Kate Middleton Topless Photos Published in Irish Tabloid, Italian Magazine Plans to Run Images Next Week
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PHIL NOBLE/AFP/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — One day after Britain’s royal family took swift legal action against a French magazine that published topless photographs of Kate Middleton sunbathing, two other publications have decided to run the images.
The Irish Daily Star, a tabloid newspaper published in Ireland, printed the images of the Duchess of Cambridge on Saturday, while Italian gossip magazine Chi announced the photographs would appear in a special issue, which will hit newsstands next week.
“There can be no motivation for this action other than greed,” a St. James Palace spokesperson told the BBC, in regards to the Irish publication.
The scandal blew up on Friday when the French magazine, Closer, published a five-page spread of photos of what appears to be the Duchess of Cambridge, 30, on vacation, sunbathing, under the headline “Oh My God!”
Prince William and Kate Middleton have begun “legal proceedings for breach of privacy” against the magazine’s publishers, St. James Palace said in a statement Friday, after calling the publication of the photos “a grotesque and totally unjustifiable” invasion of the young couple’s privacy.
The magazine defended the decision to publish the photos, saying in a statement on its website that the photos would only appear in the French, not the British edition, and were not degrading.
The pictures were reportedly taken while Middleton and Prince William, who celebrated their one-year wedding anniversary in April, enjoyed a mini four-day vacation together last week at a secluded chateau in the south of France before beginning a tour of the Far East and South Pacific to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee.
The royal couple was reportedly told about the photos as they ate breakfast Friday before visiting a mosque in Malaysia. A palace source tells ABC News that at first the couple simply felt saddened, but as the day wore on the sadness turned to shock and anger and ultimately resulted in a decision to take legal action against the magazine.
“Their Royal Highnesses have been hugely saddened to learn that a French publication and a photographer have invaded their privacy in such a grotesque and totally unjustifiable manner. The incident is reminiscent of the worst excesses of the press and paparazzi during the life of Diana, Princess of Wales, and all the more upsetting to The Duke and Duchess for being so,” the St. James Palace said an earlier statement Friday.
The revelation came just one day after Middleton marked an important first as a royal, delivering her first official speech overseas. The well-received speech was delivered to staff and patients at the Hospital Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur and focused on the importance of specialized medical care for seriously ill children. Middleton is a Royal Patron of East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices in England.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio