All the Wild Details About Kate Middleton's Photoshop Scandal in One Place (2024)

It's been approximately 84 years since Kate Middleton dropped her Mother's Day photo on March 10, creating so much chaos that I can only assume the writers of The Crown have called an emergency pitch meeting. And honestly, updates are coming so fast and furious they need to be assembled in one place like the Avengers, only royal and unhinged.

We're kicking things off in a timeline below, but please keep in mind that all of this is happening amid Kate's general whereabouts being the subject of mass confusion/speculation, so get caught up on that here:

March 8, 2024

According to metadata of the image Kensington Palace distributed to PA Images (analyzed by the BBC), March 8 is when the image was first saved on Adobe Photoshop. The time? 9:54 p.m. GMT.

March 9, 2024

BBC's metadata pull shows that the image was once again saved on March 9, specifically at 9:39 a.m.

According to The Times' reporting, the photo was then provided to Palace aides, who were surprised by "its existence" since they'd been in discussions "for weeks" about "how and when they might release an image of the princess."

March 10, 2024

The Morning

The royals casually hopped online and dropped the picture, captioning it "Thank you for your kind wishes and continued support over the last two months. Wishing everyone a Happy Mother’s Day. C. 📸 The Prince of Wales, 2024"

The Afternoon

As the image of Kate and her kids made the rounds, people focused on two things:

(1) the fact that Kate's ring was missing.

(2) the fact that Princess Charlotte's sleeve had a glaring Photoshop error.

The Evening

Multiple photo agencies pulled the photo of Kate due to how heavily edited it was. The AP's "kill notification" read "clients please be advised that the following story has been killed and should no longer be used." They also said "AT CLOSER INSPECTION IT APPEARS THAT THE SOURCE HAS MANIPULATED THE IMAGE."

An AP spokesperson told The Telegraph, “The photo shows an inconsistency in the alignment of Princess Charlotte’s left hand.”

Meanwhile, more inconsistencies with the photo were pointed out—including the pattern on Prince Louis' sweater.

According to The Daily Mail, Kensington Palace was "thrown completely off guard" by agencies killing the photo and entered "crisis talks."

March 11, 2024

The Morning

Kensington Palace released a statement of apology from Kate Middleton. "Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing," she said. "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."

Meanwhile, The Telegraph spoke with Dr. Hany Farid (a professor of computer sciences at the University of California Berkeley) who said Kate wasn't digitally inserted into the pic.

“What you would be worried about here is if Kate wasn’t in this photo and had been digitally inserted. This would be a dramatic manipulation,” Dr. Farid explained. “You see her hands around the kids on both sides, you see her hair is touching the boy. The contact between her and the boy is very good.”

Former digital forensics officer Jake Moore also told the outlet, “The clues would lie in the lighting on the face, in the light and shade and the shadows. In a true image, the shadows will all be in the same direction as the light. For example, if in one image of four people, the light is all coming from one direction, the shadows will all match.”

The Mid-Morning

Kate was spotted mere hours after releasing her statement. In photos published by the Daily Mail, Kate can be seen riding in a car alongside Prince William, who was on his way Westminster Abbey for a Commonwealth Day service. Here he is at the event:

Per the Daily Mail, Kate was heading to a "private appointment."

The internet immediately became suspicious of this pic based on the fact it was run by U.K. outlets—who specifically didn't publish a previous pap photo of Kate taken on March 4.

As the Daily Mail explained re: the March 4 photo, "The pictures were published by US gossip website TMZ but not in the U.K. after Kensington Palace appealed for her to be able to recuperate in private."

The Afternoon

A viral theory hit Twitter, suggesting Kate's face in the Mother's Day pic was actually copied from an old Vogue photoshoot.

Royal expert Katie Nicholl told Entertainment Tonight, "My sources at Kensington Palace say that these were minor adjustments and I think that's a really important detail here. We're not talking about superimposing the Princess of Wales into an image because she wasn't well enough to be there. And that's some of the wild speculation that is flying around on the internet at the moment."

Regarding the "theory that this was an image of Kate's face that was superimposed from an old Vogue shoot," Nicholl said, "I think any sort of digital enhancement on that level would probably be far beyond Catherine's capabilities, to be perfectly honest."

Meanwhile, CNN revealed they are "now reviewing all handout photos previously provided by Kensington Palace."

The Evening

The Times dropped behind-the-scenes intel about what's going on at the Palace, saying Kate feels "awful" about the scandal and "told aides that she wanted to come clean."

Oh, and The Daily Mail reported Prince William and Kate Middleton were "deeply upset" and "angered" by "recent public discussion about her welfare."

Meanwhile, The Telegraph revealed that two "freelance photographers" took the car photo of Kate, noting that Kensington Palace aides were "caught off guard." Apparently, the photographers had stationed themselves near Windsor to snap a pic of Will heading to Commonwealth Day and got lucky with the Kate pic.

“It was about 1:50 p.m. when we saw the convoy coming towards us and we just managed to get a quick picture,” one of the photographers said. "We had no idea that Kate was even in the car with him until we looked at it. It was pure luck.”

And that brings us up to date. You are now a total and complete expert on this Photoshop scandal, which will come in handy for your group chats.

March 19, 2024

Getty Images reveals that a photo Kate Middleton took of Queen Elizabeth II and her grandchildren was photoshopped, saying in a statement “Getty Images has reviewed the image in question and placed an editor’s note on it, stating that the image has been digitally enhanced at source.”