Prince William Ripped Over Kate Middleton in Brutal Cartoon

Prince William was depicted holding a wooden puppet of Kate Middleton up to a palace window in a cartoon in The Washington Post that went viral on social media.

The Princess of Wales had abdominal surgery on January 16 and has been off work ever since, meaning she has not been at an official event since the royal family's Christmas Day walk to church at Sandringham.

Her absence led to a trend on X, formerly Twitter, in which people suggested she was missing and conspiracy theorists went into overdrive after it emerged a family portrait released to mark Mother's Day had been doctored.

The Washington Post made light of the mystery with a cartoon depicting William having seemingly made a wooden cut-out puppet of Kate and parading her at the palace window in an apparent attempt to convince the public or media that they had seen the real princess.

The illustration went viral on X where it was viewed 556K times and liked 12K times after it was posted with the message: "Omgg! WaPo."

It marks another milestone in the mainstream media in America taking an increasingly mocking stance about William and Kate after host Stephen Colbert discussed marital rumors on The Late Show.

Kate acknowledged she edited the image and apologized in an X post on Monday. However, questions immediately turned to whether the palace would release the original photograph which they have so far refused to do.

There has been no new replacement picture either, leaving people on social media and mainstream media commentators increasingly bemused.

News photographers captured a picture of Kate on the back seat of a car alongside Prince William on Monday but she was in shadow and had her face turned away from the camera.

There was also a paparazzi picture published by TMZ on March 4 shot through the windscreen of a car but Kate's face was grainy and some have even questioned whether it was her.

Meanwhile, pressure has been building on Kensington Palace and Prince William, including in traditionally pro-royal forums such as the Daily Mail.

Columnist Liz Jones wrote on Wednesday: "If the Wales's public relations team had completed their media studies and IT course at community college they'd have known that the way to lay this to rest was for William to have addressed the furore on Monday evening when he gave a speech for the Earthshot Prize Launchpad.

"He could have included a few jokey references to the doctored family snap and we'd have gone: 'Phew, everything's fine!'

"William's seriousness at the moment, the shoulders-slumped exasperation, the refusal to acknowledge us minions, to make light about his wife's editing skills or reassure us fondly and warmly about her health, are fuelling the wilder social media speculation.

"This could all have been averted, our worries laid to rest, by a PR team that knew what it was doing—and Kate wouldn't have been dragged into it at all but left to continue her convalescence. Just come clean with the people who bankroll you. It's the least we deserve. This isn't going away."

Jack Royston is Newsweek's chief royal correspondent based in London. You can find him on X, formerly Twitter, at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.

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