New photo of Queen Elizabeth II issued on her death anniversary, but it wasn’t this one

Sept. 8, 2023, marked the first anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s death

A few days later, an Instagram account that describes itself as an "official FanPage for the British Royal family" — replete with him/his/he pronouns — posted what it described as a "new photo of Queen Elizabeth II September 8th the day she died at Balmoral Castle." 

The Sept. 11 post shows an image of a woman who looks like the late queen lying in bed with her eyes closed. 

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

We reached out to Buckingham Palace about the post but didn’t immediately hear back. 

However, we found nothing to suggest that this image is authentic. 

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Reverse-image searches on multiple sites — Google, Bing, Yandex, TinEye — turned up no other instances of this photo appearing online. Considering the broad, breathless news coverage the royal family draws, it’s unbelievable that a newly released photo of the queen on the day she died would merit no media reports beyond an Instagram account with about 3,500 followers.

An "unreleased photograph of the late queen" was issued by the palace Sept. 7 to mark the anniversary of her death. It shows her in October 1968, standing and smiling at the camera.

We rate claims that this Instagram image is an authentic photo of the queen False.