Why did Prince William fake the photo of Kate Middleton and their kids?

The disappearance of Kate Middleton and the speculation that followed has obviously gotten under the Royals’ skin. Last week, Prince William’s representatives gave the terse response that “his focus is on his work and not on social media“. Then, to mark Mother’s Day, they released an image of Kate. But if they thought this would calm things down, they thought wrong.

Eyebrows were raised immediately after publication when eagle-eyed observers noted inconsistencies in the photo. Kate wasn’t wearing her wedding rings, the childrens’ hands were in odd positions, and the overall composition felt unnatural.

Well, now major international news agencies have also called foul. The AP has issued a “KILL NOTIFICATION” and confirms that “the source has manipulated the image”, and asks that it needs to be removed from all published platforms” immediately. The AFP, Getty Images, and Reuters followed suit with their own “MANDATORY KILL” notices, forcing all outlets to stop using it and remove it from their online publications immediately.

This image was purportedly taken by Prince William himself, so today the world is wondering why he (or someone acting on his behalf) would need to fake an image of his wife and their children.

UPDATE: The official X account for William and Kate has explained that this was “an experiment with editing”. We can presume that “C” is Catherine herself, so either she’s taking the blame or is being set up as the fall guy. Either way this feels like a very flimsy excuse:

Has Kate ‘gone upstairs’?

The most extreme option, and therefore the one social media has leapt upon like a pack of slavering drama-hungry hounds, is that Kate Middleton is currently pushing up daisies somewhere on the grounds of Windsor and William is frantically trying to cover up the truth.

There were already theories that the recent blurry paparazzi photo of “Kate” in a car was her sister Pippa, so kill notice for the official Mother’s Day photograph has poured gasoline onto the fire. Could this image be a collage of pre-existing images knitted together, perhaps with Kate’s head superimposed on top of another woman’s body? Even yesterday that would have sounded like tinfoil hat territory, but now we’re not so sure.

That said, the Royal family (so far) successfully covering up the death of a high-profile member would indicate that they are a) competently sneaky, b) their staff don’t leak information to the press and c) terrified that the whole institution could collapse like a house of cards in a strong breeze. We know a) and b) aren’t true, but c)? That’s up for debate.

Is Google AI tech to blame?

Others argue that the unnatural composition is the result of William using a “best take” photo feature that automatically improves images, as seen on Google’s newest Pixel phones. This might innocently explain the bizarre inconsistencies present in the image as the Prince using new features he doesn’t fully understand.

That said, there are several holes in this theory. For one, William (and most other Royals) are known to use iPhones, which don’t currently have the “best take” feature. William may have recently jumped ship to Android, but we suspect the security and encryption on Royals’ personal phones are tightly locked down, so it’s very likely he’s still using an iPhone.

Did William even take this photo?

The image aimed to reassure Royal watchers that all’s well in William and Kate’s household. To that end, a picture showing the happy family taken by William himself would reinforce that. They’d want us to think that this isn’t a staged image, rather that the family were just enjoying each other’s company, William snapped an image and here we are.

The reality for these situations is that a professional photographer would be called and the resulting image carefully choreographed, posed and then subtly edited to remove skin imperfections, lighten teeth, brighten eyes and so on. This may be what happened here, though perhaps whoever edited the image was overzealous and knitted together several different photos into one.

But even if that relatively innocuous explanation is true we’re left with a lot of questions. For one, Prince William appears to have outright lied about the origins of this image. For another, after the mountain of speculation they must have known every pixel of this image would be pored over for inconsistencies. Knowing that and then releasing something with glaring editing errors is, at the very least, a dangerously incompetent and deeply stupid PR move.

And so we’re left in roughly the same place we were a week ago. Nothing about Kate’s mysterious operation has been satisfyingly explained, there still hasn’t been a trustworthy image of her since Christmas Day 2023, and Kensington Palace is clearly keeping something hidden. ITV News Royal Editor Chris Ship has said:

“I’ve never been much of a conspiracy theorist but if @AP @AFP @Reuters & other picture agencies are concerned enough to remove it and ask clients to delete it, there are serious questions for Kensington Palace – which was the source of the photo.”

We can only agree. The only thing we know for certain is that they’re lying to us. And, insultingly, they’re not even doing that well.