A veteran Hollywood photographer has predicted the topless photos of the Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, could have been sold for more than $250 thousand dollars.
Jeff Rayner, who co-owns the news agency Coleman Rayner which sells images to publications across the globe, told The Daily Buzz he would not have photographed the duchess as she slipped off her bikini top, relaxed on a sun lounger and at one point pulled down the back of her bikini bottoms.
The explicit images were published in the French magazine Closer, which ran a five-page spread of photos of Middleton and Prince William on a balcony at a 19th century hunting lodge in southern France it said is owned by a son of the late Princess Margaret.
“I think they had a massive expectation of privacy,” inisisted Rayner, whose work has been published in magazines and newspapers around the globe.
“They were on a holiday, there were at a private château, the laws in France are very strict. As a photographer you have to make decisions, in this particular incident, I would have left them alone.”
As Celebuzz previously reported, a spokesman for the royal couple said legal proceedings had commenced in France.
“St. James Palace confirms that legal proceedings for breach of privacy have been commenced today in France by the duke and duchess of Cambridge against the publishers of Closer magazine France,” the spokesman said.
Closer‘s editor-in-chief Laurence Pieau has defended her decision to publish what she said was a “beautiful series” that showed a couple in love.
“There’s been an over-reaction to these photos. What we see is a young couple, who just got married, who are very much in love, who are splendid,” Pieau told French BFM television.
“She’s a real 21st century princess,” she added: “It’s a young woman who is topless, the same as you can see on any beach in France or around the world.”
It is not known if the images were sold to Closer or whether the magazine had one of its own photographers cover their vacation.
“They could have been worth many hundreds of thousands of Euros,” Rayner told The Daily Buzz on Friday.
“There will be a lot of people who will not run these photos, nor have interest in them. That makes them pretty invaluable.
“With this particular magazine, we do not know if it was a freelancer, or an actual staff photographer.
“At the same time, if it was a freelancer trying to tout them around, there would be very little interest in people actually wanting to bid on these things. There will be very few people who will be interested in using these.”
