Post date: Sep 17, 2012 2:39:38 PM
MILAN, ITALY (SEPTEMBER 17, 2012) (REUTERS) - The editor of an Italian gossip magazine that published topless pictures of Prince William's wife defended his decision on Monday (September 17), saying the photos were not morbid and the terrace where the couple was sunbathing was visible from the street.
The editor of "Chi" says the publication of topless photos of the Duchess of Cambridge falls within the confines of Italian law, adding he had hoped the photos would have helped boost her image as a modern-day royal.
The royal couple has already started legal action against French magazine Closer which first published a dozen shots of Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, as she slipped off her bikini top while relaxing at a French chateau.
William's office has called the photos of his wife, formerly Kate Middleton, a "grotesque and totally unjustified invasion of privacy."
Italian magazine Chi, which, like Closer, is controlled by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's publishing company Mondadori, on Monday printed a 26-page special edition dedicated to the pictures.
"The answer is simple; it was a scoop, a journalistic scoop, an important scoop. Why publish them?
Because of various reasons, because we are talking of the future rulers of the United Kingdom and this alone makes it of interest to our readers," Chi editor Alfonso Signorini told Reuters in an interview.
Signorini said the magazine had acted within the confines of Italian law, adding that anyone passing by with a good lens could have snapped the pictures.
"These series of factors; the public interest, the non-morbid nature of the photos, the respect of the dignity of the subject and the non violation of privacy because they were taken in an open space, taken from a public space, the street, means that the photos are absolutely within the confines of the Italian law," he said.
The photos published by Chi are accompanied by an unflattering comment from a plastic surgeon on the breasts of Britain's future queen, the former Kate Middleton.
The pictures have rekindled memories in Britain of the media pursuit of William's mother, Princess Diana, who was killed in a car crash in Paris in 1997 while being chased by paparazzi. But Signorini said the comparison was misleading.
Britain's tabloid papers, fighting for their reputation after a series of scandals, have refrained from publishing the pictures, even though they are available on the Internet and in the pages of a tabloid in neighbouring Ireland.
Signorini accused the British tabloid press of hypocrisy, saying the Sun, which has declared the topless photos off-limits, had had no qualms running pictures of William's brother Harry cavorting naked in a Las Vegas hotel last month.
He said he too had been offered Harry's pictures but had decided not to publish them because they were taken inside a hotel room and were "sexually explicit".
The royal family should have shrugged the topless pictures off with a "so what?" rather than fighting in court against their publication, Signorini said.
This would have won them sympathy, he added.
"My hope was that in this way Kate could demonstrate an element of modernity, to show an open mind with these photos of a monarchy that is absolutely current. Why do we all have to imagine that the royals wear a burqa or a one-piece swimsuit to sunbathe? They are human beings like the rest of us, fallible and not perfect, if you can speak of going topless as making a mistake, that makes me laugh, we are in 2012, it's not the days of Queen Victoria," he said.
Signorini said Berlusconi, who sued Italian and foreign newspapers for publishing pictures of naked or topless guests at his Sardinian villa, was not involved in the decision to run the photos. Mondadori is chaired by Berlusconi's daughter Marina.
"Someone asked me if I called the former prime minister to ask his permission to publish the photos. It made me laugh because imagine me calling Silvio Berlusconi to ask him if I can publish the topless photos of Kate Middleton, it is ridiculous. It doesn't work that way. We have an intellectual freedom here which we are very proud of," he said.
Signorini said he had selected the two dozen pictures printed by Chi from 200, but denied withholding more explicit snapshots. He declined to say how much he paid for the photos.