Even the King of the Netherlands Has an Opinion About Kate Middleton’s Photo Editing

The world can’t stop talking about the controversy over Kate Middleton’s Mother’s Day photo editing debacle—including other countries’ royals.

King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands has, as the kids say, entered the chat. On Tuesday, the Dutch royal was caught on video (later shared to X, formerly Twitter) appearing to poke fun at the situation.

As the 56-year-old king greeted a crowd of children wearing paper crowns, one youngster could be heard making a comment about “a photo with your whole family” to which Willem-Alexander laughingly replied, according to Dutch royal correspondent Rick Evers’s translation to English, “Really? That was not Photoshopped, apparently!”

We can only imagine the awkward silence in the hypothetical international royals group chat (absolutely littered with green text bubbles) right about now. Go off, Kings?

Speculation and concern surrounding Kate the Princess of Wales, continues to swirl, as she has not been seen in public since Christmas Day. Kensington Palace issued a statement in January that she had undergone a “planned abdominal surgery” and would be recovering privately until the Easter holiday. Last week, Kensington Palace released a photograph of Middleton and her three children to mark the UK’s Mother’s Day, with a caption indicating that Prince William himself had taken the photo this year. Several wire services issued a kill notice for it soon after, citing evidence that it had been manipulated, and Middleton then issued an apology on social media, signed “C.” 

“Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing. I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused. I hope everyone celebrating had a very happy Mother’s Day. C,” the message posted Monday read.

Though Middleton’s projected Easter return is still weeks away, the speculation has mounted. Even British news personality Piers Morgan has chimed in, stirring the pot by positing in an interview with OK! Magazine Thursday that “it could be that they’re [the palace] hiding something.”

“Why is Princess Catherine, who is recovering from abdominal surgery, spending time hunched over Photoshop, making amateur edits of official portraits when they literally have servants to do that?” he asked. “Most baffling of all, why not edit in the missing wedding ring?

“I’ve been told some stuff that, if even half of it is true, it’s pretty alarming what is happening. I don’t know what to believe, nor do any of us—we’re not there.”