this!”

A French magazine has risked the prospect of legal action from the Prince and Princess of Wales after publishing private photographs of the pair on a “secret” ski holiday with their three children. It is thought that no formal complaint has yet been made, but the royal couple consider their privacy paramount on such breaks, particularly when it comes to their offspring.

The pair have a history of run-ins with French magazines after Closer published topless photos of the Princess on holiday in the Luberon region of south-east France in 2012. A Paris court later found the publication guilty of an invasion of privacy.

British newspapers and broadcasters refrain from publishing such pictures out of respect for the couple’s privacy. However, in what it described as an “exclusive”, Paris Match published photographs of the royals on its front page, showing the pair relaxing on what appeared to be the terrace of a chalet in Courchevel, an upmarket French Alpine resort.

The magazine described the trip as a “secret holiday” and claimed the family had been coming to the resort “in total discretion” for the past 15 years. It was said to have been their second holiday to the Alps in the past three months. Paris Match also published of a smiling Prince William in shorts and a sweatshirt outside the chalet, waving a bottle of wine at his wife and children.

The magazine said: “Back from skiing for Kate, Charlotte, 9, Louis, 6 and George, 11. In William’s hand a bottle of wine that the instructor just offered them. In their private chalet on April 3. Total relaxation, far from the protocol of Buckingham [Palace]. That’s how the princely couple sees holidays”.

It also reported that the family had been travelling between Norfolk, Mustique Island and Courchevel.

“In swimming trunks [in] early January, in the Caribbean where they possess a sumptuous villa, in skiwear late March for their second stint in this most British of French ski resorts of the year,” the magazine said.

[From The Telegraph]

Weird how the Telegraph manages to write about William and Kate’s privacy without ever mocking them as “privacy obsessed” or “childishly focused on suing the press!” I guess those kinds of descriptions are saved for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. These Paris Match photos are mostly from the ski slopes which – in my opinion – is fair game because they are truly in a public space. It’s harder to argue the “public space” issue for some of the photos on the balcony/terrace of the chalet though. It will be interesting to see if William and Kate do end up suing Paris Match specifically because of the balcony pics. It will also be interesting to see how the British media continues to execute a flawless double standard when it comes to Peg and Waity’s privacy versus the Sussexes’.

Cover courtesy of Paris Match, additional photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.