Kate Middleton 'Vogue' Cover Editing Theory Explained

Kate Middleton's edited Mother's Day portrait has sparked theories she may have used a Vogue cover image from 2016—though not everyone is convinced.

The Princess of Wales apologized for photoshopping a picture of her with children Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, triggering conspiracy theories about how the image was put together.

Ruby Naldrett, a senior social media editor at the Daily Mirror and Daily Star, told followers on Twitter, formerly X, she believed she had spotted similarities in Kate's face with an image from a 2016 cover of Vogue.

Her post was viewed more than 41 million times.

She wrote on Twitter, formerly X: "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."

To make the point, Naldrett created a fade from Kate's Mother's Day picture into the Vogue cover.

While the theory went very viral, very fast some did also point out both pictures show Kate and therefore she is likely to have a similar-shaped face in both.

Luke Bailey, head of digital at the i, wrote on X: "Clip going around that uses a fade to 'prove' the Kate Middleton photo is actually her Vogue cover. and there's actually a reason you don't use a fade to do that, because it makes images appear more similar than they are. if you take individual details—they're a long way apart."

The Vogue cover showed Kate in a hat with her hair swept back off her face while the Mother's Day image showed her with no hat and her hair partially covering her face.

Her smile in both images bear passing resemblance—though that may also be because both photos show the same person smiling—but the Mother's Day picture is softer focus. Bailey also pointed to differences in her smile and eyebrows.

Experts have also suggested William, said to have taken the picture, may have used a mode that takes multiple photos and Kate may then have stitched together a composite in order that all four royals looked at their best.

Unless Kensington Palace publishes the original image, we may never know exactly how the photo that was released was put together.

However, the saga robbed Kate and the palace of the moral high ground, in the sense that when confronted with conspiracy theories suggesting all was not as it seemed, they responded with a faked picture in which all was genuinely not as it seemed.

Now, they are at least partially responsible for the weird and wonderful theories that social media users have come up with to explain the image.

And it is still quite probably more than a month before the public can expect to see Kate return to royal duties, if she keeps to the original palace timeline.

The social media frenzy shows no sign of calming currently, meaning it may be a long, slow wait for the princess.

Jack Royston is Newsweek's chief royal correspondent based in London. You can find him on X, formerly Twitter, at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.

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