{"id":697690,"date":"2026-05-27T10:41:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T10:41:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/697690\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T10:41:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T10:41:21","slug":"how-i-remember-them-king-charles-former-butler-responds-to-ai-controversy-surrounding-prince-william-and-kate-middleton-picture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/697690\/","title":{"rendered":"‘How I remember them’: King Charles’ former butler responds to AI controversy surrounding Prince William and Kate Middleton picture"},"content":{"rendered":"

A former royal butler has responded to the backlash he received after he shared what he thought was a photograph taken in 2004 of Prince William and Kate Middleton.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Grant Harrold, who worked as King Charles’ butler between 2004 and 2011, posted a picture of the Prince and Princess of Wales on Instagram this week, which showed the couple with their arms around each other in their younger years.<\/p>\n

The couple were dressed casually in white t-shirts and blue jeans as they sat on the floor of a living room, with Kate perched on William’s lap and the pair both smiling at the camera.<\/p>\n

“This wonderful photo of the Prince and Princess of Wales was taken when I first met them back in 2004. A true royal love story,” Harrold captioned the picture, which has now amassed over 20,000 likes.<\/p>\n

However, royal fans were quick to criticise the seemingly candid snap, with many questioning whether it was created using artificial intelligence (AI).\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Oh c’mon, this is Ai,” one person wrote, while another chimed: “Obvious Fake”.<\/p>\n

“Stop sharing ai pictures of the royal family,” a third wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Royal<\/p>\n

One person simply penned: “This is AI.”<\/p>\n

Now, the ex-butler has responded to the social media backlash in the comments section of the post, telling fans he did not take the picture himself.<\/p>\n

“After reading a few comments I would like to reiterate that I did not take or own this image,” he penned.<\/p>\n

“It is how I remember them in my early years in the Royal Household.”<\/p>\n

Harrold later on took to his Instagram Stories to seemingly confirm the use of AI, sharing a statement regarding the chatter surrounding the photograph,<\/p>\n

“I love sharing my experiences and memories of working with the royal family and I strive for my content to be a reflection of the great years I spent as part of the household.<\/p>\n

After reiterating that he did not take the picture, he added: “I always try to do my due diligence before sharing any posts – to me, I only saw in this image a young William and Kate that reminded me so much of how they were when I first had the pleasure of working for them.<\/p>\n

He further explained that he “genuinely mistook” the picture to be an authentic image of the couple, adding: “While I may be adept at telling my dinner knife from my butter knife, AI, as I’m sure you can all agree, can be harder to detect.”<\/p>\n

\"Prince<\/p>\n

“Moving forward, I will be more cautious of the content I choose to share with my followers and will endeavour to ensure my platform remains an authentic and positive space that celebrates the royal family.”<\/p>\n

Neither William nor Kate has publicly commented on the picture.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former royal butler has responded to the backlash he received after he shared what he thought was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":697691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[256,254,64,63,32954,257058,447,340108,134,61130,57382,7551,340109],"class_list":["post-697690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-british-royals","tag-catherine-middleton","tag-celebrities","tag-edit","tag-entertainment","tag-photograph","tag-prince-and-princess-of-wales","tag-prince-william","tag-princess-kate-middleton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=697690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}