A photo that Kensington Palace issued on Sunday to commemorate Mother’s Day in the United Kingdom shows Kate, Princess of Wales, smiling with her arms around the three children that she shares with Prince William. It seemed benign enough, but soon after the photo was issued, photo agencies spread the word that the picture provided should no longer be used, as it appeared “the source has manipulated the image,” as The Associated Press said in its notification.
If it were any other family, this would be a nonstory. But there are few things in this world as tightly controlled as the British royal family’s public image. Over the last century, the Windsors have fostered a symbiotic, though often times toxic, relationship with the media. This latest tempest in a teapot — which only heightens previously swirling rumors about the family — illustrates how the tight flow of information that the royals cultivate could potentially stoke the very suspicion and mistrust that could help hasten the monarchy’s fall from grace with the British public.
It’s worth saying up front that an NBC News analysis of the photo that received a “kill notice” doesn’t seem to imply any sort of nefarious cover-up. Instead, photography experts said that the changes that could be discerned may simply have been “to circumvent the challenge of getting three kids to sit still and smile all at the same time.” In a post from the official X account for the Prince and Princess of Wales, the royal household seemed to obliquely back that theory, apologizing for “any confusion” the picture may have caused:
But there’s a reason why Kate, whose full name is Catherine (and who was formerly known as Kate Middleton), would even feel the need to try to issue such a clarification — and why a written post on X is unlikely to end any speculation. The princess has been out of the public eye since Christmas Eve, when she attended mass with her family. Weeks later, the palace issued a…
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