The Kate Middleton Topless Photo Scandal That Proved She Could Handle the Job of Future Queen (Exclusive Excerpt)
The Cambridges were in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur — halfway through a nine-day Jubilee Tour of Southeast Asia and the Pacific — when topless photos of Kate appeared on the covers of the French magazine Closer and Italy’s Chi. “Oh My God” were the only English words scrawled on the cover of Closer, alongside color snapshots of Kate taking off the top of her swimsuit and the couple slathering their naked torsos with sunscreen. “The future Queen of England, such as you have never seen her … and such as you will never see her again.” Chi’s red-letter cover headline was less wordy, and a little premature: “La Regina E Nuda!” (“The queen is nude!”)
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Kate was visibly shaken when she was shown the images, taken a few weeks earlier while the couple was sunbathing during a vacation at a secluded French chateau owned by the Queen’s nephew (and William’s first cousin, once removed) Viscount Linley. Visitors had to make their way down a narrow private drive that wound through 650 acres of woods and fields to find the viscount’s villa, but that didn’t stop an enterprising female photographer from taking the photos from a public road 1,500 feet away using a telephoto lens.
As humiliated and violated as she justifiably felt, Kate managed to quickly compose herself. After all, at different stops throughout the Southeast Asian tour they chatted unselfconsciously with bare-breasted islanders “and,” Kate told a royal handler, “it’s all perfectly natural. They seem very happy and free.” In any event, she added, “We are not going to let it [the publication of topless photos] ruin this trip!”
It certainly helped that the photos were flattering, for the most part. Within a short time, Kate was back to being “the picture of cool, calm and utterly unruffled elegance,” recalled journalist Rebecca English, who was in Malaysia with the royal couple when they were shown the images. “We were all marveling how she was able to smile, shake hands and make small talk, without the slightest quiver or indication that anything was amiss.”
The heir, however, saw red. “I’d never seen William as furious as when those cruel pictures of Kate were leaked,” English said. “He was so angry, jaw clenched, he could barely contain his fury.” The incident dredged up memories of his mother sobbing in her room after being chased by the paparazzi. It also reminded the prince that, despite his promise to Kate’s parents that he would protect her, he had failed miserably — a gnawing sense of guilt that, despite the Middletons’ protestations to the contrary, William wore like a hair shirt.
Like his father, William had enlisted the help of royal lawyers from time to time to threaten publications with legal action — a negotiating tactic that often succeeded in getting the press to pull back, if only slightly and for a short time. This time, however, he wanted blood: an injunction and damages exceeding $2 million. The decision to move against the French publication stemmed from that country’s strict criminal privacy laws, which can carry a prison sentence of up to one year.
“Diana would be absolutely devastated and utterly distraught by what William and Kate are having to deal with,” said handbag designer Lana Marks, one of the late princess’s close friends. “But she would be proud of how William is handling things. . . . She would want him to take a stand against this.” William, Marks continued, “knows more than anyone what his mother had to endure. He would not want his wife to be hounded in the same way.”
Not everyone was so sympathetic. “Who wouldn’t take Kate’s picture and make lots of money,” tweeted Donald Trump, “if she does the nude sunbathing thing? Come on, Kate!” The Duchess shrugged it off, but William was reportedly apoplectic. The heir was already aware that, just months after Diana’s death, Trump had told radio host Howard Stern that he could have “nailed” William’s mother. “I think I could have,” said Trump, who also joked with Stern about having Diana get “a little checkup” for HIV before having sex.
It would take five years for the case to finally reach a verdict, and then only after William wrote a letter to the court saying that the naked photos were “particularly shocking because it reminded us of the harassment that led to the death of my mother, Diana, Princess of Wales.” While everyone managed to avoid jail time, the French court ordered the defendants to pay $250,000 in damages and fines.
Even as William fumed behind the scenes, Kate was determined not to appear the suffering victim. They marveled at orangutans in the dense, steaming jungles of Borneo and gamely agreed to strap on harnesses and be yanked on a pulley system more than 13 stories high to the top of a lush, domed Parashorea tomentella tree. At her suggestion, the couple even took time off in the middle of the tour to take what they billed as a “second honeymoon” at the Tavanipupu Island Resort in the Solomon Islands.
A high point of the tour was Kate’s first official speech abroad, at a children’s hospice in Malaysia. In one particularly heart-melting moment, Kate gave a birthday card to a terminally ill 15-year-old named Zakwan Anuar, who had postponed a blood transfusion so he could meet the princess. Anuar had been asleep in his wheelchair but sprang to life when Kate walked into the room and held his hand. “You are very, very brave,” she told the young leukemia patient, “and very handsome.” Anuar’s mother was in tears. “Zakwan had almost given up hope, but today, my God, it was as if the leukemia had gone,” she said. “God bless Princess Catherine. I cannot repay that kindness.”
Earlier, when the royal couple had met the Solomon Islands’ governor general, Sir Frank Kabui, at a reception in London, William admitted that he and Kate were “extremely excited. Both of us have never been anywhere near there.” Her husband, Kate added, “has been practicing his dance moves.” Now as they arrived in the island nation of Tuvalu, draped in garlands of gardenias and frangipani and carried above the crowd in sedan chairs, the Cambridges had the opportunity to try out those moves. Kate and William both donned colorful straw skirts and, towering over their diminutive hosts, waved their hands and shimmied their hips as part of the fatele, Tuvalu’s traditional welcome dance. Oddly, the ritual requires guests to spray the dancers with cologne to show their appreciation; the Cambridges happily spritzed their hosts with Paul Smith Eau de Toilette, William’s preferred scent.
As perfectly choreographed and executed as the South Pacific tour undoubtedly was, even the most minuscule mistake generated raging headlines. There was an international uproar, for example, when the royal couple showed up wearing clothing not by local Solomon Island designers but by a designer from the Cook Islands seventeen hundred miles away. Of course, Kate took the heat — despite the fact that William was also wearing the wrong getup. “A Right Royal Wardrobe Gaffe! Kate’s Solomon Islands Error!” trumpeted the Daily Mail ’s front page. “Oops!” the Hollywood Reporter chimed in, “Kate Middleton Commits Fashion Faux-Pas in South Pacific!” In the end, it was discovered that an aide had inadvertently placed the Cook Islander attire on the Cambridges’ bed, and an open suitcase obscured the correct, locally manufactured Solomon Island outfits.
No matter. When they returned to the United Kingdom, Princess Catherine was again hailed as one of Britain’s greatest assets — especially when it came to fashion. “Kate is a style icon,” designer Karen Millen gushed, “and a great ambassador for British fashion and fashion everywhere.” What the press had already dubbed “the Kate Effect” was now more in force than ever. For the second year in a row, she was named one of Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World,” and a Sunday Times poll showed that 73 percent of the British population believed Kate was breathing new life into the royal family.
Once again, Kate was on her own back in the United Kingdom, this time substituting for her husband while the heir attended the funeral of his former nanny Olga Powell. In the northern city of Newcastle, Kate met hundreds of locals who had volunteered to make the London Olympics a success, including 14-year-old triple-amputee William Hardy, who carried the Olympic torch through part of the city. Later, she met with schoolchildren, planted seeds in a community garden and spent time with members of her charity Action on Addiction, which helps families where one of the parents is battling drug abuse. Northumbria University student Megan Bartle, who was among the 2,000 people in Newcastle who showed up hoping for a glimpse of Kate, summed up the Princess’s populist appeal: “She is such a brilliant role model and an inspiration. She carries herself beautifully, but at the same time she is modest and at ease with the public. It’s almost as if she’s saying, ‘I’m not better than you.’ ”
From KATE!: The Courage, Grace, and Power of the Woman Who Will Be Queen by Christopher Andersen. Copyright © 2026 by Andersen Productions, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Gallery Books, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC.
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