Kate Middleton’s fake-photo fiasco proves the secretive royals must come clean

The mantra of Britain’s greatest monarch, the late, great Queen Elizabeth II, was very simple: Never complain, never explain, and rarely be heard speaking in public.

That was the consistently successful formula that made her one of the most beloved global public figures of my lifetime.

And conversely, those royals who’ve chosen to do the complete opposite — like the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who never stop complaining, explaining and yapping in public — have made themselves incredibly unpopular.

But the conspiracy theories about Kate Middleton’s secret health crisis and disappearance from public life, made worse by the manipulated family photo she posted yesterday, when added to the unsettling confusion over what cancer King Charles is suffering from and how serious his condition is, have shown that the old palace way of handling the media has become increasingly obsolete and unworkable.

The problem is social media.

With an absence of facts, platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and TikTok have become 24/7 hotbeds of wild royal gossip and intrigue.

Some of the stuff I’ve read about Kate has been mind-blowingly false, dumb and downright offensive.

Similarly, I’ve been stunned by the avalanche of ill-informed crap that’s being spewed about Charles.

But is it really any surprise that the public has surged into such a conspiracy mode given how little they’ve been told about the health of two of the most famous people on the planet?

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And given that one of them, the wife of Britain’s next king, has ‘fessed up to deliberately misleading them?

It almost defies belief that in a supposed effort to put an end to all the crazy rumors about her, Kate decided to significantly edit the first official photo of her since she came out of the hospital and then get the palace to release it to unwitting media organizations for general dissemination.

The photo was charming, featuring her surrounded by her three children, all of them laughing with happiness.

The princess, in the center, looked bursting with good health.

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She wrote a personal caption saying: “Thank you for your kind wishes and continued support over the last two months. Wishing everyone a Happy Mother’s Day. C.”

And the response was a widespread sigh of relief from a world of royal fans who’ve been increasingly worried about what might be really going on with their favorite princess.

“Thank God! Kate’s OK!” was the general reaction for the first few hours after the photo was posted on Instagram. 

Especially as the palace further briefed that the picture had been taken by her husband, Prince William, last week.

But then came the bombshell news late Sunday that multiple prestigious news agencies were killing the photo — withdrawing it from release — due to concerns that “the source has manipulated the image.”

That could only mean one thing: Either William, Kate or a palace aide had doctored it.

The photo was a fake, and it now turns out it was a pretty elaborate fake.

In fact, internet sleuths were quick to claim at least 16 different things that were wrong or weird about it — from Kate’s badly aligned zip and blurred hand, to Charlotte’s abruptly cut hair and washed-out knee, to George’s artificial-looking sweater edges and Louis’ wonky fingers. Even the stone ledges in the background looked distorted and the tree leaves surprisingly plentiful and green for England in mid-March.

As pressure mounted on Kensington Palace for an explanation, Kate issued a second, unprecedented statement saying: “Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing. I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused. I hope everyone celebrating had a very happy Mother’s Day. C.”

But the problem with this statement is what she didn’t say.

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Was the photo really taken last week, or is it an old one taken before she fell ill?

She looked very different from the image captured by TMZ paparazzi a few days ago as she was being driven in a car by her mother.

This is not a trivial matter.

The answer to the question is vitally important to public trust in a publicly funded institution.

I feel very sorry for Kate that she’s had to go through whatever health issue she’s had, which has kept her away from public gaze, and duty, for so long.

But my sympathy will erode if it turns out that she and the palace have convey a false impression about her condition.

And how stupid of them anyway to release a heavily edited photo that was designed to stop conspiracy theories!

As was entirely predictable, the truth about Kate’s secret editing unraveled fast and the conspiracy theories about her are now raging even more out of control than before.

The obvious thing for the palace to do is to release the original, unedited image so we can all see for ourselves just how much we were duped, and to tell us exactly when it was taken. 

 But so far, it’s refusing, which is merely serving to fuel what’s been dubbed the “Katespiracy.”

 You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to wonder why.