Zooming out on Prince Harry's birthday tribute says everything.

Uh-oh, the British royals are back doing what they do best: being politically petty.

How did we get here? Well, just yesterday we celebrated a huge giant leap forward (for shunned prince mankind) as both King Charles and Prince William wished Prince Harry a happy birthday, marking the first time they've acknowledged the occasion in three years.

"Wishing The Duke of Sussex a very happy 40th birthday today!" the King's message read, which was then reshared by the Prince and Princess of Wales.

Cute, right? The boys are back in town, baby!

Sadly, the good vibes lasted a hot minute because a fresh controversy had come from the photo the royals selected to honour Harry's big boy birthday.

This is the image the royal officials posted.

🎂 Wishing The Duke of Sussex a very happy 40th birthday today! pic.twitter.com/sAlSiV9EaZ

— The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) September 15, 2024

Perfectly nice, right??

Wrong!! Internet sleuths quickly found an image that they deemed the original pic and there was one small change: the cropping out of his wife, the mother of his children, and living/breathing woman, Meghan Markle.

The photo was captured back in 2018 when the Duke and Duchess of Sussex visited Dublin, Ireland, while they were still working royals.

The cropping follows rumours that the three royal men have been feuding since Harry and Meghan decided to step down from royal duties in 2021 before detailing their version of what led to that moment in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, a Netflix special, and Harry's memoir, Spare.

After swift backlash online, Buckingham Palace quickly defended their choice of image. A spokesperson stated the image used was not altered as it was kept in the format it was received.

Does this sound accurate?

Well, in a truly off-brand moment for me, I'm going to need to defend the royal family here. After scrolling through Getty, the platform the photo was uploaded to on that fateful day in 2018, you can clearly see that there are two photos of Harry available.

Here is the zoomed-out photo taken by Jimmy Rainford: a wide-shot that includes a rather blurry Meghan Markle and an in-focus Prince Harry.

Image: Getty.

Please note that not even Meghan would want this pic posted around when she is all blurry and also, spare a moment for this person on the left with a stylish cropped hairdo who has also been cavalierly cropped. Where is their justice??

But back to the subject at hand: on Getty sits the below pic, which is likely the image the royals are referring to. Here is Harry on his own, zoomed in, blissfully unaware he is about to become the subject of birthday hysteria.

Image: Getty.

So there's that! Case closed!

Err, maybe not. It's worth remembering that when Meghan Markle celebrated her 43rd birthday just a month ago on August 4 (probably with some celebratory jam), none of the royals sent any sort of public message or tribute to ol' Megz. And maybe they didn't intentionally crop Meghan out, but the photo choice is still a little suspect.

The royals might not have sent the couple a message with this photo tribute but the overall message has been sent loud and clear.

Feature image: Getty.