‘Manipulated’ Princess Kate photo scandal intensifies dire health rumours

Princess Catherine is stuck in a media storm. Since undergoing abdominal surgery at the beginning of the year, taking time to recover and now being seen publicly for the first time in a beautiful Mother's Day spread, the media and fans alike have found a way to poke holes in her story and whip up wild conspiracy theories. Sky News All-Stars Peter Stefanovic, Russell Myers and Louise Roberts take a look at the rumours in a quest to expose the truth. Princess Kate is the backbone of the royal family. Strong and stoic with a warm and welcoming touch, the future queen is everything a royal should be. But since her unexpected abdominal surgery in early 2024, Princess Kate has commanded the spotlight of the world, bringing with it wild rumours and extreme conspiracy theories. Buckingham Palace marked Mother's Day with a wholesome photo of Princess Catherine with her three children. But this innocent photo has whipped up a media frenzy with news agencies refusing to run the image, claiming it has been manipulated. Global press agencies have issued a kill order for the Princess of Wales' latest family photo, saying it has been manipulated. This photo of Princess Kate and her three children was published on the couple's first official social media page in time for Mother's Day in the United Kingdom. It was the first photo of the Princess since her abdominal surgery in January. And what we're seeing here is highlights of these photos that show anomalies and show that Photoshop has been used extensively. The hands don't match up. There's extra parts of these pictures. There's the floorboards behind them that don't actually line up. These are all signs of things being Photoshopped. Her lengthy recovery, of course, over the last couple of months has prompted some speculation about her wellbeing. This image was initially shared and reported widely. But concerns have since been raised about the editing here. In response to the breaking news this morning is hugely reputable international news agencies, including one leading newspaper in the UK, have pulled this photo, saying... And it's the Associated Press, Reuters, AFP, that issued a kill notice to media clients globally. Now, a kill notice or a takedown order has been made because those news agencies have legitimate concerns that the photo isn't authentic. Allegations the photo has been doctored will only likely further fuel the conspiracy theories floating around at the moment. This is how BSky has covered it late into the evening in London. This is Sky's Lauren Wondock. We have some respected international news agencies deciding to kill this photo. In other words, they are pulling it from their distribution websites because they believe it has been changed, altered, Photoshopped. Call it what you like. They don't believe this is the photo in its original form. Now, Associated Press is among those who have decided to kill this photo, to pull it. They're saying... Now, remember, the source of this photo, we were told by Kensington Palace, was Prince William himself. He took this photo in Windsor last week. He is behind it. We don't know what manipulation of the image actually means, so we don't know how much of this image isn't its original form. Is it a filter? Are there tweaks? We just simply don't know. What we do know is that Kensington Palace have declined to comment about this and it just makes it all the more bizarre. And in terms of the speculation around this photo, it is only going to fuel the fires, I think, of those conspiracy theorists. British broadcaster Piers Morgan slammed the Palace for making things 100 times worse for Kate if they did, in fact, release a manipulated image. Yeah, British broadcaster Piers Morgan has just pointed out that this is an astounding move. A kill notice claim doesn't happen all that often for it to happen on this photo is quite extraordinary. He goes on to say... Meantime, the UK Daily Telegraph has gone with this front page, the headline... Political commentator and photo editor Rukshin Fernando told his Twitter followers... Why do I think it's poor editing? I'm just going to show you what's happened here. My belief is normally when we do portrait photos or sometimes even wedding photos, there's people, usually a drunk uncle or someone like this, their eyes are closed in the family portraits. And as a photo editor, sometimes you would know if you're also in the photo editing, especially around events, you are requested, if you can, to open up people's eyes. And one way of doing that is usually a photographer will take multiple photos of the same thing. And what we generally do is we'll stack the photos on top of each other and find one where everyone's eyes are open or that particular individual's eyes are open. And then we'll put it on top of each other, layer it up and erase one of the layers. This actually allows you to create a perfect, aesthetically pleasing family portrait or an image of that nature that is believable because it's a real image that you've taken, but you're just kind of combining elements together to make an aesthetically pleasing image. Now, in the ordinary world, not many people would take notice of something like that happening. And that is because most people are looking at that type of image close up with a microscope. So a lot of photographers will get away with this type of editing. And if you're really good as a photo editor, obviously you can do it in such a way and with such fine attention to detail that it's almost impossible to tell. So I believe that's what's happened here based on the types of mistakes that I'm seeing in this image. And to illustrate this, I've taken... This comes after a more candid photo was released showing a first look at Prince Kate driving in a car alongside her mother following her surgery, reveals Sky News All-Star Peter Stefanovic. Princess Kate has been seen in public for the first time since being admitted to hospital for abdominal surgery in January. The Princess of Wales was photographed by TMZ riding as a passenger in a car driven by her mum, Carol. So there's Kate there on the right, obviously. She's on her way to Adelaide Cottage there, reportedly. The surgery was a success and she was discharged back in January. And her recuperation is expected to keep her away from public duties until at least Easter. But Daily Mirror Royal Editor Russell Myers says the rumour mill over Princess Kate's health has been pretty distasteful. But on to Princess Catherine and her health continues to make headlines. It continues to be the subject of much speculation. Now, your masthead, The Mirror, writes that the palace has appealed for calm. So how bad did it get and what's the latest from the firm? Well, certainly, it's been pretty shocking. I mean, if you look at the sort of rumour mill that has exploded over the last few weeks on social media, it's been pretty distasteful, I think, is the best way to put it. And it appears that the palace has become pretty exasperated with the whole situation. I think, to their point, they have been very, very consistent in what they said on January 16th when Kate went into hospital. They said she would remain there for two weeks. Then she would come out and she would recover at home and not be seen, really, back onto her royal duties until after Easter, which puts us into April. Now, there's been an explosion of these conspiracy theories as to where is Kate, why haven't we seen her? I mean, it's pretty simple, in my view. She was recovering for an operation. It must have been a very serious operation. They all knew it was an abdominal surgery that was planned and that she would take a period of rest and recuperation at home. So, listen, I think that the palace had to come out and say everybody needs to calm down a little bit. They hit out at the madness of social media and I think that when you actually look at the evidence of what we have, Kate was seen driving with her mother last week but we haven't seen her very much because she's doing exactly that, resting and recuperating. So let's give her some time off and hopefully look forward to seeing her when she's back. The wild rumours about Kate are somewhat surprising as it's very well known that the royal family have great power over the British media, according to GB News host Patrick Christies. The royal family does have a huge amount of power over the British press in this country and if you ever want any kind of ongoing relationship with the royals, which obviously everybody does, then if you are the one who goes straight over the top and broadcasts something, especially something deeply personal, like Kate's illness, then you are going to be excommunicated from the royal pool, as it were. I do also think that there is a genuine sense, really, of concern and it's not the only issue at the moment. Everyone knows that our king is suffering. Camilla apparently is going to have to take a holiday because she's so stressed out about everything that's been going on. William has been out of sorts as well, to say the least, of public appearances. So I do think there is that element of respect but that does not necessarily exist in the American press and if someone does go over the top stateside, then it is going to be very hard to contain here in Britain. Yes, that is true too. Sky News all-star Louise Roberts says it's very smart of Catherine and William to start controlling the narrative. However, with the latest Kill Order reports from news agencies, this move may have just backfired this time. This is News Corp columnist Louise Roberts and Gemma Tognini from GT Communications. Starting off with the breaking news regarding Princess Catherine, it's Mother's Day today in the UK and this photo has just been released by the Palace. It's the first since her surgery, Louise. It's a great photo of her and her kids. A good move, you would say, from the Palace to quell some of that speculation. Absolutely, Carol. Very smart of Catherine and William to start controlling the narrative here. We've only seen one photograph of her previous to this, a perhaps shot of her in the car with her mother near Windsor. So to actually produce a photograph taken by William of course himself with their three kids on Mother's Day is absolutely picture-perfect, literally, because she looks healthy, she looks very relaxed and happy. Obviously the kids are delighted to be sitting with her. It's a good picture because she's sitting down, which would suggest that obviously there's been some recovery still ongoing here. She's got her skinny jeans on and her chloe boots and a nice sort of warm jacket. She's not overly made up. She looks very natural and at home. But interestingly I think there's got to be a lot of analysis as to why she's not wearing her wedding band or her engagement ring. Maybe she doesn't wear them when she's around home, who knows. But I think a lot of commentators will pick up on that in the next few hours or so. But to actually see a picture of her looking well I think is amazing because there's been lots of conspiracy theories, as you say, and for her to have such a lovely natural message, thanking people for their best wishes in the last two months and also wishing everyone a happy Mother's Day, which of course it is Mother's Day in the UK, as you say. So again very clever of them to actually put this out today. And Princess Catherine's own family isn't helping the situation with her uncle Gary Goldsmith going on Celebrity Big Brother to spill the dirt. So look, I think the fact is that apparently they wanted Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, and they couldn't get her and so they've gone for Gary Goldsmith instead. As you've said so far, he's just defended Kate, he's said that Harry and Meghan have thrown them under a bus and all of that. The problem is that obviously Kate at the moment is quite unwell. Presumably he does actually know more than the rest of us about what is going on and at some point when you're trapped in the Big Brother house, potentially as well when they occasionally wheel the alcohol in and his camera's 24-7, could that come out? That could be seriously, seriously bad. You mentioned that there's a picture there that has leaked to the American press. So far here in the British press, we've either been choosing not to or not been able to reveal anything about Kate.