The Duchess of Sussex would “never” make a photograph editing mistake like the Princess of Wales, sources close to Meghan have claimed.
They also alleged that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex would have been “annihilated” by the press if they had released a doctored family portrait.
“This isn’t a mistake Meghan would ever make,” a source told the New York Post’s Page Six column. “She has a keen eye and freakish attention to detail.”
It came after Princess Kate apologised for editing a photograph of herself and her children that had been released to mark Mother’s Day.
The image was taken by the Prince of Wales during a 40-minute window last Friday, at the family’s home in Windsor.
The picture’s digital fingerprint suggests that it was edited just before 10pm that evening and then again the following morning with Photoshop on an Apple Mac. A reference to “document ancestors” indicates that multiple images were merged using a copy and paste function.
There were several inconsistencies, including a missing section of Princess Charlotte’s sleeve, a zip that does not align on the Princess’s jacket and several blurry sections not in keeping with the rest of the image.
Within 12 hours of its release, several global news agencies, including AP, Reuters and Getty, had issued a “kill” notice, warning customers not to use the image as it had been “manipulated”.
The reaction to the debacle was held up as proof by sources close to the Sussexes that “the same rules do not apply to both couples”.
The source told Page Six: “If Harry and Meghan had ever encountered the same issue they would have been annihilated.”
The intervention comes just days after the duchess criticised women who were “completely spewing hate” to other women online, calling on female executives in tech to do more to block it.
Speaking at an event about women in the media in Austin, Texas, on Friday, the Duchess of Sussex said she could not “wrap her head” around how people could have been “so hateful” towards her on social media.
“It’s not catty, it’s cruel,” she said of comments written online while she was pregnant. “Why would you do that?”
“What I find the most disturbing frankly, especially as a supporter of women, is how much of the hate is women completely spewing that to other women,” she said. “I cannot make sense of that.”
Princess Kate, a relative stranger to royal controversy, was said to have been distressed by the backlash and insisted on taking the blame.
With wild rumours and speculation circulating concerning her whereabouts since undergoing abdominal surgery on January 17, she was all-too aware of the scrutiny she and her children would be under once the picture was released.
There is no love lost between the Waleses and the Sussexes, with tensions between the couples being laid bare in Prince Harry’s memoir, Spare, as well as in multiple television interviews.
One royal source told Page Six that Meghan was a “control freak” about imagery, adding: “She always wants the final say, especially when it came to her editing of Vogue.”
The duchess guest-edited the British edition of the magazine in 2019 but was said to have left staff exasperated. The cover featuring 15 women that had inspired her also stirred controversy when it did not include Elizabeth II.
Meghan railed against the traditional palace procedure of releasing family portraits via news agencies, wanting instead to post them on her own social media channels, such as Instagram, allowing her to retain the copyright.
Despite this, the Sussexes found themselves embroiled in their own picture controversy over a black and white image used for their 2019 Christmas card:
Just sharing the sweetest Christmas Card from our President and Vice-President, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Very Merry Christmas, everyone! pic.twitter.com/McOcHALoGl
— The Queen's Commonwealth Trust (@queenscomtrust) December 23, 2019
The image, sent to friends and colleagues from Canada, showed the duke and duchess in the background as their then seven-month-old son Archie crawled towards the camera.
There were claims at the time that the image appeared to have been edited, with Meghan’s face clearer than her husband’s. One newspaper even suggested her head had been “later added onto her body”.
The photograph was taken by actress Janina Gavankar, a friend of Meghan’s, who dismissed the “malicious” criticism as part of a media campaign.
Addressing the controversy over the Princess of Wales’s picture, Omid Scobie, the Sussexes’ biographer, took to Twitter.
It’s fair to say that most photos released by the offices of public figures have been retouched in some way, so *if* this was an isolated incident then it would just be an unfortunate error. But with the Palace’s long history of lying, covering up, and even issuing statements on…
— Omid Scobie (@scobie) March 11, 2024
It’s understood that no discussions have yet been held about whether the Princess will continue to release her own family photographs in the future and, if she does, whether she will give assurances that she will no longer use editing tools.
The Princess is not expected to return to the public eye until the week beginning April 15 at the earliest, as the family will be taking a three-week break for the Easter holidays from March 22. The children return to school on April 17.
One of the first decisions she will have to take on her eventual return to work will be which photographer is given the responsibility of capturing Prince Louis to mark his sixth birthday on April 23, an image that will now face enhanced scrutiny.
Omid Scobie, the Sussexes’ biographer, wrote on Twitter/X: “It’s fair to say that most photos released by the offices of public figures have been retouched in some way, so if this was an isolated incident then it would just be an unfortunate error.
“But with the Palace’s long history of lying, covering up, and even issuing statements on behalf of family members without their permission (cc: Prince Harry), it’s becoming increasingly difficult for the public to believe a word (and now photo) they share. Gaining that back at this point is an almost impossible task.”
Markle claimed the duchess had defamed her with remarks about their relationship on television, in an interview with Oprah Winfrey and in the Harry & Meghan Netflix series.
However, Judge Charlene Edwards Honeywell found that she had “failed to identify any statements that could support a claim for defamation or defamation-by-implication”.
Telegraph: Many of us are prone to wishful thinking when it comes to our alcohol intake.