Tucker Carlson has been pranked over Kate Middleton‘s infamous edited photo.
The former Fox News anchor was duped by British YouTubers Josh & Archie into interviewing a fake Kensington Palace whistleblower, who was prepared to dish the dirt on the doctored image.
Archie Manners posed as the Prince and Princess of Wales’ former digital content creator, who claimed he had been fired for altering the Mother’s Day image so poorly it was rumbled by the public.
The Tucker Carlson Network, which streams on Twitter (now X), accepted his story after Manners and co-conspirator Josh Pieters forged Kensington Palace employment documents.
The YouTubers’ faked letter of engagement for the whistleblower included a clause stating that the palace had a right to amputate one of his limbs should he fail his probation period.
Carlson’s people did not spot the preposterous faked document and Manners was sent to a London studio with a hotline to Carlson for the interview.
In the YouTubers’ video, Carlson is seen introducing his guest with the line: “We’ve done our best to verify that your identity is what you say it is. You’re not a fake [Alexei] Navalny or doing a prank.”
In character, Manners said: “I was fired for negligence because the editing that I did was found … the editing job was almost too big to do.”
He claimed the picture was taken by Middleton’s uncle over the holiday season and he had to edit out a Christmas tree from the background. “It is an amazing story,” Carlson is shown saying.
The presenter appeared happy with the interview, telling Manners: “That was great.” His staff later told Manners that they would stream the exchange “early next week.”
Manners told Deadline that he and Pieters decided to blow their cover because they did not want disinformation to be shown to Carlson’s 12.6M X followers.
“We didn’t want to cause any more rumors, that are not true, to go out to lots and lots of people,” he said. “We just didn’t want to be too worthy about that in our video.”
Manners said he “stroked” Carlson’s ego with the “bullsh**” claim that he was giving the former Fox man the exclusive because “mainstream media in the UK wouldn’t touch it.”
Deadline has contacted the Tucker Carlson Network for comment.
Josh & Archie are well-known YouTube pranksters, boasting nearly 1.5M subscribers. Previous pranks include tricking Carole Baskin into an interview and giving free-speech firebrand Katie Hopkins a fake award.