Duchess of Cambridge "saddened" by topless photos claim

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are said to be "saddened" by claims made by a French magazine that it will publish topless photographs of Kate on Friday.             

The royal couple broke new ground by touring a mosque for the first time during their tour of Malaysia, but all media attention was on speculation that another member of the Royal Family will be at the center of embarrassing images.             

Closer magazine has said it has exclusive pictures of Kate topless on the terrace of a guest house, taken during a brief holiday she enjoyed with William in France last week.           

The Guardian reported that the couple was staying in Provence at a chateau owned by Lord Linley, the Queen's nephew, ahead of their Diamond Jubilee tour of south-east Asia and the South Pacific on behalf of the Queen.          

The magazine's French website showed an image of its new front cover with a heavily pixilated image of a woman with dark hair, it claims is the Duchess, in a bikini apparently about to remove her top.                

William and Kate were told about the allegations this morning before they visited the Assyakirin Mosque and had also looked at the images on the website.             

If the topless pictures are genuine, it would reignite the row over privacy which raged around Prince Harry last month, when embarrassing images emerged of him frolicking naked in a Las Vegas hotel.