Kensington Palace is really daring the British media and the international media to call them out over Prince Louis’s sixth birthday portrait. KP released the photos after noon on Tuesday, Prince Louis’s birthday. Usually, KP releases photos for the kids’ birthdays a day or two in advance, and I completely believe that the British papers exerted pressure on KP to release something. The palace couldn’t help but brief that the photo was taken by the Princess of Wales in Windsor in “the last few days.” Which no one really believes, especially since Louis is wearing the same shirt he wore in the Mother’s Day frankenphoto, and magically his missing-tooth gap has basically been unchanged for months? Even if you believe that the photo is unedited and unmanipulated, it’s very likely to be a months-old photo.
The Associated Press was one of several media agencies to “kill” the Mother’s Day photo hours after it was released by KP. The AP published the Louis b-day photo, but they added a disclaimer and made sure to reference who was saying what about the photo. This was AP’s disclaimer:
“Undated handout photo issued on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, by Kensington Palace of Prince Louis, taken by his mother Britain’s Kate, Princess of Wales, earlier this week in Windsor, to mark his 6th birthday. Kensington Palace released the photograph of Prince Louis to celebrate his 6th birthday, the first image by the Princess of Wales it has distributed since news organizations, including The Associated Press, withdrew a photo edited by Kate over concerns about digital manipulation. (The Prince and Princess of Wales, Kensington Palace via AP)”
LOL. In their coverage, AP noted that this is the first palace-issued photo since the Mother’s Day frankenphoto fiasco and they note that the palace is the one telling outlets that the Louis photo “was taken by the princess in the last few days, the palace said in a statement. British media reported that the image, which showed the beaming prince in a plaid shirt, had not been edited.”
Rebecca English at the Mail also claims that the photo has not been edited, information which she’s gotten from Kensington Palace… a source which has huge credibility issues. I mean, just last month, AFP compared KP to North Korea, but Becky English is all about that propaganda. She noted in her coverage: “The picture is understood to have been unedited, deliberately, following the furore that resulted over the princess’s Photoshopped Mother’s Day picture, which saw it withdrawn by international picture agencies.” English is truly giving Kensington Palace a cookie for swearing up and down that they released an unedited photo of a child.
The Mail also conducted an interview with a London photographer, Glenn Gratton, who studied the Louis photo and declares it “not retouched.” He told the Mail: “If she has done any photoshop, it’s very subtle. She’s clearly more advanced with her photography. Her pictures have improved year by year on….He’s only six. She’s not tried to make him look like a wax work. Some parents over-filter their children’s pictures.”
Richard Palmer was especially active yesterday over Louis’s photo. Such jobless behavior. “Almost every major news organisation has reported that this photo is unedited…” They’re reporting that Kensington Palace SAID it was unedited.
Almost every major news organisation has reported that this photo is unedited because it’s a pertinent fact after the controversy over the Photoshopped Mother’s Day picture. So the apparently coordinated attacks on some social media accounts, including this one, are interesting. https://t.co/fV0i86bUYH
— Richard Palmer (@RoyalReporter) April 24, 2024
Photos courtesy of Kensington Palace.
Kate is not advanced with her photography
Marginally more advanced than Huevo but hard agree. Love that AP refers to her as Kate.
Ahahhahaa the shade, I love it
It does not matter that this photo is unedited. How long will it be though before the proof hits KP in the face that this photo was not taken a few days ago. Most likely, it was taken in summer 2023.
Edited or not it looks like the internet sleuths have discovered the same photo in a 2022 Good Morning America news story. So while it may not be edited it looks like they were trying to manipulate the world into believing it is a recent photo. If this is true, why? There is absolutely no reason to lie, just say it’s a previously taken photo.
I feel like a broken record, but those “internet sleuths” are wrong and the screenshot is what is doctored. The 2022 bday pics were of him on the beach. you can see how he looks different in the pic from yesterday and the pics from two years ago.
https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/culture/story/photos-prince-louis-released-4th-birthday-84242804
I know that is gaining a lot of traction on the internet/social media but we need to be better than the random deranger theory.
I agree, Becks!
There seems to be something going on with the left arm in the picture as if it hs been photoshopped.
It seems the left arm is not proportionate to the other arm . Also a closer look at the picture , the arm he is resting on / the one that is tucked into a locked in position seems larger than his right arm
Also the picture was not taken 2 days / a few days ago. this same picture was first published sometime in 2022
@jemmy my comment is literally telling you that’s not true. this photo is not from 2022.
Absolutely @becks, it’s getting tiresome at this point. Louis’s picture is real. I wish we would learn to distinguish fake memes and photos on the internet- the GMA linkis so fake- his picture doesnt actually show up if you go to the website. Also he’s a small kid, he looked EXTREMELY different 2 years ago.
I love this site but between this and theories around Lady Gabriela’s husband unaliving himself, the conspiracy theories are leaving a sour taste in my mouth. We are veering into ‘Meghan has no kids!!!! omggggg’ crazy territory
Some of the squad are boarding on deranger territory. It’s clear this is a photo of a 5/6 year old. I don’t think it was taken a few days ago but it’s definitely not from 2 years ago.
@conchcall agree with the age. All three of them are too young to use pictures more than a few months ol and claim it’s current. They are rapidly changing.
@Becks We need to do better in general. This must hoopla over a young child photo is insane.
On another note, as far as the unchanged gap. That is not weird. It sometimes take several months for a gap to fill in. Also, those are not the same cloths. He is 6 years old do better. Rattling up a bunch of derangers over the age of a baby’s photo is not normal behavior.
Yeah be better. But don’t stop putting pressure on them to have actual video’s of the kids. Because I think they are being kept away from everyone. So they won’t talk about things that are happening with Kate.
@Conch Call, we can’t control a runaway train, nor Internet speculation. What goes around comes around. KP and the British monarchy as a whole have brought this all on themselves. H&M on the other hand, Have Never Deserved the deranged, vicious, cruel targeting and nonsense speculation thrown at them 24/7 by the hate-filled derangers. Palace courtiers and BRF members okayed the smears against Meghan from Day One. That fully unleashed onslaught took on a life of its own, resulting in all of the utter nonsense going on today, that’s been clapping back on KP. Karma is a beyotch. Better not to mess with her.
I don’t think that is right, he doesn’t look four, especially with the missing tooth. Unless it was photoshopped out to make him look older. Easier to get someone take another photo.
it’s not the same photo, maybe do a little fact checking or research first before believing these conspiracy theories.
Funny how none of this would be happening in the first place if Kensington palace had not manipulated photos and been playing “proof of life” games with the public.
^^ For sure @Hypocrisy! 💯 🎯
And yes @Cessily and @Becks1, it looks like the April 2022 date for the GMA feature was falsely posted. GMA apparently did the feature in recent days (2024) when this photo was released by KP. Sorry, I mentioned the 2022 date in the other thread. I was misled by the IG post. But all of this misleading fakery is what happens as a result of KP’s fakery cover-ups.
Maybe it’s me, but I read this as super shady: “The picture is understood to have been unedited, deliberately, following the furore that resulted over the princess’s Photoshopped Mother’s Day picture, which saw it withdrawn by international picture agencies.”
Becky English didn’t say that this pic was unedited, but the it was -understood- to be unedited. And, for the people in the back, she highlighted the fact that K supposedly unrecognizably edited her own Mother’s Day photo. She didn’t have to bring that up….
Hi ML, I didn’t read Rebecca English’s phrasing as shady. She is that heigh-ho commandant of Ye Royale Propaganda and this feels like applause for Kate and KP successfully pivoting after the frankenphoto debacle.
I do, however, think that the rota reporters have lingering embarrassment by how professionally skewered they were by the AP, AFP, Getty, and American new outlets. Rebecca’s line might have been to lend a wee bit of credibility to her coverage. We are watching!!!
X app are running theories that Louis: pic is two years old. Good Morning America had this pic on its site dated Apr 23, 2024. To have the rota insist the picture is unedited is saying is saying KP’s credibility is gone. So far GMA is not saying what’s on its site is wrong.
Becks1 has posted how it’s the GMA info that’s fake, not the photo. It may not have been taken a few days ago but it definitely wasn’t taken two years ago.
Yeah, there is a key difference between KP saying its unedited and the photo actually being unedited.
But honestly, here, I can believe it was unedited, I feel the most she usually does with her kids’ photos anyway is touching up. When there’s only one person in the photo, its usually not necessary to do a lot of manipulating like the frankenphoto. If this photo is completely unedited, she doesn’t get cookies for taking a picture of her child where he’s smiling and she did not have to touch it up.
Of course that’s without getting into who took this photo and when.
Yes, it’s a photo of one kid who (we think) has no major health issues to hide. It’s not exactly rocket science to produce a decent unedited photo in this situation.
Ironically Mr. Gratton, it’s because the picture is NOT more advanced and she hasn’t improved year by year that I think Kate took this. @Becks1, the beach photo you linked above shows the same hallmarks as the recent picture – face in focus while the rest of the subject isn’t sharp, very blurred background.
Speaking of manipulation though, looking again at that B&W photo in yesterday’s article of the five of them – I forget what the occasion was – it really struck me just how weird that looks. The only one who looks natural to me is Charlotte, sitting in the chair. Will, Kate and George standing in the background look strangely compressed together. Something looks off about Louis. And that’s just at a glance, without even trying to unpack what specifically might have been done to create that “photo”. Wow.
Yes! she has not improved, lol, and I did think the beach pictures were pretty cute (not amazing, not the best photographs ever, but cute.) But this is just the same. And that’s fine. Again, the british press does her no favors by over-praising her for the most basic things.
That black and white photo was their xmas photo from this year and it was so weird. Any editing aside – to me it was weird because it was so impersonal. It was like they were saying, we are going to show you as little of ourselves, our personality, and our lives as possible.
That b&w picture is really weird. But I think they actually used a photographer for that one? So who did the post-edits? The photographer? William? Kate? An intern at KP? It feels like Clue. It was the intern with the photoshop in the room wherever that Christmas photo was taken.
I think this is a case of continuity. It’s way easier for a comms team to strategically release content from a specific person if that person has a very simple style. It’s not like Kate has curated a really avant garde style that’s hard to replicate. ‘Her’ style is the same kind of generic nonoffensive blank aesthetic as the filler photos in frames. So that makes it easier for the comms team to add photos taken by other people (or, say, mimic the photo style so that the photos look the same regardless of whether the children were at mummy or daddy’s palace).
Not saying that Kate has never taken a photo of her own children, only that imho just like ‘early years’, Kate doesn’t have a true passion for photography, it was just deemed an acceptable, positive character trait for her reel.
I put Kate’s photography in the same box as celebrities on social media – some of the content may be authentic, but it’s also carefully managed, professionally curated and in many cases entirely outsourced.
@Sunday – you make some reasonable points. And I agree Kate’s style is simple and essentially generic. I’d only say, that while she doesn’t have any avant guard elements, what’s distinctive to me is the very (too) shallow depth of field for her subjects, one result of trying to maximize background blur. A pro would do better. It’s visible in shots of the children, but also the one of Camilla for Country Life, where presumably people could see Kate was actually there (yes, yes, can we say for sure?) That feature could be duplicated, but it would have to be noticed first, and if the skills of whoever is doing the composite manipulations are anything to go by (insert thumbs down emoji), it would be easy to miss.
I think Kate’s the one who’s been taking these pictures, especially if she’s getting the money when they’re published. But it’s anyone’s guess when any of them were done. Neutral backgrounds plus massaging the releases would muddy the waters when it came to where the kids are, and when.
Finally, I do think Kate is/was interested in photography; as I recall, she pissed off Annie Liebovitz when she was at BP photographing TQ (2016) by hanging around scoping out her set up. It’s about the only concrete thing worth promoting about her since her only other visible interests are dressing to attract attention and copying her SIL’s outfits.
On a different note, I think Harry is really good, and would love to see the pictures he takes of the kids, family, dogs, etc. Things being what they are, we won’t, and you absolutely can’t blame him.
@Jais. – “It was the intern with the photoshop in the room wherever…” Love it!
Shallow depth of field is the standard for portrait photography. The background is deliberately unfocused to keep attention on the face. Some experts recommend an f stop as low as 1.2 and you can’t get lower than that. It’s not a reflection on her skill level but an aesthetic choice.
“She’s not tried to make him look like a wax work. Some parents over-filter their children’s pictures.” Why is it never possible for these people to praise Kate without having to slam others?
Because there’s no there, there. She doesn’t have any accomplishments that aren’t related to being married, a mom, and ” Future Queen”. So they have to make things that everyone else would consider to be basic magnificent for her, she fixes them lunch! She knows their friends names! And not only that she does all that better than anyone else!
This is such an important point. They can’t just shine on their own. They have to put others down to make themselves a look better.
Right?! And no, most parents don’t over filter their children’s photos!
Rebecca English’s quote:
“The picture is understood to have been unedited, deliberately…”
This phrasing completely underscores the heights of this ridiculous farce!!!! How can this be consumed in a non-satirical fashion?!!! The Fail strikes again. ⚡️
It’s probably not edited or very minimally edited, but the fact that they have to say that and try to crow about it should give them pause. Why do they think it’s a good thing that an organization has to point out the aren’t doing anything shady. It’s like a company bragging that they give their employees breaks, or that they’ve never been shut down by the Board of Health. If that’s your highlight? Wow.
But, are the location & date true? AP didn’t say if they see the metadata or not. Louis may has been a real kid with red patches on his chin & cheeks, but where was he, when was he existed? /S
AP said it was ‘an undated photo’, then related that KP said it was taken in the last few days. Which I took to mean, put the blame squarely on KP if this turns out to be a fake or a photo taken months ago or whatever. AP said it was an undated photo, and that’s all they would attest to.
Will-not is in control of KPs PR and he thinks he is smarter and more capable than he actually is. I can see him needing the headgame of getting away with a lie with a partial truth, like the pic isn’t edited, but was taken last year by someone other than Kate.
No it’s probably not edited but it isn’t new either so why are they getting any cookies at all.
KP’s credibility is in tatters. British media rushes in to stitch it back up. And he’s a cute little kid. Why would his photo need to be edited?
Word, you took it right out of my mouth. He’s a gorgeous child, he doesn’t need editing, perfect just as he is.
It’s a real photo of Louis. KP is using this as a way to wave away previous speculation. They want people to question its authenticity because when it’s proven to be real, they’ll use that to ‘disprove’ and put to bed the allegations surrounding the other more questionable photos/videos. Now, I’m not sure whether they *wanted* to release this or if they were pressured to by the tabs and are now trying to spin why they had to use an old photo.
The variables here are when, where, and by whom the photo was taken, but of course the palace doesn’t want to talk about any of that so the media won’t either.
Once again I’ll point out that Kate wasn’t the only one edited in the Frankenphoto… the children were too. We’ve seen George, but Charlotte and Louis, along with Kate, haven’t been seen since Christmas. To me, it makes zero sense why they would have to release an old photo (unless the whole thing really is a campaign to wave away that previous speculation). “They will look after the heir, and I will look after the spare” does begin to seem relevant, or at least worthy of being thrown in the growing pile of theories, lol.
This comment precisely captures my thoughts and concerns about this picture. It seems somewhat likely that it is not current, and it begs the question: why can’t they just get a picture of the boy near to his birthday? Easy Enough? Apparently not.
The press is trying to spin this as a new strategy by KP regarding photos but I believe that press yanked their chain yesterday morning when they saw that no photo was forthcoming.
Congrats to Kate that her “major abdominal surgery” appears to have healed enough that she can lie on the ground and take a photo! And for having the self-control not to facetune a 6 year ols, wow. Maybe she deserves a new royal order to put on her sash?
KP and Huevo are just so stupid and arrogant. Why was there any need to say the photo was taken in the last few days?! It clearly was not. Louis has the exact same missing tooth gap from months ago. So it’s obviously from around that time. They could have just released the ‘previously unseen’ photo and left it at that. But nooooo, Huevo always has to take it one step too far. His hubris and the yes-men he’s surrounded by will be his downfall. And I love that for him.
Yup. Astounding arrogance and condescension. Pride goeth before a fall and all that. It came with a William, it will end with a William. So they say.
Well, if it’s understood by Becky English not to be edited then it must not be edited😂. I don’t actually think is super edited but they’re still playing games. It feels like they’re just going to keep playing chicken with the photo agencies. Sure, this pic is fine but eventually they’re going to play too much with another photo.
Useless information to add to the photo discussion: Commenters in Chris Ship’s Twitter were saying Louis’ checked button down shirt is part of his Lambrook uniform. A visit to the Lambrook website reveals students wearing similar shirts but not the same one.
So, do we think this photo was taken on the same day of the mother day’s photo? When they went to charity? It is the same shirt, right? In the past, they always took multiple pics on the same day and release them throughout the year. But, why are they emphasizing that it was taken a few days ago? So weird.
Because if people believe Kate took the picture and it was a few days ago. Then Kate must be okay. So everyone should stop talking about Kate being in a coma or dead. Or the cancer video being a fake. Because look she took this photo a few days ago. You just have to believe us. Because you know we never lie. Couldn’t it be something like that?
It absolutely could be Robert. Same as giving her the honour. Is she actually still here to accept it….
Yeah, stop looking for Kate and stop looking for Louis (and Charlotte).
Playing devil’s advocate here about Louis tooth: any of you remember losing your teeth or your children losing their teeth? Is he the right age for this one? My nephew who is five and a half lost the same one (I’m kinda discrediting my own theory here). But anyway, if he lost the tooth unnaturally like his an injury or the dentist could that explain the new one not coming in yet? Wouldn’t still come in at the time it was meant to if he’d lost it naturally?
Anyway, I still think the photo is older than a few days ago but at the same time when the hell would they have been somewhere that warm and green for it to be relatively recent? Like even a few weeks ago it was too cold for that pic.
Such good questions and I have some anecdata so I’ll take a crack. My son is a week older than Louis and has a pulled tooth up top from toddlerhood and a few naturally lost ones on the bottom. For the pulled tooth, nothing is coming in yet even though there is space, because he hasn’t lost any of those top teeth naturally yet. For the bottom, they take months and months to first push out the baby tooth and then grow in from there. How long they have a gap depends on how soon the baby tooth comes out in the process. If Louis yanked the tooth the second it was wiggling, or broke it and had to have it pulled, yeah it could be an unchanged gap for a few months+.
All that to say, I think they’re hiding that Will has George and wherever Kate is, she has Charlotte and Louis. Hence it taking so long for Kate to get the photo to KP so they could publish it. And maybe he’s wearing the same shirt because she didn’t pack much when she bolted with them. And everyone’s claiming the school run because everyone is doing it. Will and Nanny Maria with George. Carole and Kate with Charlotte and Louis.
for two years in a row my theme song was “all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth…” (which dates me, yes). My point being we all develop at different rates. Comparing Louis’ experiences w/my son’s massive explosion of teeth to my agonizingly slow grow of my two front teeth? Seems like not a lot to hang one’s hat on.
Kate AND KP are guilty of manipulated photographs. Just look at the picture with the Queen and all the grandchildren. So many discrepancies in that photo. Just recently they sent out a Christmas photo in which Louis was missing an entire FINGER. There were also other discrepancies in that photo. These aren’t just minor “photoshops” or “touch ups”.
This latest photo of Louis… I have my doubts. It is hard to discern real or fake in this photograph because the background is blurred and there isn’t a lot of room for the photo to be detected for anything because the lack of details in it to begin with. I personally see an issue with his arms though. His arms are not proportionate. Look at the left arm closest to him and there should have been a starting point to his hand and fingers. Not just a continuous arm.
I find it suspicious he is in fact wearing the same shirt as the Frankenphoto and also the fact the same tooth gap as the Frankenphoto. His hair part is the opposite side.
I don’t trust anything from KP. The internet right now is getting swamped with AI generated photographs of Kate from random “fan accounts” on social media. I actually find that odd because a lot of them I feel are bot accounts especially based off all the bot comments under them. So, why suddenly is there BOT accounts putting out tons of fake images of Kate being put out as if they are recent pictures. Some of them are really difficult to look at because it’s obvious they are fake but what you are seeing doesn’t actually look fake.
This photo of Louis could easily be an AI manipulated photograph. IMO, I believe KP has just progressed in their fraud. I believe they are learning how to cover their tracks and are making sure they are very careful before they release something now. They are going to count the fingers before they click send and make sure to fix that now. 🤡 They know they can’t afford to be lazy and sloppy like they were doing in the past.
I don’t believe a word from them. And I don’t believe anything they are sending out. They are LIARS. They are frauds. They are arrogant. And they will continue to be liars, frauds and arrogant a-holes.
I don’t understand the photographer saying it’s “not retouched” and straight after saying “If she has done any photoshop, it’s very subtle”. Is he saying it’s been retouched then ? Did they get the first photographer they could get to answer their phonecall and tried to make him say something ?
The photo has been manipulated. His left arm/hand looks weird. It has clearly been messed with.
@LILMSC I completely agree with you.
It’s possible the entire photo is AI generated.
They’re trying to distract from the fact that it is months old and can’t be credibly understood as proof-of-life for Kate.
🎯🎯🎯
He is the spitting image of actor Daniel Bruhl.
OMG yes! I cannot unsee it.
Things I feel confident about:
1 George is NOT lying on the grass barefoot in England in April, posed like a baby, with just his elbows on the blanket.
2 Kate is NOT lying down in front of him to capture the shot.
3 The Palace(s) lie about everything.