Over the weekend, Prince William marked U.K. Mother’s Day by sharing a childhood photo of himself with Princess Diana. The image, taken at Highgrove in 1984, shows two-year-old William holding Diana’s hand in a field of flowers. On Instagram, William wrote: “Remembering my mother, today and every day. Thinking of all those who are remembering someone they love today. Happy Mother’s Day.”

That’s lovely. Diana remains deeply beloved, and people still feel protective of her legacy nearly three decades after her death.

But here’s the thing: Mother’s Day is also about living mothers. And William’s wife, the mother of his three children, didn’t get a mention.

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No Birthday Tribute, No Mother’s Day Post

It did not go unnoticed that something was awkward about William’s Mother’s Day tribute. This isn’t the first time Kate Middleton has been conspicuously absent from her husband’s public acknowledgments.

Earlier this year, William also skipped a birthday tribute to Kate. Now Mother’s Day has come and gone without a public message to the woman raising his children.

Meanwhile, the post he did share focused entirely on his own grief. To the uninitiated, that pattern is starting to look like a strategy. William’s social media team is perfectly capable of posting tributes when they want to. When something isn’t posted, it’s usually because someone decided not to. And the optics are… not great.

The Diana Narrative Returns

William’s caption centered on remembering Diana, something he does regularly on major anniversaries. But the post also revived an awkward moment from the recent past. In July 2021, while responding to the findings of the Dyson report into the BBC’s Panorama interview with Diana, Prince William said his mother had become “paranoid” about the press during the final years of her life. The remark drew criticism at the time because many observers felt it echoed the same narrative that had long been used to undermine Diana’s warnings about media harassment.

In that statement, Prince William said, “It brings indescribable sadness to know that the BBC’s failures contributed significantly to her fear, paranoia and isolation that I remember from those final years with her.”

Prince Harry later pushed back strongly on that characterization, saying his mother had been absolutely right about the threats and media harassment surrounding her. He once said, “The tabloid press very much enjoy painting her as paranoid but she wasn’t paranoid. She was absolutely right about what was happening to her.”

That quote tends to resurface whenever Diana becomes part of a royal PR moment. Because for many observers, the contrast is hard to ignore. The same mother William once suggested was overly suspicious is now regularly invoked during public messaging campaigns.

The Ghost of the Photoshop Scandal

And then there’s the lingering Mother’s Day controversy from 2024. That year, Kensington Palace released a photo of Kate sitting with Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis. Within hours, major news agencies issued what’s known as a “photo kill” after spotting obvious editing inconsistencies — misaligned sleeves, blurred areas and strange hand positioning.

The Associated Press pulled the image, citing manipulation concerns. Kate later issued a brief apology, saying she sometimes experimented with editing as an amateur photographer.

The moment turned into a global embarrassment for the palace and badly damaged trust in royal images. So when another Mother’s Day passes without a new family post, people notice.

Screenshots from Cosmopolitan and Vox analyzing the edited Mother’s Day photo of Kate Middleton with her children, highlighting manipulation concerns.
Remember the “perfect family photo”? News outlets quickly spotted the edits, and the palace’s Mother’s Day image became a global PR disaster.

The Timing Is Interesting

All of this is happening while the royal family faces renewed scrutiny over connections to Jeffrey Epstein through various charities and donors linked to royal initiatives.

Prince William’s charity network has also faced scrutiny in recent weeks following the release of additional Epstein files. The Earthshot Prize, founded by William, counts Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem of DP World as a major donor. Bin Sulayem exchanged emails with Jeffrey Epstein in 2009 while Epstein was in prison for prostitution offences, including one message referencing a “torture video.” Meanwhile, the wildlife charity WildAid, where William served as an ambassador, accepted a $50,000 donation from Epstein’s foundation in 2013, five years after his conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor. At the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity, where William and Kate Middleton became joint patrons in 2025, trustee Nicole Junkermann resigned after emails surfaced showing she had previously communicated with Epstein.

None of these stories directly involves William personally. But they add to the broader atmosphere of scrutiny surrounding royal institutions right now. Which makes the Mother’s Day post feel… carefully timed.

The Bigger Question

There’s nothing wrong with remembering Princess Diana. Millions of people still do.

But when a husband publicly celebrates his mother on Mother’s Day while skipping any acknowledgment of the mother of his own children, people are going to talk.

And right now, they are. From the outside, the pattern looks strange: no birthday post, no Mother’s Day tribute for his wife, just another carefully curated throwback image of Diana. If the goal was to generate sympathy, it may not be landing the way William’s team expected, because the public is still asking the same question: “What did you know about Epstein?”

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