Royal fans today made further outrageous claims about the Mother’s Day photograph issued by Kensington Palace, which has been mired in controversy since Sunday.
The picture was the first time Kate, 42, had been officially pictured since undergoing stomach surgery in January.
But in an extraordinary development on Sunday, not 24 hours after it was published, foreign image agencies including Reuters, AP, Getty and AFP retracted the image, saying it may have been digitally manipulated.
The photo, which was originally intended to quell bizarre and outlandish conspiracy theories on social media, has instead had the opposite effect as the internet exploded with more illogical stories about the Princess of Wales and the origins of the Mother’s Day photo.
One such strange conspiracy theory came from Allyn Aston on TikTok, who took the bizarre speculation to a new level. In an illogical twist, she claimed the photo had been doctored from an event in November 2023 where Kate and the children visited a baby bank, and suggested it wasn’t actually taken last week.
Allyn Aston posted a clip on TikTok, where she has 216,000 followers, claiming that the photo of Kate Middleton with her three children issued by Kensington Palace on Mother’s Day was a mash-up of photos taken in November 2023
After the killing notices were issued by the agencies, the Princess of Wales posted an explanation for the discrepancies in the photo on Kensington Palace’s social media accounts.
In a message signed ‘C’, meaning it came from Catherine, she wrote: ‘Like many amateur photographers I occasionally experiment with editing. I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion that the family photo we shared yesterday caused.
‘I hope everyone who celebrated had a very happy Mother’s Day.’
However, this explanation was not enough for some on social media, who continued to make outlandish claims about the image’s origin.
Allyn Aston posted a clip on TikTok claiming that the photograph was not only edited, but real created using a mash up of photographs released last November.
The clip, which is over three minutes long, starts with the comment: ‘We all know this picture has probably been photoshopped to hell and back’.
The TikToker, who has 216,100 followers on the platform, then goes on to claim the photograph was ‘taken back in November 2023 – or a version of this image’.
Her argument, she says, is supported by Kate’s outfit and the outfits of Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis – despite the fact that none of the outfits worn by the four people in the photo completely match what they were wearing underneath the baby bank. visit.
The clip, which has been viewed 770,600 times, then cuts to a screenshot of a news story about Kate’s visit with her three children to The Baby Bank in Maidenhead, which took place in November 2023.
It continues: ‘If you know anything about Kate Middleton, you know that people compulsively follow her fashion, so of course I was able to find a lot of blogs detailing exactly what she was wearing’.
Pointing to the cream sweater Kate wore in The Baby Bank, Aston claims: ‘It’s photoshopped, I think they changed the clothes around in the picture’.
The clip then cuts back to the Mother’s Day photograph of Kate and her three children, drawing viewers’ attention to the neckline of her sweater, which TikTokers say is an exact match to the one she wore back in November.
Even more convincing, Aston claims, is the way the sweater ‘lands on her thigh area’.
She concludes that since Kate’s sweater is only made in cream and camel, it must be the same – just photoshopped to be made darker.
But the TikTok user doesn’t stop there. On the contrary, she goes on to point out that Kate is wearing the exact same boots in yesterday’s shoot that she wore in November in Maidenhead – apparently not considering that many people wear their shoes more than once.
Aston based his theory on the clothes that the supposed similarities between the clothes the royals were wearing in the November photos and the clothes they were wearing in the Mother’s Day photo
Moving on to Princess Charlotte, she points out the ruffled neckline of her sweater in the Mother’s Day photograph. She then returns to the image from November and guides the viewer’s eye to what she believes to be the same ruffled neckline.
Her next outlandish claim is that the photograph released on Mother’s Day pulled Charlotte’s sweater from the November event and ‘just added another sweater on top’.
She also believes that Charlotte’s boots are the same, as well as her tights.
Moving on to Prince George’s outfit, Aston claims it’s the same one he wore to Baby Bank in November. The fact that his shirt in the Mother’s Day photo is lighter and the collar of the shirt underneath is darker is simply the work of Photoshop.
She overlooks Prince Louis but still reaches her big conclusion: ‘It’s strange to me that Kate is wearing a sweater that looks suspiciously exactly like that cream top, except it happens to be darker with the exact same shoes and exactly same kind of trousers and then her daughter is wearing the same frilled neck jumper with the exact same shoes and possibly the same tights…’
The TikTok user acknowledges that Princess Charlotte’s skirt is different, but she doesn’t let that get in the way of her theory.
Instead, she claims that her skirt in the Mother’s Day photo ‘sticks out and it makes no sense’, presumably implying that it was simply mapped using Photoshop.
Reiterating her claim that the photo dates back to November but has been ‘fudged’ to avoid raising eyebrows, she admits: ‘I’m sure a lot of people call me crazy and I’m used to that, then go ahead .’
The TikTok clip was reposted on Twitter, where it has been viewed well over four million times – and counting
The clip received tens of thousands of comments on TikTok. It was reposted on X, formerly Twitterwhere it has been viewed four million times – and counting.
On TikTok, the majority of viewers seemed to subscribe to @allynaston’s bizarre analysis.
One person wrote: ‘Yoooooo! This is it! This is the explanation why they refuse to release the original to AP. Because editing isn’t the problem, backdating is.’
Another tried to develop Aston’s argument by focusing on Prince Louis’ attire. They wrote: ‘OMG I looked up the pictures and the youngest child is wearing a patterned sweater with the exact collared shirt underneath!’
A third sought confirmation of the conspiracy theory by focusing on the background of the photo. They wrote: ‘Britain isn’t so bright and green in late winter either.’
However, one person was keen to put an end to all the speculation. She wrote: ‘She just left a message Kate edited like many mums do! Concentrate on your own country’.
A number of people took to the comments section and shared their views on Aston’s claims
People were equally taken aback by Aston’s claims on Twitter, where the original TikTok clip was reposted
On X, the comments were just as far out. The person who reposted the clip, which goes by @lmxstn, agreed, with one claiming: ‘Seems pretty reasonable analysis to me.’
@lmxstn then replied: ‘I really hate that I’ve become a conspiracy theorist but the more I see the more bizarre it all gets.’
Another X user continued to add fuel to the fire, writing: ‘lol same but like you HAVE to admit at this point something is so wrong and so wrong. What are they hiding, I want to knowwwwwww’.
FEMAIL has contacted Kensington Palace for comment.