Misan Harriman photographed Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s 2021 pregnancy announcement.
Harriman called a tabloid report claiming he doctored the photo “insidious” and “unacceptable.”
Royal photos face increased scrutiny amid drama surrounding an edited picture of Kate Middleton.
Royal photographer Misan Harriman quashed tabloid reports that he doctored Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s 2021 pregnancy announcement photo in a series of posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday.
The reports come amid controversy surrounding a photo of Kate Middleton released by Kensington Palace on Sunday.
After initially sharing the image, photo agencies released kill notifications and refused to continue distributing the image due to concerns it had been manipulated. Subsequently, older royal photos have come under new scrutiny.
On Tuesday, the Daily Mail published an article claiming Harriman admitted in a 2022 podcast interview to adding trees to his 2021 photo, which shows Harry and Meghan sitting on the grass in the garden of their California home. Another British tabloid, The Sun, published a similar story.
On the episode of the “Private Passions” podcast produced by BBC Radio 3, Harriman discussed conducting the photo shoot remotely through an iPad, which he said was a common practice during that period of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“They weren’t actually under a willow tree, but they were lying outside in a meadow, weren’t they, Harry and Meghan, when you took the photograph of them?” podcast host Michael Berkeley asked Harriman.
“Yeah, they were lost in their love at home in their garden, comfortable, celebrating new joy, new life, the fortitude of hoping for life in life after such loss that they went through with the miscarriage,” Harriman said in the interview. “So it really was a particularly joyous image to celebrate life itself.”
In a video posted to X on Wednesday, Harriman said he had attempted to pivot away from “leading questions” about Harry and Meghan on the podcast and called claims that he had manipulated the photo “crazy.”
