Royal grin: Prince Louis celebrates sixth birthday with a smiley photo released by The Royal Family

The Royal Family have treated fans to a smiley photo of Prince Louis on social media as he celebrated his sixth birthday.

Sharing the precious pic on X, the young royal’s wide grin embodied the innocence of youth as he lay casually along a picnic rug sporting a collared button-up.

The post was captioned: “Happy 6th Birthday, Prince Louis! Thank you all for the kind wishes today. 📸 The Princess of Wales”.

Birthday wishes have flooded in for the fan favourite, with followers of the typically reclusive family commenting on the prince’s aging appearance.

“I can’t believe how big he is! Happy Birthday, Prince Louis! Hope you have the most wonderful of birthdays,” one person wrote.

Another said, “Lovely pic! Gorgeous smiley boy who spreads joy wherever he goes. I hope he has a great day and that this year’s cakemaking went well.”

Within an hour, the photo had accumulated more than 400,000 views.

With controversy shrouding photos released earlier this year by the Royal family — more specifically Princess Kate — the post had some followers questioning the birthday pic’s authenticity.

“Here come the conspiracies, get ready for photo-gate all over again”, one person joked.

Another warned: “What’s sad about this is that we all know there are millions of people running this through AI detection software and analysing every single pixel forensically”.

In March, a botched Mother’s Day photo of Princess Kate and her three children raised eyebrows and questions when it was revealed the princess had been practising her fledgling Photoshop skills.

Two weeks later, ridicule turned to sympathy when the princess admitted she had been diagnosed with cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy.

Credited for this latest photograph in the birthday post, followers of The Royal Family might hope the much-loved Princess is on the mend.