The photoshop scandal that briefly cast a cloud over Prince William and Princess Kate Middleton in 2024 had the couple feeling hurt.
“There was a real sense then that they felt bruised by it,” royal author Robert Hardman told People in an interview published Thursday, March 20. “It was treated like some great fraud.”
The controversy began last March on Mother’s Day in the U.K., when Kate, 43, shared a photo of herself with her three kids, Prince George, 11, Princess Charlotte, 9, and Prince Louis, 6. As the pic made its way around the internet, keen observers noticed some odd details. Fans pointed out that parts of Charlotte and Louis appeared blurry where they shouldn’t be, Kate’s zipper appeared edited, her hair seemed to be airbrushed and nearly a dozen other oddities.
The controversy led to Kate putting out a statement the next day where she apologized for the photo.
“Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing,” she wrote. “I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused.”
The statement did little to dispel the rumors that the couple was hiding something. Kate had recently undergone abdominal surgery and had retreated from the public eye during her recovery. At the time, she wasn’t scheduled to attend any public events until after Easter.
A source told Us Weekly exclusively at the time that Kate wanted to keep the details of her condition “as private as possible” and that she felt “entitled to heal and recuperate without all of this frenzied speculation.”
Kate later revealed that she was also undergoing cancer treatment in a video released March 22.
Prince William and Princess Kate Middleton’s relationship hasn’t always been a fairy tale due to family drama, speculative rumors and more. William and Kate met in 2001 when they were both students at the University of St Andrews. Despite a brief breakup six years later, William and Kate reconciled before getting engaged in 2010. They […]
“In January, I underwent major abdominal surgery in London and at the time it was thought that my condition was non-cancerous,” she said. “The surgery was successful, however, tests after the operation found cancer had been present.”
“My medical team therefore advised that I should undergo a course of preventative chemotherapy, and I’m now in the early stages of that treatment,” she added.
Kate’s treatment and the controversy around the photo — exacerbated when major photo agencies began pulling it from circulation — had the couple feeling overwhelmed.
“It was like being on a roller coaster for them … undergoing chemotherapy and trying to protect your children. It was like being in the middle of a tornado and not knowing when it was going to calm down,” Ailsa Anderson, former press secretary to the late Queen Elizabeth, told People.
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