How Kate Middleton and royal insiders really felt about 'astonishing' Mother's Day photo editing row

A royal author has revealed how the Princess of Wales and members of her team felt about the earlier this year.

Following weeks of wild social media speculation about Catherine's whereabouts, Kensington Palace released a photo, taken by , of his wife surrounded by their three children. Aides insisted the photo wasn't meant to shut rumours down, but it was something the princess had planned to publish all along to mark Mother's Day on March 10.

However, the photo didn't actually calm online rumours, as it actually created further speculation after it emerged that it might have been digitally altered. People spotted some inconsistent details such as part of a child's sleeve missing or the blurring of a knee - and continued speculating online about the reasons why the photo might have been edited.

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According to royal writer Robert Hardman, the author of "Charles III: New King. New Court. The Inside Story", the Waleses and their staff were "astonished" when the world's four main international photographic agencies - Associated Press, Getty, AFP and Reuters - issued a "kill notice", meaning they retracted the photograph, citing concerns that the photo had been "manipulated" before being distributed.

The author wrote in the updated version of his biography, which is coming out on November 7, that the announcement "seemed an oddly exaggerated, almost performative, response" while admitting that "the industry's concerns about the threat of artificial intelligence (AI) to the integrity of mainstream photography were well known." One of the Waleses' team told the author: "There were several factors.

"Anything written or said about the at that point was at fever pitch and front page news. It also spoke to the nervousness of the photography industry around AI and their future. Even so, the reaction seemed extremely disproportionate." According to a book extract published by the , the aide said that as far as Catherine was concerned, the photo was just meant "to bring some joy to the nation."

The aide continued: "This had just been a mother deciding to share a personal picture of her and her children on Mother's Day to bring some joy to the nation. That's all." The Kensington Palace staffer added that William and Catherine "have agency in everything" and are "the decision final makers" - but despite "frustration" about the speculation the image created, Mr Hardman wrote that "there was no time to dwell on it."

To calm the speculation, the following day Catherine admitted making several changes to the photo as she released a statement on social media saying: "Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing. 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."

A friend said she the future queen "would likely be upset by the furore caused by what was supposed to be an innocent family photograph." Royal sources said the princess made "minor adjustments" and insisted that Catherine and William simply wanted to offer an informal picture of the family together for Mother's Day. "The Wales family spent Mother's Day together and had a wonderful day," the source added.

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