Kensington Palace faces calls from experts to release unedited picture of Kate Middleton and kids

12 March 2024, 14:18

By Alice Dear

@According2Al

Experts are calling for the establishment to release the unedited picture of the Princess of Wales with her children in order to "restore trust" in the Royal Family as the "integrity of our future King and Queen is at stake".

Kensington Palace are facing calls today to release the unedited picture of Kate Middleton, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis after the Princess of Wales admitted herself to editing the picture before public release.

Prince William's wife put out a statement earlier this week where she apologised for the "confusion" around the new picture of herself and her children shared for Mother's Day after people pointed out inconsistencies within the image.

It appears, however, that the statement from the Princess of Wales - who is currently recovering from abdominal surgery at home in Windsor - isn't enough for some, with royal and PR experts from the industry calling for the unedited picture to be shared by Kensington Palace.

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Royal expert Dr Tessa Dunlop said this week that in order to restore trust in the Royal Family, they should release the unedited version of the snap to the public.

"You know it's gone horribly wrong when the Princess of Wales pops up on X to apologise. But even the apology doesn't stack up..." Dr Tessa Dunlop told the Mirror: "We have long known that Kate is the Royal Family's photographer (a canny ruse for them to hold onto a vestige of control), but apparently it was William who took this photograph, so why is she the one modifying it? And if the Princess only indulged in a bit of light editing, why on earth doesn't the palace release the original photograph? Which takes us back to square one."

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Dunlop admitted that even on Mother's Day morning, when the picture was released for the first time, it "looked too good to be true" and that "anyone with three children knows just how hard it is to get a photograph of everyone at their best," and yet she says they were "all beaming like there was no tomorrow".

She went on: "William appeared to be both future King and genius photographer until some eagle-eyed royal watchers noticed Princess Charlotte's dodgy sleeve. Photoshop is one thing, but as a fellow historian put it, this looks like a 'composite, probably AI-generated, of more than one picture rather than a single candid snap'.

"And there is that crucial little word: 'candid'. This has blown up into a major media storm because people feel the royal family – who also double up as an institution of state – are not being honest with them. And if you can't trust Kensington Palace, then who can you trust? To make this go away the Palace need to release the original picture. The integrity of our future King and Queen is at stake."

Also weighing into the request from the Palace is public relations and crisis consultant Mark Borkowski who told the Metro: "It’s plausible she’s at home playing with the computer and using an AI tool, but if they’re really going to regain any sort of trust they should release the unedited photo, it can’t be that bad if they just made a few tweaks."

He added: "I find they have risen to the challenge, provided the statement as an explanation – the question is with all the conspiracy theories running around, is whether people believe it and I’m not sure that they will."

ITV royal correspondent Chris Ship also said in a comment on X (formerly Twitter) this week that while "the way to close everything down would be to release the original photo," he believes this is "very unlikely" to happen.

This comes after Kensington Palace said earlier this week that they would not be reissuing the original photograph from the family.

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