Dutch king Willem-Alexander has joined the thousands of people making jokes about Britain’s princess Kate and the badly photoshopped family portrait she issued last week.

The king was on a visit to Zutphen earlier this week where he stopped to talk to people who had turned out to welcome him. One small girl waving a flag told the king that she had seen a “photo of you and all your family”.

“Really? In any case, it was not photoshopped,” the king said, much to the delight of the crowd. The exact text, said as an aside to the adults, is difficult to hear and various different translations have been put forward.

Meisje had al een foto van een jonge Willem-Alexander gezien. “Die was niet gephotoshopt,” zegt Willem-Alexander pic.twitter.com/4VXtq1ke8q

— Rick Evers (@RickEversRoyal) March 12, 2024

Most of the British populist papers were not amused by the Dutch king’s joke.

The Daily Mail newspaper described the throwaway comment as a “cheeky quip from king Charles’s sixth cousin.”

But the Express said the comment was “mean” and the Sun said the remark was a “cruel dig” at the princess who has recently undergone major surgery and is recovering at home.