Finally, Prince William had to acknowledge his wife Kate’s worsening condition, holding his younger brother and sobbing, “Is she about to leave us?”
The Princess of Wales will probably “not appear in public for the rest of the year,” and is being “surrounded” by her birth family as she continues a course of preventive chemotherapy having been diagnosed with cancer earlier this year, royal sources and friends of Kate Middleton and Prince William have told The Daily Beast.
Kate and her family are expected to spend next week, which is a school holiday, at her and William’s country home on the Sandringham Estate. Her parents, to whom she is close, are thought likely to visit.
William is expected to devote even more time to his family over the next six weeks having been unexpectedly gifted time off after the royal family said they would be stepping back from some engagements to avoid distracting from a snap U.K. general election called this week and due to take place on July 4.Godawful Pic of Kate Middleton Gives Art Critics the Chills
One source said they do not expect to see Kate back in any kind of public-facing role in the medium term, adding it was possible she would remain absent from public life for the rest of the year.
The source said: “Lots of people involved in planning need to know what all the principals are doing a long way in advance. I am told that Kate’s diary for this year is empty. There is nothing planned. She may not appear in public for the rest of the year.”
(The Daily Mail’s Richard Eden reported Thursday that Kate’s friends have told him “we might not see Catherine again until the autumn—and only then if she has recovered fully.”)
Asked how the Palace would deal with the inevitable resurgence of conspiracy theories and speculation that a protracted absence would provoke, The Daily Beast’s source said: “I would not rule out another video message updating the country on her health. That proved to be a very effective way of keeping the conspiracy theorists at bay.”
A friend of Kate and William told The Daily Beast: “The key thing for her now is avoiding any kind of stress or anxiety and just getting on with the business of getting better. They will bail out and be off to Sandringham the moment school breaks up.”
The friend said that Kate has preferred to lean on and confide in her family rather than her and William’s circle of friends, many of whom will be at the Duke of Westminster’s wedding next month (along with her husband, who is best man).
They said: “The circle of trust is tiny. She has been surrounded by Carole and Michael, and (sister) Pippa and (brother) James have obviously been there for her as well. They are an incredibly tight family, and Catherine feels absolutely confident relying on them. They have been there for her for decades and never let her down.”
It is now five months since Kate was last seen in public, and the Palace may indeed deem it necessary to give another update—whether via video or a more traditional statement—if Kate really is going to remain unseen for many more months to come.
Kate revealed her cancer diagnosis in a video message released March 22, saying she had initially thought her condition was non-cancerous, but discovered the truth after successful abdominal surgery in January and subsequent tests which revealed cancer—as yet of an unspecified kind—was present.
Catherine, Princess of Wales, appears in this still image from a handout video released March 22, 2024, in which she announced that she is undergoing preventative chemotherapy after cancer was found to have been present, following abdominal surgery.
Catherine, Princess of Wales, on March 22, 2024, announced in a video that she is undergoing preventive chemotherapy after cancer was detected following abdominal surgery in January.
BBC Studios/Handout via Reuters
Kate said she was in the early stages of having preventive chemotherapy, which began in late February, and said she had needed to take time to explain her condition to her three children. It had been “an incredibly tough couple of months for our entire family, but I’ve had a fantastic medical team who have taken great care of me, for which I am so grateful,” Kate said.
Kensington Palace said Kate was on a “recovery pathway”; the princess herself said she was well “and getting stronger every day.”
“Please do not lose faith or hope, you are not alone,” Kate said, directly addressing fellow cancer sufferers.
There is no doubt her office is certainly managing expectations downwards when it comes to the question of her return to work.
Just this week, for example, her team clearly implied that she was not working from home when it announced the publication of a report commissioned by her Early Childhood initiative into how large businesses can better support the early childhoods of their staff’s children.
While making clear she had read the report and been kept updated on it, and that her office was on top of things, the statement carefully avoided any suggestion she was spending her days sitting up in bed with a computer. A source described as a “senior royal aide” went further when it came to explicitly downplaying any suggestions she had an ongoing daily workload, telling the Mail: “She will return to work when she has had the green light from doctors.”
Her office declined to comment to The Daily Beast on when Kate would next be seen in public or if she was working at home, but one courtier said: “The Princess is continuing her recovery at home. She continues to need the space and time to prioritize her privacy, as she said in her video.”
There will certainly be a focus on family time next week, with her children’s school on recess for “half term,” a one-week holiday from school.
“There have been rumors she has done drop-off, but I haven’t seen her since the video. We all feel very protective of her.”
— Fellow school parent
Kate and William are expected to “bail out” of their Windsor home on Friday, one friend said.
They are likely to spend the short holiday at the family’s country house, Anmer Hall, on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, where there is plenty of room for her mother and father (Carole and Michael Middleton) to stay, and privacy is easy to enforce thanks to a protective local community, many of whom are either friends with or work for the royals in some capacity.
Kate and the children fled to Anmer in March when school broke up for the Easter vacation. Just hours after arriving there Kate released her unprecedented (pre-recorded) video in which she revealed she had cancer. The couple had deliberately delayed releasing the news until the school holidays had started to protect their children from unwelcome attention in the schoolyard.
The Daily Beast has been told by fellow parents at the smart private school which Kate’s children attend that she has not been seen at the sports matches and the other school events she and her husband usually attend. However, she is understood to have done occasional school runs, one parent said, but while keeping a low profile.
“There have been rumors she has done drop-off, but I haven’t seen her since the video,” said one. “We all feel very protective of her. Ask anyone at the school—they are amazing parents.”
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