‘Katespiracy’ explodes after royal photo gaffe
WASHINGTON — The picture was meant to douse speculation about the whereabouts and health of Britain’s Catherine, Princess of Wales, but instead her manipulated image unleashed a torrent of internet-breaking rumors and conspiracy theories.
The storm in the royal tea pot erupted after Kate, 42, on Monday apologized and admitted to editing a palace-issued photograph of herself with her three children after the altered image was withdrawn by news agencies.
The fiasco gave way to a fresh swirl of speculation about the British royal — dubbed online as Katespiracy — laying bare the fragility of the digital landscape in the age of rampant disinformation that has eroded trust and turned social media users into amateur sleuths.
The internet guessing game had already begun after the princess was not seen in public since attending a
Christmas Day church service and underwent abdominal surgery in January.
Amid a vacuum of information, online posts speculated whether her marriage to William, heir to the British throne, was on the rocks. Others pondered whether Kate was recovering from an eating disorder, while some wondered whether she were even alive.
Proof of life landed on Sunday, when the palace released a photograph they said was recently snapped by William, but eagle-eyed social media users began tearing it apart for inconsistencies, such as a misaligned zipper on Kate’s jacket.
The inconsistencies were so clear that several global news agencies, including Agence France-Presse and The Associated Press, pulled the picture from publication.
Then the rumor mill began spinning even faster after the princess said that, whoops, she had edited the photograph — without disclosing the reasons for doing so, or what she had edited out.
“The moral of the editing of the royal picture is simple. Tell all,” wrote Guardian newspaper columnist Simon Jenkins. “At this stage, privacy does not work. It breeds rumor, gossip and fabrication.”
That is exactly what happened. Social media exploded with memes exploring what the palace was hiding.
“If the royals really want to model important values to the nation, they should start by overhauling their approach to media in favor of transparency (and) scrupulous honesty,” Catherine Mayer, author of the book Charles: The Heart of a King, wrote on X.
“They should stand against disinformation, not contribute to it.”