Kate Middleton was captured on video for the first time since she underwent abdominal surgery in January. The video, shared by TMZ, comes after a scandal involving a digitally manipulated photo of the Princess of Wales and her three kids led to one of the largest news agencies, Agence France-Presse, declaring that Kensington Palace is no longer a “trusted source.”
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The photo editing fail also contributed to conspiracy theories that Kate is being hidden from the public for some reason. Cue an international game of “Where's Kate?” that even celebrities like Kim Kardashian have been participating in. Oh, and the recent video that supposedly shows Kate shopping alongside her hubby Prince William has done nothing to quash the rumors that Kate is missing, because a ton of people aren’t buying that it’s real.
You might want to put on a wetsuit and grab an oxygen tank because we’re about to dive deep into the controversy!
Quick recap, in case you haven’t been playing ‘Where’s Kate?’ with much of the world.
Kate had surgery in January. Kensington Palace released a statement on January 17 stating that the day before Kate underwent “planned abdominal surgery” that “was successful,” but that a recovery period meant that “she is unlikely to return to public duties until after Easter.”
The recovery period makes sense, but a botched photo on Mother’s Day does not.
It makes sense that someone might need an extended recovery period after a surgery and that would explain why Kate hasn’t been seen since her surgery, but why in the why would Kate share a digitally altered photo of herself and her kids?
The photo in question was shared in honor of Mother’s Day in the UK.
I’ll spare you all the details of how many errors point to the fact that the picture of Kate and her kids shared on March 10 in honor of Mother’s Day in the UK is a giant photoshop and PR fail. I will, however, point out that even Instagram issued a warning that the photo was altered.
Kate issued an apology for the photo the next day.
In a post on X, Kate, or whoever is in charge of posting for her, shared that she does “occasionally experiment with editing” and that she’s sorry for “any confusion the family photograph” caused.
And what confusion did the photo cause?
Well, it made people worried about Kate and wonder where the heck she is and how she’s doing. Even Kim Kardashian made a joke about the controversy in an Instagram post she captioned: “On my way to go find Kate.”
Then TMZ and ‘The Sun’ released a video they say is of William and Kate.
Tabloid news organization TMZ claims it “obtained a clip” taken of Kate and William going to a business called the Windsor Farm Shop about a mile away from where they live. The trip is said to have happened on Saturday, March 18.
TMZ swears it’s ‘100% her’ in the video, but the internet is not buying it.
The posts on X about how the woman in that video is not Kate are endless and some are hilarious. Like this one of Prince William walking with a woman who is clearly not his wife.
Or this one featuring Aunt Viv.
On The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, the character of Aunt Viv was played by Janet Hubert until the fourth season when she was all of a sudden played by Daphne Maxwell Reid and we were all just supposed to pretend that we didn’t notice.
Even Andy Cohen had to weigh in.
According to the famous radio and TV talk show host “That ain’t Kate…” in the video. After posting his take on X, many of his fans agreed and responded in like. Some even posted side by side images that supposedly prove “that ain’t Kate.”
Honestly, I don’t know what to think.
When I first saw the video, I thought it was Kate, but now, I’m not so sure. It’s beyond scary that we live in a world where it’s not far-fetched to question images and videos shared by supposed “news” sources. Although, not sure TMZ or The Sun qualify as reputable news sources to begin with.
