By Kate O'Brien, Jessica Elliott, and Harris Little

In January 2024, Kensington Palace announced that the Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton, had been admitted into hospital for a planned abdominal surgery. Kate wasn’t seen in public for three months, causing many conspiracy theories about her whereabouts.

Kate faced many hardships during her time in the hospital. Kate's children - Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis - weren’t allowed to visit her in hospital due to London Clinic’s policy. This caused many to theorise that she and Prince William had gotten divorced, with some even questioning the reason she had been hospitalised.

The most outrageous conspiracy theories came from social media. On Twitter, users were spreading rumours that the Princess of Wales had passed away. Since she hadn’t been spotted in months, some thought that the edited Mother’s Day photo could have been posted to convince everyone that she was alive and well, when actually, she had passed after her surgery.

And it gets weirder, with some people guessing that she had been abducted by aliens. Surprisingly, this gained some traction and backers of the ‘Alien Kate’ conspiracy grew in numbers.

You couldn’t avoid the Photoshop controversy if you tried, as news outlets all around the country had picked up on the story quickly. The story went viral across the world.

Lisa Matthews from Paisley thinks that too much fuss is being made out of Kate's situation. She said: “I didn’t think it was a big deal, to be honest. I think she was just having a bit of fun with it and after all, why should we care? It got too much attention in the news.”

Some Scots are more angry about the dodgy edit though, with Richie Doyle from Rutherglen saying: “I feel lied to. I used to respect the monarchy but I feel let down these last few years. Too many people still stand behind them but this has to be the final straw for a lot of them.”

There are also people who don’t take an interest either way. “I’m not a fan of the King or any of that but I’m not offended by a photo being edited. It’s not a big deal, to be honest,” Sophie Duff from Motherwell said. “She’s just a normal person so people shouldn’t be analysing everything she does. I did enjoy the conspiracies though.”,

In response to the conspiracies, the Palace released a statement: “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.”

What happened to the Princess of Wales?