Video: French editor of Closer defends topless Duchess pictures In her first public comments since arousing global attention by running a series of pictures on the front page of the magazine and across several pages inside, the editor of Closer magazine said initial reactions had been over-dramatic. What we saw in the pictures was a young couple, recently married, who are in love, who are beautiful. She's the princess of the 21st century. They are on the balcony of a mansion in the south of France visible from the street," Laurence Pieau told BFMTV a French news channel. She said the publication was a good news story and nothing similar to the pictures published two weeks earlier of Britain's Prince Harry, who was seen naked hugging a naked woman in a Las Vegas hotel. She's a young woman who is topless just like the ones that can be see on all the beaches of France and the world. These are pictures that are full of joy. The pictures are not degrading. Similarities have been drawn with the pictures of Prince Harry. They are nothing like them," she added. Significantly, Pieau said she had decided not to run even more explicit pictures that were part of the set, choosing instead to focus on the softer ones, which show the Duchess on a balcony of a mansion in the South of France. We took the decision to publish a certain number of the pictures. I won't hide the fact that there are more intimate pictures that exist that we haven't published and will not publish," she said dismissing the controversy as hypocrisy.