Kate Middleton's Missing Wedding Ring in Doctored Photo Has 'Completely Baffled' Her Inner Circle

In the last few months, the media has focused on Kate Middleton’s health after her abdominal surgery, but the more that time marches on without an indication on her recovery or her whereabouts, the spotlight is moving elsewhere. The Princess of Wales, who claims she was the one responsible for the Photoshop fail with the Mother’s Day image, might have been giving a clue about the state of her marriage with that shot.

The first issue is the lingering (we are talking five years plus) rumors about Prince William’s alleged affair with Rose Hanbury. Even though the fling has never been verified, the story has enough heat surrounding it that Stephen Colbert trolled the Prince of Wales on The Late Show earlier this week. A former palace staffer called the attention “deeply annoying and unhelpful for the palace” in the wake of Kate and King Charles III’s health crises. “But it’s not surprising that the affair rumors are being reheated,” the source told The Daily Beast. “What else are people supposed to think when she sends out a photo not wearing her wedding ring?”

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A second insider revealed that the couple’s friends were “completely baffled” by the absence of her wedding ring because it was “guaranteed to get people asking questions about the state of the marriage.” But perhaps that’s the message Kate was sending if she really was in charge of the altering the snapshot? It seems like a very Princess Diana move, if you ask us. But the source sounded confident that Kate and William’s marriage has been “incredibly strong despite the immense pressure they are under.”

It’s been fascinating to watch the Royal Rota, which normally chooses favorable coverage of the palace, turn on the royal family once they realized that they weren’t being fed accurate information. It’s led to usually royal-friendly sites like the Daily Mail to post that Kate’s photo is sounding “alarm bells” to the press. The image feels off-brand for the normally buttoned-up Wales family and it signals “that Kate is not co-operating and that she didn’t have a hand in photogate but took the rap for it.”

Sarah Vine, another writer for the media outlet, called out the royal family for what is “in effect, a lie.” She seems concerned that “it now looks like a lie conceived to hide other lies, a classic example of that old adage: it’s not the crime that gets you, but the cover-up.” Prince Harry was telling everyone all along that there was smoke behind the mirrors, but no one was listening. Now, Vine is firing a warning shot at the royal family: “There’s only one way to put an end to it: Come clean about what’s really going on—or risk drowning in a quagmire of their own making.”

The royal family isn’t listening.

Before you go, click here to see the 100 best photos of the royal family from the past 20 years.

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