Kate Middleton’s Bikini Controversy: PhotoShopped to Look Thinner?

Australia’s weekly tabloid Woman’s Day is cooking up controversy with its new cover, revealing supposed never-before-seen photos of Prince William and Kate Middleton on their honeymoon. The surreal cover pic raises a lot of questions: 1) Why are these photos coming out a year after their actual honeymoon? 2) How were they taken? 3) Does William shop in Scott Disick’s closet? And most importantly, 4) Are the photos even real? Most of the media attention has focused on Middleton’s tiny body in a black bikini. But was she put on the PhotoShop diet to look thinner?

Hollywood.com reached out to media experts to weigh in.

One photo editor at an American celebrity magazine believes that the image has been PhotoShopped. “She looks skinnier,” says the editor. “I feel like the hips are not in proportion to her shoulders. Her shoulders look wider than they should be.” Plus, “I’m not 100 percent convinced it’s a real shot.”

But another industry expert says it’s tough to tell. “Maybe, above the hip by the waist. [The magazine] could have brought it in a little bit, but it’s tough to say.”

The expert does believe that parts of the picture were absolutely altered. “The background is PhotoShopped. Halfway up the magazine where the water turns back into sand, and that huge fuzzy line, that’s not real. Why she’s missing her legs with the drop text doesn’t make any sense.”

Whether this specific cover has been airbrushed or not, both of our industry sources agree that it’s common procedure to morph images for covers of magazines. “It’s done a lot; you have to sell magazines,” says our expert. “It happens all the time. Pictures are put together — we joke and say that they are paintings. They’re not photographs,” adds the editor.

Back in April, the question of magazines PhotoShopping images was brought to the forefront when a middle school girl petitioned Seventeen magazine to include at least one unaltered photo spread in each issue.