Kate Middleton Admits to Editing Mother's Day Photo, Apologizes for Confusion

Kate Middleton is falling on the sword over a photo Kensington Palace released that supposedly shows her with her kids post-surgery ... and even now, folks ain't buying it.

A message on behalf of the Princess of Wales was posted to X Monday morning, which explicitly places the blame over the photoshopped pic at her feet. It reads, "Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing. I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused."

She adds, "I hope everyone celebrating had a very happy Mother’s Day. C" That final "C," BTW is meant to stand for Catherine ... so this is her taking responsibility, officially.

What's weird, of course, is that in the original upload ... Kensington Palace credited her husband, Prince William, with taking the photo -- and yet, Kate herself says this is on her.

Of course ... with all the twists and turns in this "Where Is Kate?" saga -- which has been dragging on for weeks now -- hardly anybody is believing this is actually Kate Middleton owning up to it. Most everyone assumes it's just Kensington Palace publishing some statement on her behalf. Can't blame them, considering this was truly misleading.

As we reported ... the Mother's Day photo in question was yanked by news agencies all over the world -- with these reputable outlets saying the image appeared to be manipulated.

A closer look at the photo shows some strange features, including what appear to be photoshopped elements near Princess Charlotte's left hand, and even Prince Louie's fingers appear to have a warped appearance. As it turns out -- the picture was in fact doctored.

This all follows weeks of nonstop speculation about Kate's whereabouts/condition -- as she's been out of the public eye for several weeks now following a mysterious abdominal surgery. Even when she surfaced for the first time a couple weeks ago, people still didn't think it was really her.

Most of the innuendo is joke-y in nature, and yet ... every time the Palace has tried to put out the fire ... it's backfired in their faces, and this latest move is a complete blunder.

The only thing that'll calm everyone's nerves now is a straight-up video where we see her.