Buckingham Palace has reportedly broken its silence on the controversy surrounding Prince Harry’s 40th birthday photo.
On Sunday, the royal family shared a photo of Harry extending their best wishes on his 40th birthday, sparking rumours that Meghan Markle was deliberately cropped out of the photo.
The picture, which shows Harry smiling, was posted on the official social media handles of both King Charles and the Prince and Princess of Wales.
It was taken during the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s first overseas visit to Dublin in 2018.
However, The Independent reported that Buckingham Palace has clarifies that the image used was not cropped.
The version shared was a pre-cropped photo available through picture agencies like Getty Images.
A spokesperson for the Palace has told the outlet that the image had not been edited by the royal family.
On the other hand, according to Mirror, Getty also suggested that exclusion of Meghan was not intentional, stating that it is “standard practice to crop images to get singles, as has been done here.”
It is worth mentioning that this birthday message marks the first public acknowledgement of Harry by the royal family since 2021.
