Maria Sierra London
London
Updated Tuesday, March 12, 2024-20:07
Analysis Everything that squeaks in the manipulated photo of Kate Middleton
"Leave Kate alone."
The leader of the British popular press,
The Sun
, has taken a firm swipe at Kate Middleton hours after the Princess of Wales
admitted to having digitally retouched the photograph of her and her three children
before uploading it to social networks on Sunday the 10th. mother's day in uk.
"His intention for her was good, she made a mistake and she has confessed it
," justifies the newspaper's editorial in its Tuesday edition.
Suspicions about the legitimacy of the cheerful family composition - with little Jorge, Charlotte and Luis surrounding their mother on a terrace of their Windsor residence - spread on the internet as soon as the image was posted on the couple's social networks.
Kensington Palace reacted, however, more than 24 hours later, when the main international agencies "killed" the photograph, equivalent in the jargon of the profession to deleting it from their archives and withdrawing it from circulation.
It is an action that is rarely executed.
Of some 84,000 images distributed in February by the American Associated Press, only 12 went through this ordeal.
In the monarchical sphere it is an unprecedented practice.
A new chapter opens due to at least two Photoshop retouches revealed in the metadata of the published photograph and in response to the palace's lack of explanation.
Even so, the majority of the British media and various commentators support the princes of Wales.
"
Kate has confessed
to the monstrous crime of being very unreliable with Photoshop
," the
Daily Star
ironically writes on Tuesday's front page.
"An absurd mess," protests the tabloid
Express
.
The Sun
blames "social media trolls, stupid conspiracy theorists and incessant media critics" for the palace imbroglio.
Both agree that Kate simply tried to publish the "best image" possible with a digital tool that many people use every day.
And they rely on testimonies from professionals to discard the "ridiculous comments" about the princess that have been redoubled on the networks as a result of the manipulated photograph.
"A five-minute job"
The Daily Mail
cites Elliot Higgins, founder of Bellingcat, an investigative platform that has revealed the identity of alleged Russian assassins, among other things, to debunk theories that the future queen used her sister Pippa, as a double, when she was photographed, days ago, with her mother at the wheel of a vehicle.
Higgins claims the edit was a "five-minute job" to get a "perfect picture of the family," dismissing theories that Kate departed in her montage of old photographs, including the one on her June 2016 Vogue
cover
.
If the early death of the princess or her divorce from William was previously predicted in cyberspace among the explanations for her "disappearance" from the public sphere since Christmas Day, now there is speculation about the reasons for the alteration of this photograph .
The Palace still does not give details of the surgical intervention
in the abdominal area nor has it advanced the date of the princess's return to official work.
She was recently seen inside a Land Rover with Guillermo, en route to a "private date" in London.
"We are in danger of
harassing a lady who is trying to recover from a very serious operation
," warned Jennie Bond, a veteran observer of the monarchy and author of biographies of the Windsors, on Tuesday.
The former BBC reporter senses the princess's state of mind as "absolutely miserable" who, as she commented in an interview with the GB News channel, "must feel under intense pressure" given the expectations created around her health, absence and return.
"The pressure has doubled and redoubled.
I think she is in a fragile state of mental and physical health
. We should leave her alone," Bond urged online with several tabloids.
With no dates for his return to the public scene,
attention falls once again on William
, who is
filling in for Charles III
in public tasks that the king cannot perform while he receives
treatment for cancer
.
On Tuesday she attended the funeral of her cousin's husband, Thomas Kingston, who committed suicide at the age of 45, and this Thursday, she plans to preside over the awards gala in honor of her mother, The Diana Legacy Awards, which is being held at the Science Museum, London.
Meanwhile, the Palace is trying to recover its routine by loading the networks with images of the latest monarchical events, promoting the Earthshot ecological awards or the Commonwealth group of nations.