This picture shows how insecure men can be, and it’s worse than we thought

You’ll remember the story that ran a few days ago about an old postage stamp of Prince Charles and Princess Diana?

Author Philip N Cohen pointed out the following image, along with the caption ‘They were the same height’.

It caused a fair bit of controversy, with some people arguing that it demonstrated Prince Charles’ fragile masculinity:

Cohen followed up his initial tweet with a second, rather more damning one of the two royals:

The duo are reportedly of similar height - a Buckingham Palace spokesperson in July 1981 told the New York Times that Princess Diana was 5 foot ten inches, and Prince Charles stood at 5 foot 11, and yet in the photos above she appears significantly shorter than him.

Cohen, who has been interested in the scandal for many years, clarified a few things in a blog post.

He pointed out that, at the time of the original stamp photo the Palace claimed that the photographer, who was the Earl of Snowdon got Prince Charles to stand on a box.

This, they said, was not because Diana was taller than him but because the Post Office’s stamp design “called for space for the silhouette at the upper right”.

That doesn’t however, explain other photographs of the duo and people insist that Princess Diana was taller:

While the motivations remain unclear, some are convinced that Prince Charles' propensity to be photographed as much taller than he is indicates an insecurity - one that spreads to many men.

Although this idea isn't held by the entire male population...

Picture: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty

Picture: Pascal Le Segretai/Getty/John Legend with wife Chrissy Teigen

HT Philip N Cohen