Palace fury as magazine to publish Kate bikini photos

Plans by an Italian gossip magazine to publish pictures of the Duchess of Cambridge on a private Caribbean holiday have been condemned by St James’s Palace.

The pictures reportedly show Kate wearing a bikini and strolling on a beach on the island of Mustique with William.

It is understood Chi magazine is planning to publish the images today.

A St James’s Palace spokesman said: “We are disappointed that photographs of the duke and duchess on a private holiday look likely to be published overseas. This is a clear breach of the couple’s right to privacy.”

Last year the same publication produced a 26-page spread showing Kate topless during a holiday in France.

The magazine, which followed the French version of Closer in publishing the pictures, defended the move, describing Kate as a “Greek goddess”.

Its editor, Alfonso Signorini, said at the time: “I really don’t see what all the fuss is about.”

He also said: “I am a director of a newspaper not a supermarket, I don’t sell artichokes and carrots, I sell photographic scoops.”

The duke and duchess were later granted an injunction by a French court, preventing Closer from printing more photographs of the couple at the private villa in Provence, France.

The magazine was ordered to hand over all copies of the pictures and banned from selling them on to publications in countries where they had not already been published.

The latest pictures showing the duchess’s very slight baby bump are expected to hit the news stands today.

On a website publicising Chi — owned by former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi — Kate is pictured on the magazine’s cover in a blue bikini striding knee-high through the sea above the headline “the belly grows”.

A second image shows the duke, wearing a pair of shorts, with his left arm around his wife as they walk along a beach.

It is believed that the royal couple are still holidaying on Mustique and during their time there were reportedly joined by Kate’s family, parents Carole and Michael Middleton and her siblings James and Pippa.

A St James’s Palace spokesman would not comment on whether William had been informed about the issue or if they were considering any form of legal action against the magazine.