Celebrity photographer Paul Clarke has claimed it's "too late" for Kensington Palace to release the original unedited photo of the Princess of Wales and her children.
It comes as The Princess of Wales admitted editing a photo of her and her children to mark Mother's Day and issued a personal apology on Monday for any confusion after it was accused of being digitally altered. On Sunday evening, several of the world's biggest international photo agencies said the photograph issued of Kate and her three children had been "manipulated".
The Associated Press (AP) Reuters, Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Getty Images all separately issued a "kill notice" to media organisations around the globe, confirming they had each deleted the image from their individual libraries - and the Press Association followed suit until they had further information from Kensington Palace.
On Monday, in a rare person post on Twitter now X, which was signed C denoting it was from Kate, the princess admitted: "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 photograph, released on Sunday, shows Kate embraced by Prince George, 10, Princess Charlotte, nine and Prince Louis, five. The image, the palace said, was taken by Prince William and was posted on social media. It was the first official photo of Kate since she had abdominal surgery earlier this year.
Talking about the princess apologising for editing the image on Tuesday's Good Morning Britain, hosts Susanna Reid and Ed Balls spoke to celebrity photographer, Paul, who claimed it is "too late" for Kensington Palace to release the original unedited photo.
Host, Susanna, 53, asked: "Do you think that the palace should release the original photograph or set of photographs if it was a composite of a number of different that were laid over each other, which is one theory, and they should say: 'This is the date it was taken on' and just lay out all the facts. Or do you think, as a professional photographer, do you think it's going to look so different that actually it's going to make the problem worse?"
To which Paul claimed: "It's too late now, if that was going to be released, the time was with the announcement that she had done some editing. Just put it there and yes, maybe there's a tongue sticking out or a hand in a funny place.
"But that's fine, we all would have accepted that but I think it's too late now. It puts the palace and princess really on the backfoot. We're now demanding to see proof." The photographer added: "We're in a situation now where we're starting to demand proof from somebody who frankly should be left in peace to recover!"
*Follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Threads.