As Kate Middleton conspiracies spread like wildfire, a new theory takes center stage.
The Princess of Wales has not made any public appearances since Christmas. Kensington Palace attributes her absence to a planned abdominal surgery in January and said in later statements that she was recovering well and would not return to public duties until after Easter.
A Mother’s Day image of Middleton and her children added fire to the already burgeoning conspiracy that something is deeply wrong with the princess, with theories ranging from divorce to a coma.
The seemingly innocuous family photo, published on social media along with a caption wishing a “Happy Mother’s Day” and giving thanks for kind wishes and support for the last two months, got killed by news agencies for being digitally manipulated.
A statement from Middleton on X apologized for editing the photo, chalking the changes up to her being “like many amateur photographers” and “occasionally experiment[ing] with editing.”
The photo, which was meant to quell conspiracies, only had the opposite effect, and a new theory took hold: that Middleton’s image was pulled from her 2016 shoot with Vogue.
“my analysis of the kate middleton photo saga is that they took her face from the vogue cover she did years ago and edited it in,” wrote Ruby Naldrett, along with a comparison of the two images of her face.
“Holy shit, I just did this myself and it’s a pixel perfect fit. Genuinely it’s 100% that this is the vogue cover photo photoshopped in,” claimed someone else.
But not everybody is convinced, trying to debunk the theory.
“clip going around that uses a fade to ‘prove’ the Kate Middleton photo is actually her Vogue cover. and there’s actually a reason you don’t use a fade to do that, because it makes images appear more similar than they are,” wrote one user on X. “if you take individual details – they’re a long way apart.”
Even Bellingcat, an online signals intelligence collective known for its reporting on the Russia-Ukraine war, weighed in. Founder and creative director Eliot Higgins said he thought the initial theory was parody because “there’s so many minor differences, like the reflection of the light in her pupils, the light and shadow on her face, the teeth visible, wrinkles, etc etc, that it’s clearly just a photo of the same woman from about the same angle, not the same exact photo.”
In a separate post, Higgins noted: “It’s not pixel perfect, if you actually look closely at the details you’ll see numerous small differences. Great way to get clicks, if you don’t care about your credibility.”
“These people are playing spot the difference and losing,” he added.
Quipped someone else: “Wait…are you saying a photo of Kate Middleton looks like another photo of Kate Middleton? I have no words to describe my shock at this revelation.”
