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Sunday was celebrated as Mothers Day in the UK, and one picture which has attracted a lot of attention is that of Kate Middleton – the wife of heir to the throne, Prince William – posing in skinny jeans and boots with her three children by her side.
However, while fans on Instagram have been fawning over the photo and delightfully welcoming Middleton back, there are some who declare that the picture was either taken before her recent surgery, or was generated by AI, or has been phtoshopped.
Middleton has not been seen by the adoring British public since Christmas Day. Kensington Palace announced on January 17 that she had admitted to The London Clinic for planned abdominal surgery and would not resume her public duties until “after Easter”.
Social media has since gone into overdrive with lurid speculation as to the “real” reason for her absence. One of the most comical suggestions from trolls who have been labelled “spiteful” and “anti-monarchist”, is that “Kate is missing because she had (Brazilian Butt Lift) BBL”. Another suggestion is that she could be performing on The Masked Singer, a reality show which features mystery celebrities singing in masks and costumes.
A widely circulated report was from a Spanish journalist that the 42-year-old Middleton was in a coma due to complications from surgery has been branded by the palace as “ludicrous”.
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Sunday’s never-before-seen image has generated lots of headlines and Daily Mail even had a “body language expert” write lovely things about Middleton and her happy children. Some of their readers, however, are not buying it.
Here are some of the comments: “This is an old photo. The palace takes us all for idiots I guess haha! Come on!”
“And she’s wearing tight jeans which you would not do if you had had abdominal surgery.”
“Looks AI-generated to me.”
“Poppycock. Absolute deception. What human can bend to wear hiking boots and slip on tight jeans over a serious abdominal scar that requires 12 weeks and more to recover. First thing a surgeon says is WEAR LOOSE CLOTHES.”
“How can you analyse body language, from a photoshopped image?”
A P age Six headline on Sunday stated: Royal fans convinced that Kate Middleton’s ‘new’ post-surgery family pic is fake: ‘Looks like AI’
PRIVACY
Across social and traditional media, there has been a debate on the rights of royals to privacy. The nature of her surgery, “cancer-stricken” King Charles’s treatment and the “personal reason” for Prince William pulling out of giving a reading at a memorial service for his godfather, King Constantine of Greece on February 27, have all come up for discussion.
A viral February 26 post on X with 7.8 million views and 68,000 likes, states: “You’re telling me that Kate Middleton – the same woman who posed outside the hospital like a supermodel mere hours after giving birth – suddenly requires months of recovery before showing her face? And the British press now magically respects privacy? This feels ... sinister.”
Another post, viewed 1.8 million times and liked 42,000 times, states: “I have no problem with Kate Middleton taking time to recover from whatever is going on with her. I think it’s wonderful, because every day that she enjoys privacy and respect regarding whatever ails her is further proof that Meghan Markle was intentionally bullied and abused.”
In an interesting faux pas, last Tuesday the army announced that Middleton would be present at a Trooping the Colour rehearsal in June, however, hours later, they were forced to retract. This came one day after a questionable picture of Middleton in a vehicle being driven by her mother outside Windsor Castle had been published by American celebrity news site TMZ. Online sleuths pointed out that her mole was missing and it looked more like her sister, Pippa. The photo was not carried by British media.
Today is the annual Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey, one of the biggest events on the royal calendar. Middleton is not expected to be present.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The first official photo of Kate, the Princess of Wales, since she underwent abdominal surgery nearly two months ago, was pulled from circulation by The Associated Press because the image appeared to have been manipulated.
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