Princess Kate photo edit scandal: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle break silence

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have broken their silence on the scandal surrounding Princess Catherine’s doctored Mother’s Day photo.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have reacted to Princess Catherine’s controversial photo edit.

The Princess of Wales apologised after admitting she edited a family photo she shared to mark Mother’s Day in the UK.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were accused of being “huge hypocrites” after someone close to them criticised Catherine over her fake picture.

The New York Post quoted a source who they claimed was linked to Meghan and Harry as saying: “This isn’t a mistake that Meghan would ever make … she has a keen eye and freakish attention to detail.”

The same rules do not apply to both couples,” the source said.

Harry and Meghan have hit back with a statement from their Archewell Foundation.

“With respect to Page Six, that did not come from us,” a spokesperson told Newsweek.

The picture that had a willow tree photoshopped in.

Reports also emerged a Valentine’s Day image shared to mark Meghan’s pregnancy with Lilibet was heavily edited.

The couple’s photographer friend Misan Harriman added a different backdrop including a giant willow tree in 2021.

“It’s amazing what you can do with technology,” he later said.

He spoke about the photo shoot on a BBC podcast in 2022.

“They weren’t actually under a willow tree, but they were lying outside in a meadow, weren’t they, Harry and Meghan, when you took the photograph of them?” he was asked on the podcast.

“Hmm, yeah. It really was a particularly joyous image to celebrate life itself,” he replied.

Meghan and Harry are suspected to have edited other pictures, including to give the prince more hair.

Harry’s biographer Angela Levin said: “The Sussexes’ camp are huge hypocrites. A tree was doctored in their photograph to create a special backdrop so how dare their camp say anything about Catherine’s?”

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle with Archie in their 2019 Christmas card.

Earlier, royal biographer and Harry and Meghan cheerleader Omid Scobie called out the royal family over the Catherine photoshop scandal.

“It’s becoming increasingly difficult for the public to believe a word (and now photo) they share,” the Finding Freedom author posted on social media platform X.

Catherine has apologised after admitting she adjusted the Mother’s Day image, which was intended to be an informal picture with her three children.

From left, Prince William, Princess Catherine, Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex on July 10, 2018 in London, England. Picture: Getty Images

Catherine was said to be “very sad” that the picture triggered a global furore.

Inspection of the original image revealed it was taken on a Canon camera with a 50mm lens.

It had been edited three times on Adobe Photoshop — once on Friday evening and twice on Saturday before it was released on social media and through picture agencies.

Kensington Palace refused to release the original photo, explain which parts had been altered, or say why.

Catherine was captured turning her head from photographers on Tuesday as she left Windsor Castle by car with a ­pensive William at her side.

The paparazzo who took that picture spoke out on Wednesday to quash online conspiracy theories claiming that picture too was doctored.

“We don’t change our photos in Photoshop other than adjusting the light levels if necessary,” photographer Jim Bennett told The Post.

Bennett said it was only after when he checked on the back of the camera that he had captured William that he realised Catherine was seated next to him.

Royal commentator Rob Jobson, author of Our King: Charles III – The Man and the Monarch Revealed, defended Catherine saying “we can’t really blame Kate” but added Kensington Palace should have known it “hasn’t passed muster”.

The photo, released for Mother’s Day, is thought to have multiple revisions and Photoshop errors. Picture: Prince of Wales/Kensington Palace/Handout/Getty Images

“Now it hasn’t passed that muster, if you like, and that’s because it was pretty much an amateur job on doing so,” Jobson told The Sun.

“So really, there needed to be some advisers around doing that job, making sure that in this modern world of modern communications that you cannot tamper with photographs that are being issued as official photographs.

“It damages the integrity of the organisation that is issuing a photograph.”

Front pages of some of Britain's national newspapers, dominated by stories about the altered photo released by Kensington Palace on March 10. Picture: AFP

He said Catherine had “done them a favour” by accepting responsibility for the bungle.

“She’s probably been let down, in my opinion,” he said.

Royal author Ingrid Seward also weighed in and said: “It is ridiculous and deeply unfair when she is trying to recover from major surgery. She has been posing for pictures all her royal life so just give her a break.”

Originally published as Princess Kate photo edit scandal: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle break silence