The Kate Middleton saga continues. After weeks of speculation regarding her whereabouts, complete with grainy paparazzi photos and dodgy photoshop jobs, it was announced that the Duchess of Cambridge unfortunately has cancer, and is taking time for herself at home. Totally understandable!


What isn’t understandable is why there needed to be so much drama leading up to the announcement. Why the paparazzi snaps and candid photos taken by members of the public? Why release an image that was so poorly photoshopped that news outlets around the world issued “kill notices” because they couldn’t confirm the image’s authenticity?


Now, even the video of Kate announcing her cancer has come under scrutiny, after Getty Images attached an editor’s note to the video that was released late last month. The disclaimer added to the video reads, “EDITOR’S NOTE: This Handout clip was provided by a third-party organization and may not adhere to Getty Images’ editorial policy.”



While a Getty spokesperson declined to comment on the note when contacted by Vanity Fair, telling the publication that it was standard practice to append such notes to content provided by third parties, Vanity Fair found that that isn’t always the case; the magazine cites several examples of other third-party content featuring the Royal Family published by Getty that isn’t accompanied by editor’s notes, including family holiday portraits and a portrait from Buckingham Palace following King Charles’ coronation.


Writing for 404 Media, however, Samantha Cole pointed out that the note does appear on many handouts provided by third parties, including a photo of the ship that hit the Key Bridge in Baltimore and a photo of cosmonauts boarding the Soyuz spacecraft in Kazakhstan provided to Getty by NASA.



While skepticism is healthy and normal, particularly when it comes to those with power and influence or people with a history of lying to the public, the conspiracy theories surrounding Kate Middleton are becoming increasingly disconnected from reality.



It’s worth bearing Occam’s razor in mind and considering that the simplest explanation is probably the most likely one: That the editor’s notes are added to images and videos in the Getty database by a human, and sometimes humans make errors and forget to add editor’s notes when uploading files. Plus, they’re probably trying particularly hard to cover their asses with anything Royal Family related after the past few weeks. Or the Royal Family is using A.I.-generated videos to cover up the fact that Kate is missing, for some reason.


Believe what you want, honestly.