The Kate Middleton Vogue cover theory explained

It’s been dubbed “Photogate” and a “Katespiracy”, and now the social media frenzy over the Princess of Wales’ Mother’s Day photograph has turned to whether Kate’s face in the ‘edited’ photo may have come from a Vogue cover photo from 2016.

To recap, a conspiracy theory has been circulating for weeks now around the princess’ health, following her “planned abdominal surgery” back in January which has seen her “postpone her upcoming engagements”, with Kensington Palace previously saying it is unlikely she will return to public duties “until after Easter”.

Then came the aforementioned photo on Sunday, which led to those invested in the conspiracy theory poring over the snap for any indication as to how Kate is faring.

What they ended up finding was a total of 18 errors in the snap, from Charlotte’s sleeve not looking right, to Kate missing her wedding ring and the top of Louis’ jumper not lining up.

Amid all the online speculation, news agencies pulled the image, with the Associated Press issuing a “kill notification” saying “it appears that the source has manipulated the image”.

Reuters, Getty Images, the Press Association and Agence France-Presse (AFP) also removed the photograph.

All of this prompted the princess to issue a statement on Monday which said: “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 had a very happy Mother’s Day.”

The discourse has, nonetheless, continued, and social media users are now wondering if some of the “editing” done to the photo includes borrowing Kate’s face from a Vogue cover shoot from 2016.

Ruby Naldrett, senior social media editor at the Daily Mirror and Daily Star, took to Twitter/X on Monday afternoon and wrote: “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.”

While some responded to rubbish the suggestion based on the fact that someone is likely to have the same face eight years apart, others carried out their own investigative work and backed the theory, with former professional photographer Paul Lomax claiming it’s “a pixel perfect fit” and “100% that this is the Vogue cover photo photoshopped in”:

Despite the princess admitting to editing the photo, Kensington Palace has said it would not be reissuing the unedited original.

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