Oh my God! Sex and Sun en Provence.”
The French magazine Closer’s publication Friday of topless pictures of Prince William’s wife Catherine was accompanied by copy that combined affectionate mockery with a cheesy, pun-heavy celebration of the royal couple’s amorous holiday antics.
“Kate and William as you’ve never seen them before … on a getaway in the Luberon the young couple let themselves go,” the introduction to a five-page photo spread promised.
“No more forced smiles or sensible skirts. On holiday, Kate forgets everything, especially her top!”
In a jokey reference to the recent publication of pictures of Prince William’s younger brother Harry cavorting naked in a Las Vegas hotel room, another sub-head declares: “It’s Harry who started the fashion. Now chez the Windsors everyone is stripping off.”
The magazine’s sub-editors appear to have had a hard time containing their admiration for Kate’s gym-toned body, which they deemed to be top model material.
“Curves to die for from the back,” read the caption to one photograph of Kate fastening her bikini top above hi-cut briefs. “The angels of (lingerie company) Victoria’s Secret can get dressed again.”
A snap of the topless Duchess of Cambridge rubbing suncream into her husband’s back, is accompanied by the observation that: “William burns in the sun. If Kate continues to touch him like that he is going to catch fire!”
And an image of Kate lapping up rays triggers the observation that she “married an English prince but she also loves the Sun King,” a punning reference to the French monarch Louis XIV who was known as the Sun King.
In the article alongside a total of 16 different photographs of the couple, writer Samuel Cannes suggests that Kate’s unwise decision to sunbathe topless could have been the result of the strain she must feel in maintaining the demure image required of the wife of a man second in line to become Britain’s monarch.
“Kate is always described as sublime, perfect, polite, radiant, sober, elegant, simple, likable, smiley, admirable,” he writes.
“The praise is warranted but maintaining it requires constant vigilance.
“So, on the terrace of Chateau d’Autet, on a three-day getaway, Kate decided to let the pressure off, to break with convention and free herself from protocol and with it her bikini.
“In the feminist era, activists used to burn their bras, on holiday Kate does away with hers. And that is her right!”
Warming to his theme, the writer goes on to suggest that Kate is a secret smoker, claiming she was spotted having a puff as she came out of the arrival hall at Marseille airport, where the couple arrived for their break on September 5.
“Image maintenance and rank were not an issue any more. That (the cigarette) was emblematic: this was going to be a break with casual as its theme.”
Critics of the magazine’s decision to publish photos that were turned down by Britain’s tabloids have suggested they represent a tawdry and unwarranted breach of the royal couple’s privacy.
Arguably the most intimate of the photographs published shows the Duchess, shot from behind, bending over to allow her husband to apply suncream to her back while she holds her bikini bottoms half way down her buttocks.
According to writer Cannes, however, such images represent a tasteful celebration of a young couple obviously in love.
“There is no question here of alcohol, of strip poker or ambiguous positions,” he writes in a reference to Harry’s Vegas shenanigans.
“It is simply a wife at ease with her body who has absolutely nothing to hide from her husband.
“Moments of grace, moments of complicity. It’s love in its purest form. Images of happiness without any clouds. Time seems stopped, suspended, voluptuous, like a new Garden of Eden.”
Oh my God! French mag's Kate exclusive
