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Just like his father, Prince William never does things in haste. He wooed Kate Middleton for more than eight years before marrying her, and waited almost two decades before speaking properly about the impact of the death of his mother.
But yesterday, as the damaging fall-out over a digitally altered family photograph threatened to plunge the royals into another self-inflicted crisis, he acted with commendable speed.
The only problem was the intervention by his wife, whose personal apology for the ‘confusion’ over the picture, raised more questions than answers.
The photograph — taken by William — of Kate surrounded by their three children was released to mark Mother’s Day
With all their good intentions in danger of unravelling, it is easy to see why the couple acted as they did. The photograph — taken by William — of Kate surrounded by their three children in the garden of their Windsor home was released to mark Mother’s Day but was also designed to be a public sign that her recovery from abdominal surgery was going well.
Its other, unsaid, purpose was to extinguish increasingly frenzied internet gossip about the Princess of Wales’s health and far-fetched conspiracy theories about her absence from the royal stage.
But far from silencing the doubters and quashing such rumours, it revved them up.
One after another internationally renowned picture agency, including Reuters and America’s Associated Press, withdrew the picture, suggesting the image may have been manipulated. They called on media organisations to remove it from their systems.
Within hours, the story of the ‘deep-fake’ royal picture was headline news and even the BBC made it the lead item on its website. How on earth was this allowed to happen?
As recriminations flew over the photograph, which cast a deep shadow over the Commonwealth Day service of celebration at Westminster Abbey, royal insiders were privately insisting that there had been no professional manipulation but merely a little tidying up of a picture which captured a private moment.
But that explanation simply won’t do. This was no snapshot destined for a family photo album but an image that was going to be shared with the world in a bid to crush the speculation about Kate’s health once and for all.
How foolish such expectations look now.
Palace minders must have hoped that Kate’s mea culpa would head off this dangerous and unforeseen crisis. But far from ‘killing’ the story, her statement breathed new life into it.
It quoted her blandly saying that ‘like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing’. She also apologised for ‘any confusion the family photograph caused’.
Palace minders must have hoped that Kate’s mea culpa would head off this dangerous and unforeseen crisis. But far from ‘killing’ the story, her statement breathed new life into it, writes Richard Kay
And that was all. There was no explanation as to why she wanted to alter the picture or what it was she hoped to modify. What was the touching up all about?
Last night, an investigation of the ‘metadata’ on the image by Sky News suggested it had been edited twice — once last Friday evening and again the following morning. It was not clear, however, what was actually changed.
Kate’s account did not offer anything about the circumstances in which the picture came to be taken, nor even when it was taken.
This matters because the failure to provide any clarification has allowed the rumour mill to go into overdrive.
A widely seen TikTok video suggested that the picture was taken last November and the clothing of the children and the Princess were changed by ‘Photoshop’ manipulation.
Perhaps the biggest mystery of all is the most obvious one — the absence of Kate’s wedding and engagement rings. This must surely have raised alarm bells with the Kensington Palace communications team, which was responsible for distributing the image.
They know how these royal pictures are pored over by fans looking at every detail. Often they provide an explanation for events that a statement does not — such as the photo frames of family snapshots the late Queen used to curate for her annual Christmas Day message.
The Princess’s sapphire engagement ring was Princess Diana’s and is probably the most famous piece of jewellery in the world. The fact that it wasn’t there was bound to arouse curiosity.
Kate’s apology is obviously heartfelt but her explanation is partial. It does seem unfair that the woman whose health and welfare has been at the centre of this baffling episode should be the one saying sorry.
For all their hands-on parenting and insistence on managing their domestic lives without the complement of staff that William grew up with, they are not entirely without back-up.
It is entirely fitting to ask why the couple’s well-paid communications staff didn’t flag up the discrepancies in the picture before its release. But, then again, perhaps they did.
By offering her apology, the Princess appears to be taking full responsibility which, for someone still convalescing from major surgery, does seem grossly unfair.
William and Kate are bright, personable and intelligent. They are down to earth and unshowy — the very qualities that have made them the biggest draw of our Royal Family. But it is this desire for ordinariness which conceals one significant flaw: a near obsessive need for secrecy.
How easy it is to contrast the approach of King Charles to his cancer diagnosis with that of his daughter-in-law.
He has been open and candid about his illness, going out of his way to be seen. In this way the King has eased concerns by inviting the public to share in his journey — at least so far.
Neither the reason for Kate’s surgery nor the nature of her complaint has been disclosed. Perhaps in years gone by — before social media — such a position could be sustained, but these days it is virtually impossible.
Much of what is being posted online is not just inaccurate and unpleasant but also hurtful.
Could she and William have handled things differently? With their overriding desire to protect the Princess’s privacy and keep medical matters to themselves, I suspect they could not.
But there is another issue at play here. The couple have erected a towering wall around their family life which rightly screens them from prying eyes. But at a cost: it has contributed to a sense that they can be insular and rather remote.
Similarly, their decision to relocate from London to the middle of Windsor Great Park, while terrific for George, Charlotte and Louis’s schooling, has added to the idea that they are slightly cut off.
Never was this more apparent than in William’s decision not to attend ex-King Constantine’s memorial service last month. No explanation has ever been offered, but in an institution like the Royal Family, where presentation is fundamental, it looks like an error. An error compounded by the fiasco over the photograph.
For several years they have chosen to take their own pictures of their children on landmark occasions, rather than inviting a stranger in to do so.
Often the results are charming, and there is no doubt that the pictures taken by Kate of the children are infinitely warmer than those Charles and Diana commissioned of their young sons by society cameramen such as the late Lord Snowdon.
For William, the experience of his own childhood, and the vicious fights between his parents, must still be raw. And with Kate he has constructed an idyllic domestic set-up. In part, it has been a necessary reaction to the devastating behaviour of his brother Harry and Meghan over the past four years.
The Sussexes weaponised their royal lives; William has chosen to conceal as much as he can, not just from the public gaze but also to put it out of reach of his brother and sister-in-law. The ad hominem attacks on him and Kate in Harry’s bitter memoir Spare may one day be forgiven but they will never be forgotten.
Some will dismiss media criticism about the manipulated photograph as a storm in a teacup. But there are precious commodities at stake here: trust and integrity.
If pictures can be digitally altered, what else can be twisted? The British public adore the Royal Family but that adoration rests on them being told the truth.
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