The first official image of Princess Kate of Britain to be issued following her stomach surgery was taken down from AFP and other news agencies’ services on Sunday, claiming the image had been altered.
After leaving the hospital on January 29, the 42-year-old princess, whose husband Prince William is the heir apparent to the British throne, has been recuperating mostly at their home in Windsor, west of London.
In the image shared by Kensington Palace in honor of Mother’s Day in the United Kingdom, the grinning Princess of Wales is seated in a garden chair with her three laughing kids, George, Charlotte, and Louis, around her. She is wearing jeans, a sweater, and a dark jacket.
“Thank you for your kind wishes and continued support over the last two months,” read a message accompanying the photo on the social media platform X.
“Wishing everyone a Happy Mother’s Day,” said the message, which was signed “C” for Catherine.
In a statement the palace said the photo was taken “in Windsor earlier this week” by Kate’s husband, Prince William.
However, multiple news agencies including AFP later pulled the image over concerns it had been manipulated.
“It has come to light that the Handout issued by Kensington Palace today of Kate and the kids had been altered, therefore it was withdrawn from AFP systems,” the agency said in a note to clients accompanied.
The family portrait was the first formal photo of Kate that the royal family had released since she was admitted to the London Clinic on January 16 in order to undergo stomach surgery.
The future queen was last seen in public on Christmas Day while taking a stroll in Sandringham, East Sussex.
Images of Kate wearing sunglasses while being driven in a car were released by TMZ earlier in March. The celebrity news website claimed that the photos were shot close to Windsor Castle.
The Daily Mail and The Sun, two UK media publications, declined to publish the photos.
The sighting came after a flurry of conspiracy theories on social media over the famously hard-working and dutiful princess’s absence from the spotlight.
The speculation came despite Kensington Palace clearly saying at the time of her surgery that she would be “unlikely to return to public duties until after Easter”.
It also said the surgery was not related to cancer.
The news that William’s father, King Charles, had been sent to the hospital for treatment on a benign prostate disease and later found to have an unrelated malignancy, coincided almost exactly with Kate’s admission to the hospital.
On January 26, Charles, 75, went to his daughter-in-law’s bedside after being admitted.
Throughout his illness, the monarch abstained from public life, although he continued to attend church services and his weekly meetings with the prime minister.
