Kate Middleton's Apology After Recent Photoshop Fail Takes the Heat Off of Prince William

Kate Middleton returned to social media on Sunday, March 10, but fans quickly noticed something was off with the post she shared. The Princess of Wales has been avoiding the public eye after her abdominal surgery, and she is now taking accountability for altering her family photo after people initially assumed Prince William was behind the faux pas.

"Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing," Kate shared on the official Prince and Princess of Wales' Twitter account. "I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused. I hope everyone celebrating had a very happy Mother’s Day. C."

The couple credited William for photographing Kate with their three kids, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, and some Twitter followers were understanding of the mistake.

"This has been blown out of all proportion, a complete non-story made huge by the usual suspects," someone wrote.

"Everyone edits photos. You don’t need to apologize. The photo was wonderful," another fan penned.

Aside from sharing an update on Mother's Day, publications were asked to stop using the close-up in the first place.

“Like other news agencies, PA Media issued the handout image provided by Kensington Palace of the Princess of Wales and her children in good faith yesterday," a spokesperson for the U.K.’s national news agency said in a statement.

“We became aware of concerns about the image and we carried a report about it last night, and made clear that we were seeking urgent clarification about the image from Kensington Palace. In the absence of that clarification, we are killing the image from our picture service," they added.

OK! previously reported royal expert Jack Royston urged the future queen to shut down rumors about her whereabouts before she was seen on Instagram.

"The public have a completely different perspective on the concept of medical privacy compared to the palace one," Royston said on the "Royal Report" podcast. "So, for the palace, respecting Kate's privacy means leaving her to her own devices and giving her as long as the doctors suggest she needs and that's the end of it."

"To the public, letting Kate have the time off was respecting her privacy," the commentator shared. "I think they do genuinely have some sympathy for the palace not wanting to go into too much detail about the specifics of her diagnosis. But most ordinary people just see no reason why the royals wouldn't want to release a picture of her."

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On Thursday, February 29, William visited the Western Marble Arch Synagogue, and he was honest about Kate being equally concerned about the rise of anti-Jewish hate in the U.K. Despite William's sentiments, Royston believes the Princess of Wales should've made the statement herself.

"He mentioned her during a visit to Western Marble Arch Synagogue in London," Royston said. "So, this was a job highlighting the rise in antisemitism since the October 7 attack by Hamas in Israel and the Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza that followed, so Williams said 'both Catherine and I are extremely concerned about the rise of antisemitism.'"

"Now, to the public, there's just absolutely no logical reason why William can say how Kate feels about antisemitism, but can't say how she's been finding the past six weeks since surgery," he continued.