Paris: The editor of French magazine Closer on Friday defended publishing topless photos of Prince William’s wife Catherine and said she was offering them for sale to publications across the world.
“These photos are not in the least shocking. They show a young woman sunbathing topless, like the millions of women you see on beaches,” Laurence Pieau said.
She said that La Provence, a local newspaper in the southern French region where the pictures were taken, had previously published a picture of the couple sunbathing on the same terrace of the chateau where the topless pictures were taken.
“It’s still on the internet. That shocked no one,” she said.
Closer has a world exclusive on the topless photos but plans to offer them for sale to other magazines across the globe, said Pieau. She declined to say how much the magazine had paid for the images.
She said the terrace of the Viscount Linley villa in southern France where Catherine was pictured sunbathing with her husband was clearly visible from a nearby road.
The photos were taken “by a professional photographer with whom we have previously worked,” she said.
The magazine was informed of the arrival of the royal couple in nearby Marseille on a scheduled British Airways flight, she said.
Prince William and Catherine reacted with fury after the French magazine published the pictures, saying it raised the spectre of press harassment of William’s late mother Diana, who died in a car that crashed in Paris while being pursued by paparazzi.
The young British royals, who are currently in Malaysia, were consulting lawyers over what they called a “grotesque” breach of privacy, palace officials said.
