OK! apologises for royal post

Richard Desmond's OK! magazine has apologised for its latest cover story purporting to reveal the Duchess of Cambridge's post-pregnancy weight loss regime, just days after giving birth.

The edition hit shop shelves before the duchess gave birth on Monday. However, it has come in for heavy criticism in social media for being insensitive about her figure.

The cover runs with a large cover line "Kate's post-baby weight loss regime", promoting an interview with someone described as her personal trainer, who offers the nugget: "She's super fit - her stomach will shrink straight back."

A spokeswoman for Northern & Shell, the parent company of OK! magazine, apologised for any distress the cover may have caused.

"Kate is one of the great beauties of our age and OK! readers love her," she said. "Like the rest of the world, we were very moved by her radiance as she and William introduced the Prince of Cambridge to the world. We would not dream of being critical of her appearance. If that was misunderstood on our cover it was not intended."

The edition, put together by new editor and mother of two Kirsty Tyler, has come in for serious criticism online.

Katy Hill, TV and radio presenter, tweeted for a boycott of the magazine. It has been retweeted more than 2,600 times and favourited hundreds of times since Tuesday night.

Dr Brooke Magnanti, formerly known as blogger Belle de Jour, said that publishing the cover immediately after the birth "defies belief" and called for a boycott of the title.

"I feel obliged to weigh in ... lay off Kate Middleton already," she said, writing on Telegraph.co.uk. "Whatever ridiculous expectations it is we have for women in the public eye, she appears to have fulfilled all of them with nary a frown or complaint. Now she has done precisely the job she signed up for, isn't it time to cut the lady a break? And not buy OK! magazine until the editor has had her head read and realised how this type of trash makes real women feel?"

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