In late March and early April of this year, the Prince and Princess of Wales took their three children on a ski vacation in Courchevel, France. Reportedly, they borrow a family friend’s ski chalet quite regularly during the ski season, and their holiday in March/April was their third ski trip in four months. They also vacationed in Mustique during that same four-month period. What was notable about the March/April ski trip is that Paris Match published photos of the vacation – some photos of William clutching a bottle of wine on the balcony of the chalet and some pics of Kate and the kids skiing. Immediately, huffy royalists claimed that William and Kate would probably sue Paris Match over the photos, but we never heard anything nailed down. Well, it looks like the huffy royalists were correct. Will and Kate did sue. And then won. Only… look closely at what they won.
The Prince and Princess of Wales have won a legal battle after suing a French magazine over a “grossly intrusive article and long-lens paparazzi photographs”. The pictures, published by Paris Match, showed William and Kate as well as their three children Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis enjoying a holiday in the Alps in April.
Now, the publication has been ordered to acknowledge the breach of privacy in its magazine and pay William and Kate’s legal costs in France.
Compensation had been sought but the Prince and Princess of Wales told the court they wanted the publication of a “judicial notice” instead. A French Court has instructed the publication to publish the notice acknowledging the breach of privacy, with a penalty of €10,000 per issue until compliance.
A Kensington Palace spokesperson said: “Their Royal Highnesses The Prince and Princess of Wales, have been successful in legal proceedings brought in France against the owner of Paris Match, which published a grossly intrusive article and long-lens paparazzi photographs of their private family holiday in the Alps in April. The ruling affirms that, notwithstanding their public duties as members of The Royal Family, Their Royal Highnesses and their children are entitled to respect for their private lives and family time, without unlawful interference and intrusion.”
“The Prince and Princess of Wales are committed to protecting their private family time and ensuring that their children can grow up without undue scrutiny and interference. They will not hesitate to take such action as is necessary to enforce those boundaries.”
What did they win, exactly? Paris Match pays their legal costs and Paris Match has to publish what amounts to an acknowledgement of “breach of privacy.” It doesn’t sound like some huge legal victory. For what it’s worth, you can make an argument, for sure, that the photos around the chalet, especially the balcony/deck pics, are a breach of privacy. But the photos of Kate and the kids skiing in public are not a breach of privacy. To me, it feels insanely high-handed to cry about “privacy” when they’re literally skiing in public, and a French tabloid is reporting the basics of their ski trip. I bet none of the royal-reporters will claim that William and Kate are “privacy-obsessed” either. Anyway, in case this wasn’t clear – William and Kate were furious that one of their four vacations in four months’ time was outed by a French tabloid. They believe that they should be able to control international publications the same way they control the British media.
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- The Prince and Princess of Wales visit the Natural History Museum’s newly transformed gardens and meet children and young people taking part in learning programmes which see them connecting with nature and boosting biodiversity in urban areas. The gardens and National Education Nature Park programme are part of the Natural History Museum’s ambitious Urban Nature Movement, an initiative which aims to help people feel more connected to nature, more confident in their ability to protect it and more invested in a greener future. Featuring: William Prince of Wales, Catherine Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton Where: London, United Kingdom When: 04 Sep 2025 Credit: John Rainford/Cover Images **NOT AVAILABLE FOR PUBLICATION IN THE UK**
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- The Prince and Princess of Wales visit the Natural History Museum’s newly transformed gardens and meet children and young people taking part in learning programmes which see them connecting with nature and boosting biodiversity in urban areas. The gardens and National Education Nature Park programme are part of the Natural History Museum’s ambitious Urban Nature Movement, an initiative which aims to help people feel more connected to nature, more confident in their ability to protect it and more invested in a greener future. Featuring: Catherine Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton Where: London, United Kingdom When: 04 Sep 2025 Credit: John Rainford/Cover Images **NOT AVAILABLE FOR PUBLICATION IN THE UK**
It is out there all ready. The lazy ones were caught out. I hope more of this happens and they get caught vacationing. and they already trot their kids out so they are scrutinized. Keen was supposed to be “frail” yet she’s zooming around on ski slopes.
If the public is paying for the vacation, , why do the Highnesses feel entitled to privacy???
Where do we think they are during this current school break?
Certainly not hanging around the British Isles. That is for the peasants.
I was wondering that… no engagements last week and nothing this week..Half Term is usually just one week..
Two weeks for most public ( private ) schools in the UK in October.
Oh please. Seems to me they wanted the picture of a staged happy family out there. Did the photographer not get the correct angle so now they sue? Big joke.
Agree. I think the whole thing was to try and reinforce the happy family image – which was largely successful!
I’m a cynic, so believe they happily took the legal fees hit to achieve their end.
Shame on them.
If they wanted happy family pictures out there, they failed. Charlotte looked miserable, William looked like a drunk dad waving a bottle of alcohol in front of the kids, Kate’s real hair was exposed and William was caught looking distant from his family, scrolling through his phone sitting on a chair lift by himself. Zero candid shots of William doting on his sick wife or kids. The photos weren’t giving.
I think that they weren’t trying to give off the “happy family” vibes as much as they were trying to get photos out there that they were all together. At that time there were questions about whether or not William was on vacation with them and if he actually lived at Adelaide Cottage with them. I think they were okay, at first, with the leaked photos until they saw that the photos revealed something else about them that was just as bad; that Kate was well enough to go on multiple vacations and one of them including her going down strenuous slopes when they have tried to garner sympathy for her health being so fragile that she couldn’t work. Those photos proved the lie that she was too frail to do the usual just show up and wave work she does because she was healthy enough to ski. That is why there was no mention of suing until after the public reaction about her skiing. Think about all of the vacations they take in a years time and rarely do we know where they are or what they are doing. The only time photos are leaked is when there is public backlash about them being separated. Then suddenly there’s leaked photos of the whole family during one of those trips. They did the same thing when she was missing and they said she had abdominal surgery. Suddenly out of nowhere there were leaked photos of them near Windsor, when you never see leaked photos of them (or a Kate lookalike) near Windsor any other time of the year. The media even confirmed that the leaked video at the Windsor farmers market was after talks between them and the media to respond to the rumors online about them not being together.
I can see the claim for privacy — with kids & even without them in the picture, literally. But you can’t really escape side eye / eye roll / charges of gross hypocrisy, say, when you’ve spent almost 10 years leaking furiously about your brother, his fiancée & wife, their newborn child, their second child, her name selected in honour of your shared grandmother, their house, their business commitments, their real estate investments, their professional contracts & connections, their finances, their motives, their “empire-building”, and their relationships with shared family members….. I mean, pleeeeeeaaaase. GMAFB. These people simply can’t stomach a fraction of what they sling at others on the world stage. They’re such petulant entitled freaks.
Let’s not forget that these are the same people who continue to employ staff who leaked locations, conversations, mental health issues and a private letter between and daughter and her father. They also had issue with Harry and Meghan wanting to correct lies told about them and the racist abuse towards them and their child. Their hypocrisy is astounding.
Kaiser, as always, great choices for the pictures.
However, I may have nightmares tonight about those smiles. EEESH.
KM looks heavily medicated in the photos of her in the green jacket with the, overlong, blonde hair extensions. Bizarre.
Are you talking about Cousin It?
Ahh, so it is perfectly FINE for WanK to sue any media they want whenever, but if Harry or Meg do so, it is the Crime of the Century. Got it.
Well, to be fair they were trying to sell the whole “Kate is adjusting to her new normal as a tragic Victorian invalided child, so treat every brave smile as a gift from Heaven” spin right when the skiing pictures torpedoed that narrative.
I’ve no issue with this since the upshot should be that the same consideration be extended to H&M. Private – no, public yes. Will it apply? Likely not but it’s a fresh example to trot out everytime when unfairly applied to them to illustrate the double standard.
Every time I see a pic of Keener’s blonde wig/weave/wiglet monstrosity, my eye twitches. How can anyone look so bad and 1. BE CLUELESS that they look ridiculous and 2. BE so coddled/pampered that no one will tell them they look terrible and need to ditch the Lady Godiva wig. The Wails deserve not one moment of peace for depriving Harry/his family of proper security, feeding them to the rota/bot armies for a decade and recklessly disclosing their location in 2020 when they left. Willy is going to keep up the petulant bully boy routine until the media turn on him like they did his parents in the 80s/90s and he doesn’t have the backbone or common sense to live through the scrutiny. He isn’t a media genius like he thinks he is and the public will gleefully turn on him in this economy when they figure out how much he has participated (and paid for) media manipulation. He is up to half a dozen private residences at what cost and how much does his monthly international vacations cost the tax payers?
He just isn’t a genius, period, if he doesn’t understand that that is exactly what’s going to happen at some point. His dad got reams of fawning coverage, and for years… until he didn’t. And with the hints and rumors about William? Yikes, dude. I’d maybe rethink my situation if I were him.
I’m sorry the public pays for that Royal protection when they travel, not to mention everything these people do is on the public purse so if they are in the sunshine they are fair game imo.. especially when they are only seen on holiday and rarely sighted actually working.
I don’t need pictures of them on vacation, especially not of their kids. That said, I think there should be transparency about every single vacation they go on.
I can see wanting privacy at one’s hotel (or, I guess, luxury lodgings for these two cheese brains), and no pictures of the kids, but come on, William and Katie. I’m glad Paris Match published that they were on yet another vacation and confirmed there were more because while we’ve always suspected that they’re just farting off to various luxury escapes, the *confirmation* was vivifying.
What the photos did show IMO is that Kate’s full-blown “cancer” is a myth. I am glad the photos were published.
They should have blurred out the faces of the kids but the adults lying about their whereabouts is actual news. Especially when kate claimed she had good days and bad days.
The fact that no uk media reported on this lawsuit, which would be public record once they filed a claim, shows the total collusion. Meanwhile we get analysis of every motion filed in the lawsuits Harry started against the tabloids.
Public servants have to advise the government when they go on vacation and the royals should be required to do this as well. There needs to be a clear record of just how much William and Kate actually do.
If they can’t do this then cut off the funds. They can survive on the 23 million per year of the duchy funds.
The lack of coverage of the BM of this lawsuit is something. Bc it really just beings attention to the fact that Kate was out there skiing. The picture of her skiing on a public slope without the kids while briefing the BM that she can’t work too hard while vacationing on tax-dollars…I mean yeah that’a public interest story. One that’s been buried to protect the royals, specifically the Wales.
The argument for blurring out the faces of children of celebrities is that they aren’t known to the public. William and Kate have made their children public figures and regularly update the press and public with photos and video of them. So there wouldn’t be any point. As always the Wales want their cake and to eat it, too. William has always fought for his family and only his family to get to do whatever they want whenever they want and the only arbiter of whether or not that should appear in the press is if he alllws it. That’s his real goal – prior restraint of all publications related to him.
The duchy is owned by the public and an Act of parliament permits the PoW to retain the profits.
So who was seeking compensation if all they wanted a judicial notice? The way that’s worded, I’m thinking they wanted both and got one of the options.
The Prince and Princess of Wales are committed to protecting their private family time and ensuring that their children can grow up without undue scrutiny and interference. They will not hesitate to take such action as is necessary to enforce those boundaries.”
Are they for real? They don’t afford the same courtesy to Harry and Meghan
Totally oblivious. Those fancy schmancy schools they went to failed them completely by leaving them incapable of basic logic. All they learned was an undeserved sense of superiority.
It seems like they were told to pick one?
@Becks1, my thoughts exactly.
Damn they really were mad that their vacation was found out.
I think Paris Match probably expected this lawsuit and calculated it into the cost of running those photos. Now they have to run an apology and pay some legal fees and thats it. And everyone still saw the pictures and knows that Will and Kate will vacation regularly but not work.
Generally speaking, I don’t love pap photos like this especially when kids are involved. but we all know what would happen in the media if this was H&M suing over these pics. but back to my first sentence – I do think this is more about them being mad that their vacation was discovered and being unable to control the foreign press the way they control the british press.
Yeah I’m sure they made more from places like page 6, etc running the pictures. I feel like they would still do it again if they visit.
The pictures of Kate on the slopes really were the most damaging ones. And those were not private at all.
If she wasn’t claiming she needed rest all the time it would be a different story, but Paris match knew she was lying.
She’s just angry she was photographed without all the wigs and hairpieces. That thin plait/braid told the truth.
Good point.
I can’t believe how some of the rota were praising what was obviously ratty blonde hairpieces after seeing those ski vacation photos of Kate’s real hair.
This is it. There’s only a pushback when it involves Kate’s hair.
That’s truly it. We saw her real hair. Thin & about a foot shorter.
They were just angry that the photos showed Kate‘s real hair
They seem to only be upset about their breach of privacy in the sense that it highlighted that they were on vacation yet again. That’s the real issue for them, people can speculate that they’re on vacation like they are right now but you have no proof of it. For all you know they can say that Kate and William have been clocked in 8 hours a day at KP you haven’t seen any photos otherwise. They don’t want people to be able to say these people are lazy, here’s photo evidence of it.
I’m no longer shocked about their hypocrisy though. Harry and Meghan having a problem with telephoto lenses, drones, people demanding to know why Harry hasn’t traveled with Megan and explain his whereabouts is all wrong. Because they deserve to know that even though he doesn’t work for the Royal institution, live in england, get any taxpayer money, or represent the monarchy in any manner. Expecting these things from The Prince and Princess of Wales though? Absolutely none of your business.
This is the height of hypocrisy from William and Kate and the British press. William and Kate breached Harry and Meghan’s privacy by leaking and planting stories about them and the Palace has been against Harry pursuing his lawsuits against the British press. Furthermore why isn’t the British press outrage that William and Kate took Paris Match to court? They have all this anger towards Harry and Meghan for doing the same thing but none towards William and Kate.
I suppose Paris Match knows that the judge might go harder on them if they do it again. So in a way this is a warning and may cause Paris Match to hold back next time.
But yes to all of this, the Waleses are mad they got found out. And this outrage is a complete double standard and hypocrisy where Meghan and Harry are concerned, given William and Kate are some of the worst leakers against them.
If she can ski, then she can work 3-4 events per week.
They sue because they don’t want people to see her “active” when they later use her “illness” as an excuse for her lack of work.
Did they sue any of the photographers who took photos of her while “sick”? Nope. Because that’s an image that works for them.
Yeah, the picture of her physically skiing while saying she couldn’t challenge herself to work too much was the most damning part.
The British media has known about this since the initial filing and not reported that they were suing. Why?
We know why. They have to protect the heir and his spouse.
I am not a fan of the kids getting wrapped up in paparazzi shenanigans. Had it just been William and Kate I think they might have let it go. William deserves a lot of criticism but like Harry he is very protective of his kids, he has just as much PTSD growing up in a fishbowl and dealing with the aftermath of Diana’s death as much as Harry does. I do think William and Kate do try to limit the photo ops of their kids, we don’t see them too often.
However I think the kids were just part of it. I think the other part was that Paris Match is a French publication and not part of the royal rota, they can technically publish whatever they want on the BRF. They aren’t subject to the weird relationship that the British tabloids have with the royal family. It’s not really odd for a French tabloid magazine to report on celebrities taking a vacation in France. So I think that’s also part of it, William being a control freak and pissed that a non British tabloid reported on their vacation and made them look lazy too. And of course them suing a magazine is not going to get the same amount of press that Harry did suing all the British tabloids. They are held to different standards and the coverage here shows.
I agree that children shouldn’t be papped but I don’t think it had anything to do with them suing. I only say that because there have been multiple paps of them with their kids that didn’t result in them suing media. There was a photo of the entire family, including Nanny Maria, a few years ago where the photos were so perfectly clear and there was never any mention of a lawsuit from them. There are even photos of them shopping with the children and at sporting events at parks where lawsuits didn’t happen. I think the difference in all of this is the photos of Kate skiing and being very healthy and active when they were trying to receive sympathy and an excuse for why she is unable to work. These photos of all photos taken of them proves that they can’t be trusted, even when it comes to talking about their health.
William may really be the end of the monarchy. A few years ago i thought it would be George but now i doubt George takes the throne.
They’re used to the tabloids covering for them, not exposing them. A couple of years ago the telegraph reported Kate saying this: “Is it busy for everybody? Is everybody back in? There’s been a lot of illness going around, hasn’t there?” And yes, they used quotation marks.
The video of her shows this is what she ACTUALLY said: “Is, um, is it busy, for everybody? Is, um, everybody, sort of, back in? Have you been, sort of, is, I’ve, there’s been lots of illnesses going around.”
The royals expect the press to lie about their laziness, dumbness, privilege, money laudering, pettiness, bullying, grifting, and full on rape. And the British press will comply. There is no journalism anymore, just paid public relations campaigns.
Wow, how very trumpian.
I bet they received more in revenue from their publication than they had to pay in fines, so my suggestion would be to keep it up. Put the pressure on. You go skiing in public, yachting in public, sunbathing in public, etc. every month while pretending to be recovering from cancer you can expect to be photographed.
They are such whiners. If I was taking four-plus luxury vacations a year on the public dime, I’d feel some shame about complaining too much.