While Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are busy co-opting the Kensington Palace Instagram account to share various #candid holiday snaps from their recent royal tour of Australia, Tonga, Fiji and New Zealand, Prince William is out here employing a far more relatable PR strategy.
In case you missed it, the Duke of Cambridge turned 36 on 21st June – and if you did miss it, no problem, because Wills has only just got around to posting thank you notes (see? Relatable). As one Instagram user, @loopycrown3, has revealed, the notes in question feature a charming message from the Duke, stating that he ‘was touched that you took the trouble to write as you did on the occasion of his 36th birthday. It was really thoughtful of you and His Royal Highness sends you his warmest thanks and best wishes.
As per royal tradition, the thank you cards also featured a photo of the Duke, who on this occasion has opted to share a very intense headshot from his 2017 photoshoot with GQ magazine. The image, which was captured by Norman Jean Roy, sees William staring straight at the camera, while deploying a very Prince George-esque smirk (now we know where he gets it from).
A little further digging reveals that this is in fact the second time that Prince William has used this portrait for the very same purpose: it also appeared in thank you cards sent out after his 35th birthday last year, just a few months after his GQ cover was on newsstands. And why shouldn’t he do so? We all have that one picture, where the lighting is just right, which we've used in every possible social media scenario, from Instagram (Feed, not Stories) to our Facebook profile picture to LinkedIn (if it's in a #professional context, of course) and even dating apps. And as Wills can't exactly mastermind a social media takeover and swap all the Kensington Palace avatars for this shot (much as we wish he'd done just this when he took control of the Palace Twitter account to tweet lyrics from World Cup anthem Three Lions over the summer), let's humour him this once.