30 June,2011 07:43 AM IST | | Agencies
A US magazine has been branded 'tacky' and 'cheap' by world media after it put a picture of 'Princess Diana at 50 'on its front cover
A magazine cover that brings Princess Diana back to life to stroll with the daughter-in-law she never met has been branded "creepy", "disrespectful" and "ghostly" by press around the world
The mocked-up image of the princess walking with Kate Middleton graces the cover of Newsweek, to accompany an article by Tina Brown about what Diana would have been like if she were alive today.
The Newsweek doctored snap with Kate Middleton goes along with the article, which states that if Diana was alive she would be a fan of The King's Speech
The article 'Diana at 50 - If she were here now' says the Princess would be Facebook pals with Camilla Parker-Bowles, have ten million Twitter followers, and have an 'it's complicated' relationship status.
It adds that if Diana had not died in a 1997 car crash she would have moved to New York, remained "great-looking", and been friends with her ex-husband Prince Charles and his new wife.
Newsweek's editor in-chief Tina Brown wrote the piece ahead of Prince William and Kate's first official visit to North America this week.
But the doctored picture showing her still chic and slim, but with more wrinkles has caused fury across the US.
One writer on the New York Magazine website said, "This is beyond tacky."
And a reader commented on Newsweek's site, "Ugh this is SO tasteless...let the poor woman RIP...if I were any of her family members i'd be so offended and upset by this." (sic).
Journalist Matt Donnelly described the cover as "rather jarring" and asked "is the cover all sorts of right, or all sorts of wrong?".
The article imagines Diana as a social networking fan and claims on her Facebook page she would have 'liked' the film The King's Speech and TV series The Real Housewives of New York.
It claims she would be hanging out with David and Victoria Beckham.
