170: Princess Kate's Frankenphoto compared to North Korean propaganda
Description
Introduction: Minutes 0 to 1:00
We were off due to the Oscars!
Royals: Minutes 1:00 to 27:30
The royals' mistreatment of Harry and Meghan is finally boomeranging back on them. It’s been obvious to us what’s happening but now the world is finally noticing. Harry and Meghan were explaining their situation to the casual royal watchers with their docuseries and with Spare.
It was about 70 days after we last saw Kate before we got the first alleged photo of her. That was the photo supposedly taken of her on Monday March 4th in an Audi with her mom, outside Windsor Castle. TMZ and other US outlets bought that exclusive photo. There were questions about its authenticity. Kensington Palace said it was not an authorized photo. KP also put a lot of pressure on British media to not publish the pic and it was mostly in the US outlets like TMZ. Assuming it was real, it really seems like Carole and the Middletons arranged it.
On March 8th, Meghan was in Austin at South by Southwest for a scheduled panel discussion. She made some really measured comments about the hate she got when she was pregnant. A lot of the negative stories about Meghan when she was pregnant were from William trying to deflect from his affair with Rose Hanbury. I think that the frankenphoto release was meant to pull focus from Meghan’s comments at SXSW and Chandra says that it could have always been the plan.
We got a new photo supposedly of Kate and the kids from Kensington Palace on March 10th, Mother’s Day in the UK. They claimed that William had taken the photo. The picture looked really janky. The news outlets noticed this and issued a “kill order” for that photo. The palace was asked to provide the original photo and they refused for hours on Sunday. I play a clip of AFP News director Phil Chetwynd talking about this. CNN has also announced that it’s reviewing all the photos issued from Kensington Palace.
The Palace then posted a tweet supposedly from Kate claiming that she was the one who edited the photo. This spawned so many memes and AI photos. Experts told major news outlets that the errors were due to a photo editing app. People showed that her head was cut and pasted into that photo from her 2016 British Vogue cover. Chandra thinks the original photo of Kate and the kids is from last fall.
The palace tried to double down and continue to blame Kate. They ran a story in The Times of London Tuesday claiming that Kate just wanted to release a nice picture, she feels bad about it, and she edited it because she just wanted her kids to look good.
We got a third photo supposedly of Kate on Monday March 11, in a car with William and looking away. That photo looks fake too! I even saw a video on Twitter where someone thinks they have the exact older image of Kate that was used. The photographer vouches for it though. Assuming the photo is real, we can’t even verify it’s her. Chandra think it’s someone else.
As this eas making international news, Colbert did a segment on Tuesday night about William’s affair with Rose Hanbury. Remember that William tried to shut that story down back when it broke in March of 2019. Colbert even made a reference to William getting his mistress pregnant!
We know that the palace is livid about this because the Telegraph ran a story about it and said The Late Show didn’t warn the palace that they were going to run that segment. The British media regularly does this when they cover the royals. The Guardian did a summary of Colbert’s opener and in their initial story they included Rose’s name but then they edited it out!
Even the royal-friendly journalists and outlets were calling William and Kensington Palace out about it!
Camilla went on vacation last week, supposedly due to being under strain and fighting with William. Charles was seen on Wednesday at a photo op at Buckingham Palace. Chandra is surprised that Buckingham Palace hasn’t taken a side on this PR disaster either way. William is in no way ready or suited to be king.
Comment of the Week: Minutes 27:30 to end
Chandra’s comment of the week is from Cerys on the post where the DM questions whether they can trust anything that comes out of Kensington Palace.
My comment of the week is from Little Penguin on the Best of the Oscars post.
Thanks for listening bitches!