Prince Louis birthday photo conspiracy debunked

Prince Louis’ birthday photo was at the center of a new conspiracy theory as social media users argued it was used in a 2022 Good Morning America video—though there may be a more simple explanation.

Kensington Palace released a photo of the young royal as he turned six on Tuesday, saying it had been taken a few days earlier.

The new image was highly anticipated as the first family portrait to be released since Princess Kate was forced to apologize for editing a Mother’s Day picture that triggered “kill notices” from picture agencies.

An account on X, formerly Twitter, suggested the newly released image of Prince Louis was actually from 2022, in a post viewed more than 112,000 times.

The update read: “Prince William has just been CAUGHT IN ANOTHER LIE. Prince William where are Catherine (Kate), Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis? The recent released photo of Prince Louis was really from 2022; not from April 2024. See link to old article from GMA.”

It then shared an old article by Good Morning America featuring a video with the headline: “Our favorite Prince Louis moments for his birthday.”

Prince William has just been CAUGHT IN ANOTHER LIE. Prince William where are Catherine (Kate), Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis? The recent released photo of Prince Louis was really from 2022; not from April 2024. See link to old article from GMA👇https://t.co/xNTTWcfoHn pic.twitter.com/MvXQrxqpjB

— Meghan and Harry Fans (@MeghanHarryFans) April 24, 2024

The account then compared the 6th birthday picture to a Mother’s Day photograph released by Kate and Prince William in March 2024 and argued both were in fact from 2022.

The post read: “The same 2 bottom teeth missing on Prince Louis in the April 23, 2022 photo means the Mother’s Day photo released in March 2024 was also taken in 2022.”

However, the new Louis birthday photograph was in fact not published by Good Morning America in 2022 at all, as an internet archive proves.

It easy to understand why the two year old GMA story sparked confusion, but in reality it appears to simply be a technical anomaly arising out of how digital news functions.

In April 2022, GMA published a video of Louis’ best moments to mark his fourth birthday, which had an entirely different photo as the cover image.

What appears to have happened is that GMA re-used that old video from two years ago in their 2024 birthday article and simply changed the cover image to the latest Louis photo.

The exact same video appears on a separate article from Tuesday with the headline: “Prince William, Kate Middleton share new photo of Prince Louis for his 6th birthday.”

The tell-tale sign is that the new Louis photograph only appears on the cover image and is not included in the actual footage itself.

To confirm, Newsweek used internet archive Wayback Machine to load old versions of the April 2022 article cited in the post on X.

As recently as January, the April 2022 video had a different cover image taken from Prince Louis’ appearance on the balcony of Buckingham Palace at the Platinum Jubilee in June that year.

The second element of the conspiracy theory therefore also collapses since there is now no basis for arguing the Louis photo was from 2022 and it therefore cannot demonstrate that the Mother’s Day picture was also old.

However, perhaps ironically, the argument made about Louis’ missing teeth if anything serves to further underline that both photos are reasonably recent as the prince’s bottom teeth were in fact not missing in April 2022.

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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