Fake royal photo crisis

Now Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are also being targeted

After Princess Kate triggered a global crisis of sorts with a reworked family photo - the US news channel CNN now even wants to check all the pictures she has taken for authenticity - Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan now also have to defend themselves against fake picture accusations.

Users on X are speculating that the idyllic black and white photo with which the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced the Duchess's new pregnancy in 2021 after she had lost a child has also been digitally embellished. The tree in the garden of her estate in Montecito could not be real, it is speculated. 

All real! Only black and white!
But the photographer of the picture, Misan Harriman, is fighting back. The close friend of former actress Meghan Markle made it clear that he had not added, moved or otherwise changed anything. The only change, of course, was that he changed the photo to black and white. As proof, he posted the original photo online on Instagram.

Here is Harriman's Instagram post with the original photo of Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan with a baby bump in 2021:

Here is the black and white version of the photo published at the time:

Yellow dress and no jacaranda tree
"The original jpeg without the black and white effect," Harriman commented on the color image, which reveals that Meghan was wearing a yellow dress at the time.

He also emphasized: "No trees or meadows have been moved or replaced. This is the picture straight from the camera. Also, this is a jacaranda tree, not a willow tree." To back up his statement, he added another picture to his post showing details of the camera setting and how it was taken.

Kate apologizes for confusion
Trigger for all the excitement: Kensington Palace released a picture of the Princess of Wales and her three children on Sunday, taken by Prince William, after weeks of speculation about Kate's whereabouts. However, international news agencies quickly retracted the picture as it had apparently been manipulated.

The US agency Associated Press noticed an inconsistency in the depiction of Princess Charlotte's left hand and used this to justify the withdrawal of the picture. Other agencies such as Reuters and AFP followed suit. Kate apologized the next day for the "confusion" and explained that, like any amateur photographer, she had "experimented" with an image editing program. However, the palace has ruled out publishing the original picture(s).

With this photo, Princess Kate sparked a worldwide discussion about whether photos that are passed on to news agencies should be edited.(Bild: instagram.com/princeandprincessofwales)

Documented reality altered
It is assumed that the princess, who is recovering from an abdominal operation in January and is therefore not making any public appearances, tried to put together a series of pictures in which all the children are laughing as happily as possible at the camera. That doesn't sound like cheating.

The problem is that if the photo had been for the grandparents and private, no one would have cared. However, the fact that it was distributed via picture agencies, which are under particular pressure to guarantee the authenticity of the material in times of AI-generated photos, made it a massive scandal.

The US broadcaster CNN has now even announced that it will check all other images released by Kensington Palace for possible digital manipulation. CNN emphasized that it is unacceptable to manipulate images, as this would change the documented reality.