Prince William and Kate Middleton Hit the Solomon Islands!

Royal duo continues tour of Southeast Asia despite new reports that more mags will publish topless photos of the duchess

By Brandi Fowler Sep 16, 2012 5:25 PMTags
Prince William, Kate Middleton, Duchess of CambridgeChris Jackson/Getty Images

The show must go on.

Despite more publications deciding to publish Kate Middleton's topless photos, the Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William continued their tour of Southeast Asia, this time stopping in the Solomon Islands.

Upon their arrival, the royal couple was greeted by traditional warrior dancers and nearly 60,000 locals before they made their way to the St. Barnabas Cathedral in a makeshift canoe, according to the Huffington Post.

Middleton sported a festive Jonathan Saunders dress paired with a Jane Taylor hat for the occasion.

Following a Jubilee Thanksgiving Service for the Queen, the duo enjoyed a meal with the Governor General and his wife at the Government house, and were later treated to a "welcome song" performance by local dancers who shook their hips in grass skirts, according to People.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's latest trip comes on the heels of Italian magazine Chi's announcement that it will publish 26 pages of photos of the couple on vacation in France, where Middleton's topless shots were snapped.

In a statement to E! News, Mondadori, the publishing group that owns the mag and Closer (the first magazine to publish the photos), said the editors of Closer and Chi told them that they planned to publish the photos and they stand by their decision to do so. 

"Yesterday, Alfonso Signorini, the editor of Chi, informed the heads of the magazine division in Italy that he was planning to run, exclusively in Italy, a photographic report on the same subject," the statement said. "The editors of the two magazines decided to publish the pictures because their content is clearly newsworthy, without in any way being damaging to the subjects. The publisher respects the arguments put forward by the editors of the two weeklies."

The editor in chief of Chi, Alfonso Signorini also said in the statement, "This is a feature that deserves a special edition given that it shows, in a wholly natural way, the daily life of a very famous young, modern and loving couple. That they happen to also be the future sovereigns of Great Britian certainly makes it more interesting, newsworthy and in line with a modern conception of monarchy."

"In brief, it is a wonderful and common image of a couple that is anything but common," Signorini continued.

—Additional reporting by Marcus Mulick