The entire British and international press have been begging Kensington Palace to put the Princess of Wales in front of a camera and simply have her thank everyone for their support and provide some kind of explanation for what’s going on with her. Finally, today, they did just that. No more games, no more manipulated photos, no more weird TMZ sightings. The Princess of Wales now says that she underwent major abdominal surgery and after the surgery, the doctors found the presence of cancer. She is now being treated for cancer. Here’s the video:
Our thoughts and prayers go out to her. If you recall, in January, Kensington Palace released a formal announcement about Kate’s abdominal surgery. Nowhere in that statement did the word “cancer” appear, although within the same newscycle as the statement, palace sources were telling reporters from every major news outlet that Kate did not or does not have cancer. You can say… well, her focus was on her recovery and, as she says in this video, figuring out what to tell her children. I understand that, and I have sympathy for it, but it’s just another example of Kensington Palace burning through their credibility and goodwill.
This video also means, I’m sure, that all of the talk about Kate turning up to church on Windsor on Easter Sunday is gone as well. This is effectively an extension – as it should be! – on her recuperation time.
Screencaps courtesy of Kensington Palace’s video.
They seem to have handled this very badly. Total panic mode. Hope she’s doing well.
KP really has handled it terribly. I understand not wanting your children to hear about it at school and why they waited until school holiday to announce it.
I REALLY thought something shady had happened to her.
Wishes for a speedy remission to Kate. Peace and strength to the rest of the Wales’ family.
Instead of hearing about illness, the children have heard stories involving buttlifts, coma, divorce etc. Terrible handling by KP. I did not like when announcing her illness we had a lady on SKY news going on about conspiracy theorists. There is a vicious tone in the media as in this is the announcement, now shut up or your a conspiracy theorist.
I don’t know who finally decided to make this video, or who wrote Kate’s speech, but FINALLY! Someone gets it! Must have been very, very hard for Kate to do, and I think she did a great job. Healing power to her.
Man, you know what is interesting though, is that this does lay the groundwork for a totally false dichotomy to develop, “Either you could have accepted three separate instances of totally ham fisted obviously doctored images OR we have to put a harried, genuinely unwell woman in public office on video to confessionally tell everyone she has cancer before she ever wanted to” – when I feel confident that, in reality, a million easy and readily available solutions existed at every moment that neither of those things ever had to happen.
Well they finally came out with the truth. I don’t know why they didn’t start with this it’s absolutely nothing to be ashamed of lots of people get Cancer even the King.
Because it was no one’s business regardless of how much tax dollars people pay. She said she was having surgery and would be out. She did just that. The public is the one that made it into circus. The only weird thing was that photoshopped pic.
@CaptainCrunch Respectfully, I think it was KP that created this circus. No one was asking for a full medical diagnosis or even a photo. A simple statement thanking the hospital staff and public support, on her letterhead would have sufficed. Then, the release of these blurry and/or manipulated images surfaced (many appearing staged). Blaming the woman with cancer for the photoshop mess was certainly a choice.
@CaptainCrunch
I disagree. This is the price for living off the public purse. If they’d just said “cancer” from the beginning, none of this would have happened. They created the circus themselves, by refusing to acknowledge the world we live in and the sphere they inhabit.
Or basically, you can say “it’s nobody’s business”, but then you have to be okay with people speculating. Their issue is they don’t want to talk about it and think no one else should, either. That’s not how celebrity works.
Yes, both are certainly true. This was handled as poorly and ineptly as possible by all involved AND it is a scary thing to face down and I wish her all the best and an expedient recovery. She is already in my prayers, as I have prayed “for everyone battling cancer” each night since childhood.
And, what’s done is done. They have been reasonably transparent now and will hopefully move forward with lessons learned. I still sense a few obfuscations and some blurring of the truth, but that’s par for the course with them, and I think some of it is understandable.
Boy does this tell us how many royal insiders who claimed they knew what was going on so obviously didn’t…and it gives me a few insights into who probably did know what they were talking about.
Fergie, Charles, and now Kare all with cancer in a six month period. That startles and concerns me on a whole other level, though none of the three are blood related. What an exhausting and trying time for the family, which is when they should lean on the public support and competent staff work most, not least. Hopefully that is another lesson learned.
(The photoshopped photo still makes no sense at all, as she clearly looks just fine and didn’t need to do all the head and hand swapping on her own body. The furore over that was fully justified, and William and BP’s lack of support for Kate during that time and willingness to let her swing seems even more disgusting with this hindsight.)
And dear God, I hope this isn’t some elaborate PR plan with new lies, knowing “cancer” would immediately stop all the criticism and mockery. I choose to take her at her word, but if they are playing here, it will not end well. As I don’t believe they are/hope they aren’t, I will close by wishing her well.
Either they have the absolute worst comms people (they do) and/or they also kept their comms team in the dark.
I was so saddened when I watched this video. All I have to say, is that I wish her a complete and speedy recovery – and I hope everyone in this family can pull together and heal. I also hope the media and their penchant for click bait stories about the feud, Camilla, H&M, W&K , etc, will take a back seat because none of this is helpful. Everyone just needs to stop adding to the narrative
Wish her the best. But KP straight up lied about this in January.
She says in the interview that at the time of surgery in January her medical team thought that her condition was benign; clearly they’ve done a biopsy and subsequently found that’s not the case.
Both my father-in-law and step-father had situations this year where we couldn’t tell for months if it was or wasn’t cancer. Sometimes the evidence is contradictory or inconclusive. So I am happy to cut them slack for their inability to announce in January that she did have cancer, and I can see why they wouldn’t want to say, “Hey, she might have cancer, but we have to wait for further test results.” But this doesn’t excuse all the clownery, and it doesn’t change the past re: Meghan and W&K’s workshy habits.
This explains the wigs. She likely had chemo or radiation to shrink a tumor which was removed in January. At the time they probably thought they had gotten all of the cancer and subsequent tests showed otherwise.
That’s an interesting theory, @Megan — that would make a lot of sense, and also explain why she just looked generally unwell a lot of last year. :-/
My thoughts exactly. I wish her quick recovery. William is the worst person. The other worst people are the ones who thought dragging Harry into this on the DM front page was a good idea.
I wouldn’t assume that. Cancers often get found while investigating other illnesses. My husband had his non Hodkins Lymphoma diagnosed as the result of a kidney stone. I say that it was his lucky kidney stone, but he begs to differ. Kate may have had any number of surgeries for any number of problems and a cancer was found. At this poiint, now that we know enough of hte truth that it all makes sense, I am done speculating. Just as I really don’t care to speculate what sort of cancer Charles has. Time will tell on us all.
Maybe she wanted some time to get her children ready for this and there’s not really a good way to message this…
Yep, this is so bizarre. They actually said it wasn’t cancer, WHY?!??
Wow, just wow. Just watched this live on tv. For her children’s sake I hope she is going to be ok
Ps. It takes time to have lab test biopsies processed. I don’t think they were willfully lying.
Yeah speaking from experience, at least with colorectal cancer, biopsies go through lots of tumor and germline DNA sequencing. It takes three weeks minimum to really know what you’re dealing with. It is HORRIBLE to have to find the words to tell kids about this happening to you as their parent. Cancer effing sucks!!!! I hope she makes a full recovery.
That does sound awful, I can’t imagine what you went through. I hope your health is better now and your family is supporting you and you are thriving ❤️
It’s the kids that my heart goes out to.
Thank heavens the Queen is not here for this. Imagine her having to deal with TWO senior royals with cancer.
Look if this was an unknown British citizen, I can understand the long wait. But let’s be real, for Kate and Charles, it doesn’t take 2 months to find out. You know this because she stated she has been receiving treatment.
The world understands cancer. We’ve been affected by it directly and know people who have. People who get cancer have families, have children, have work, and must. deal with multitude of demands. It’s a given cancer is an ultimate equalizer.
So why they didn’t adopt Charles’ way is befuddling. And at best speaks to incompetence and poor judgement.
Kate by being straightforward is now receiving thoughts and prayers. She could have this 2 months ago and the world would have moved on.
Oh no..they find something..send it to biopsy and it can be back before shes sewn up, it can change the course of the operation literally…no waiting.
Yes my friend has cervical cancer and surgery Monday. That’s literally how they do it- biopsy while you are on the table. Follow up w pet scans and contrast MRIs. Def immediate results. Also this is literally the best speech she has ever given. What in the world.
The video is a great job because you can here her emotions come through. She practiced it, there probably is a teleprompter, but she also sounds emotional which makes her sound real.
I had breast surgery last year and I didn’t get biopsy results for about a week. Not every form of cancer can produce instant results.
Not always. Sometimes things are more equivocal and the results go to tumor board (a board of oncologists locally) or maybe get sent out to other labs etc. My husband, a physician himself who was friends with all those who were diagnosing him, was told his non hodgkins lymphoma could be relatively benign or it could be the cell type that would inexorably kill him within months. They weren’t sure. Results were equivocal. It was a few very painful weeks before they settled on the less dangerous sort, and he has lived to tell the tale. Point is, bodies (and diagnoses and treatments) are incredibly complex and individual in many small ways. What happens to one may not happen exactly like that with another.
Ugh, the poor thing! Not a huge fan, but who would ever wish anything like this upon her? I hope the treatments are working.
A sensitive subject indeed but why KP had to eff it up so badly is anyone’s guess. Wow.
Her speech was very good and she did well delivering what must be very difficult to share. But I couldn’t shake an unsettling feeling and finally realized its because she is sitting all by herself. Where is William sitting with her, offering support and strength and solidarity. What a distressing scene having her have to share this news all by herself.
This is terrible for Kate, and for her kids. I really, really hope she recovers.
This also explains William’s absence from his godfather’s memorial service.
But why did William let Kate take the fall for the Mother’s Day photo? Especially now???? And why didn’t they just choose to be transparent earlier?
I have a friend with cancer whose spouse was a douche before her diagnosis. He’s still a douche. Why someone didn’t tell William to not look like a douche on an international stage, I don’t know.
Yep.
William has been so dismissive and disrespectful to Kate for years, and everyone noticed the single dad glow-up vibe to his coverage over the last year or so. I wonder if the separation was shifting into a potential divorce and now there is absolutely no way that can happen.
I can see William refusing to let KP announce the cancer and then blaming her for the picture editing thinking he can keep this all secret forever and still divorce her.
I imagine the crises talks in KP over the last week have been furious.
She did very very well on this video. It’s what we all expected them to issue in photo or video form within a month or so. I imagine she practiced a lot and her glam squad did right by her.
W is a total jerk. I hope the BM makes it clear that his behavior is not okay.
I agree K did an excellent job in the video.
This is still so suspicious! They did all of this craziness and shenanigans in order to not tell the world that she has cancer? And they wanted to remain private for their children? But it was okay for the world and their children to think William had beat her, that she was in a coma, that they were divorcing, that she had an ED or a pregnancy with someone who is not her husband? What about William’s bruising on his neck? What about his weight lost and consistently swaying? His strange and abnormal behavior, missing so many work appointments? What about all of the Rose rumours? And all of the grainy & blurry photographs that were shown to the world, as well as, the fake William & Kate at the farmers market? Plus, William’s connection to Thomas and they way he died is also extremely suspicious. What about all of that???
I don’t believe that cancer is the reason why she has been missing since Christmas. I am glad Kate is okay and I hope that she heals completely, her kids need her! But they are still lying!!!
We were told quite specifically at the time that his missing the memorial was not related to Kate.
Because KP never lies???
I’ll never believe another word from them.
They’ve lied so much through this, they will never be trusted agin.
Who was the healthy bouncing woman at Windsor Farm?
I’m disgusted by William.
I think they will blame everything on the cancer now after the fact. William probably thought it’s ok to let Kate take the fall for everything because people will just forgive and forget when they find out.
I think it’s quite likely the people at the farm were lookalikes hired by TMZ.
WiththeAmerican: the healthy bouncing woman was Gabrielle the Kate Impersonator. I am thinking that stunt, the film, had nothing to do with KP, that videographer set it up and paid the impersonators, to make money. This woman is the person I believe it was in that clip: https://www.instagram.com/katelookalike/?hl=en
I thought the comment was, his absence wasn’t related to Thomas Kingston’s passing. No word about Kate in that context.
Wishing her a full recovery – I agree that KP and William have handled this badly, they could have followed Chuck’s lead. Based on what she said they found cancer had been present which to me reads that it was removed during the original surgery and then found. As she said the chemo is a preventative measure and is quite common after surgery to remove cancer.
Their and their office’s rep aren’t going to recover from any of the disasters of the past few weeks.
Enough of this. Yes they could have handled better but she had major surgery and has cancer. We and the press can bugger off now! All my empathy as a person w chronic illness.
@Barrett, many posters here are also people who have or are dealing with their own devastating illness or a love one’s illness, so to tell people to bugger off is unkind. People understand cancer. They understand illnesses. What they don’t understand is the need to create such a credibility crisis of such soap operatic proportion is what makes it so baffling. So unnecessary.
This honestly makes William look even worse. She’s got cancer and he puts her to blame for the photo? Couldn’t a staffer take the blame?
Charles is going through this exact same scenario and it has been handled without half the chaos. Either everyone at KP is an idiot or else William really is a bad leader.
MTE- they knew she had cancer, put that stupid photo out, threw her under the bus for it AND made her write a statement about it all to cover up that she has cancer?? They are the most incompetent bumbling fools over there at KP.
@Nic919, THIS. Really William, really???? You blame the photoshop (badly done) on your wife, mother to your three children who has cancer? WOW. JUST EFFING WOW.
Given W three her under a bus and KP didn’t get its act together, could this announcement have finally been courtesy BP?
And this is why BP was looking at the Wales like some clowns. Charles went through almost the same situation…surgery that revealed cancer w/o half the screaming fits that KP gave us. Still doesn’t explain the frankenphoto, the weird pap shot with her mother nor the “appointment” photo with William. Just handled so poorly. Charles is convalescing without the stress of all this and KP has created an extremely stressful environment for…well…everyone concerned.
Word, Nic. It’s so baffling that they had the example of Chuck handing a difficult diagnosis properly right there, and just bumbled on for months, ignoring every warning bell that it was not going well at all.
William has not, obviously, been coping with this well.
Blaming Kate (as opposed to some unknown Comms team member who allowed the mess to be released) was a choice.
Charles announced that he is being treated for cancer. I wonder why those pictures were issued by Kensington palace instead of issuing a statement. The dm is already bringing harry into it.
Kate has one extra complication: she has three young children, where Charles has grown children. How do you tell three children under 12 you have a serious condition. That takes time, so I suspect they scrambled to keep this under wraps in the media, so they could have time with the kids.
And really, the best time is before a school holiday. It gives the other parents and children time to talk about it and get it out of their system. And for the Wales’ children time to absorb, ask questions, absorb the answer to that question, ask another question, rinse and repeat.
Kids do better with information in small doses. Too much info overwhelms them.
But 3 months… a few weeks yes, but they thought they could hide this, though why they wanted to I have no idea. I have no respect for the prince and princess, but I do have sympathy for a mother of three young children. I hope she recovers and her children are not left without a mother. I just think this whole ungodly mess could have been avoided and suspect it has caused her unnecessary stress.
I know too many parents who have been diagnosed with cancer. Essentially you tell your children right away in a as simple as possible manner. You never delay telling your kids. Too much changes and they need to know what’s happening and that they did nothing wrong.
I wish W&K stop using the children as a foil for every miscalculation. They make their kids so brittle and unable to deal with life. Families deal with bad health news regularly and for some families, it’s their child who has cancer. There are so many good resources out there to help people deal with such diagnosis. The Wales isn’t living in a vacuum.
There was no need to bring the children into this whatsoever. A simple announcement like Charles’ a month and a half ago would have avoided all of this
My sister and her husband didn’t tell their kids he had cancer until they had a treatment plan in place, which took weeks. They also didn’t tell the kids he would not be recovering until the final week of his life. It’s a lot to put on little kids and they wanted to ease their burden as much as possible.
The kids would have known something was wrong for the past three months. Keeping secrets from them would have made things worse. They should have been told immediately. Who counsels these people. And once again blaming everything on their children. The children can’t sit still for a picture. The children can’t understand their mother is ill while presumably living with her for the last 3 months. We all have experienced illness and cancer. We know how it should be handled. It seems that their pr dept is run by a 22 year old intern making $30,000 a year. That is the only thing that explains this or Kate doesn’t really have cancer, they’ve painted themselves into a corner and cancer is their get out of jail free card.
The blessed advantage of being a princess is you don’t have to wait like commoners for care and treatment. There are options considered, but you can start treatment and tell your family of the news. They will know and there are ways to tell and help children adjust to the news based on their developmental level. By complicating things and creating such a circus is way worse for everybody, including the children. Which is why as a parent, you don’t need to refer to them for the media.
To be fair, she did say the initial operation wasn’t for cancer, and it was only discovered afterwards.
We’ve been through this in our family. If they did a biopsy, it doesn’t take months for the results to come back from the lab.
I understand her needing time to talk to her kids. What I don’t understand is the total f*ck-up by KP in handling all of this. All of the speculation could have been ended a month ago. And Kate never would have had to deal with the frankenphoto controversy.
I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that they threw a woman with cancer under the bus for that.
All of this @QuiteContrary
They could have handled this a lot differently and it probably would have caused a lot less stress for them.
I wish Kate the best in her treatment and recovery. She mentioned preventative chemo so that sounds positive.
Tissue samples are sent to pathology *during* surgery, and read on the spot to help inform margins of removal- this whole sitch is super hinky.
Welp, it did happen to me and my partner this year. We were told a week after surgery that it was cancer, but a DNA sequencing of the tumor to find out if it was inherited (it wasn’t) or a rare and aggressive genetic mutation (it was) took 3 weeks. The test is called ctDNA and it absolutely would have been done if she has a form of colorectal cancer.
I would have agreed with the decision to wait to share, it’s absolutely horrifying to receive this news as a parent of young kids in their 40s. The grief you feel contemplating the future is unbearable. Not to mention adjusting to things like a temporary or permanent colostomy.
Please visit your GP if you have blood in your stool or weird spotting between periods!! Colon cancer and uterine cancer is on the rise in younger people who are in their prime of life.
I found out less than a week after my hysterectomy that I had cancer in one of my fallopian tubes. I have the BRAC gene so they were going to biopsy my organs anyway. The fact they biopsied her tissues makes me think her doctors suspected cancer.
My biopsy results for breast cancer were available 3 days later. I think they were actually available a day before that but the surgeon and my primary care doctor decided she would tell me during an appointment that we had already scheduled. Biopsy results on colon polyps were available 2 days later and results on uterine tumors were available 2 days later. My dad’s biopsy results for a very rare lymphoma took 2 days and my mom’s results were available just a few hours later. It doesn’t take weeks.
It really depends on a lot of factors whether the pathology will be complete in a short while (during surgery) or not for a while. In particular, when organs are removed, and checked for tumors etc, that can take awhile. One surgery. one illness, is not equal to a nother, as far as pathology is concerned.
KP told Becky English that it wasn’t cancer. Take it from me, there was always a suspicion of cancer and KP lied to Becky.
Amy Bee, I actually think not that many people knew, because of that article in US Weekly where a member of her staff said that she was not in contact with them. My guess is that KP might not have lied about this on purpose—they might have put out an explanation but not know what was actually going on. W on the other hand…
the initial surgery, and reason for hte surgery, did not involve cancer. I don’ t expect them to be able to predict the future.
@Underhill: Medicine doesn’t work like that. There is always a number of issues that are predicted. Her surgery would have been to taken out whatever mass or tumour she had and then tests on the tumour would have been done to see if there were cancer cells.
First of all, I wish Kate a full and speedy recovery. As much as l dislike her, I don’t wish cancer on anyone. Plus she has children that need her.
That said, they should have given this update 3 – 4 weeks ago. They handled everything HORRIBLY and burned through a ton of good will.
Agreed! Why not just say this? The outpouring of sympathy she’ll receive now could have happened weeks ago and avoided all this nonsense. Just say it. Did they think she was just going to magically not have cancer if they waited until April? That’s not how this works.
The staff work at KP has truly been terrible and Kate, for all of her faults, deserved a helluva lot better than she got. Blaming her for photo-gate? Cmon. Pathetic.
💯 Amy!
Maybe because she doesn’t owe anyone her personal medical details?
@jenjen
We don’t need the specific details (like what kind of cancer), but she should have followed Charles lead and we wouldn’t be in this mess.
I personally feel that she did not owe anyone details of her illness.
But if she had done a video just thanking people for their well wishes the situation would not have deteriorated to the point that she had to reveal so much.
Their pr advice has been quite poor.
I wish Catherine a full recovery.
Oh JenJen……..
We aren’t talking about a release of all of her medical charts. The press and public have been surprisingly patient and sensitive with her. Which you think would be a miracle, because it when it comes to ANY other women and their “sensitive private matters,” they could give shit.
Other women would have been hounded by the press until someone got that “million dollar photo.”
@Jenjen she isn’t just some celebrity, she is a working royal and taxpayers pay for the Sovereign Grant that funds royal work. I’d argue that at least the British public *is* owed information.
She did not have to discuss her medical issues. A simple “thank you all for the well wishes and support for my recovery” would have been fine.
Instead, they played stupid games. I understand if she needed a bit of time to process her situation and prognosis (whatever it is) but a 15 second video of her saying thank you would have avoided ALL of this nonsense.
That being said, debacle and terrible PR aside, I’m grateful it wasn’t domestic violence or a stroke or any of the other theories. I’m so happy I was wrong.
I’m sorry she and her family is having to go through this and I’m happy that she has the best medical care. I truly wish her all the best and I hope she stomps cancer’s ass.
BlueNailsBetty: I am glad it wasn’t DV or a stroke, or life support or any of those dark things either, though what she is dealing with is bad enough. KP just should not have lied to us– people can smell a lie, or some of us can. I wish her all the best and quick return to health.
@Jenjen- her entire life is **financed** by taxpayers. She’s a public figure, supported by public money.
@NotSoSocialB Does that then mean that she is owned by the taxpayers and has no agency whatsoever about her own cancer diagnosis? Or that she owes the public this very sensitive information, even if her three young children haven’t been prepared for it yet?
@Lory wouldn’t you be expected to tell your boss if you had cancer? Or would you just stay home for months and expect that they wouldn’t need any more information than that? Maybe you don’t legally have to tell the people paying you what is going on, but it would make things easier for everyone if you did.
At work, we’ve had quite a few people out dealing with personal or family’s (medical) issue. At no time, people were asked for medical details. It’s a big HR no-no. Informing people if you are going to take a long leave is courtesy and logistical.
My colleague did that because it means the rest of us will cover his clients for him. They did the same for me when I was out on a complicated pregnancy.
Folks, this is routine stuff we commoners deal with every day.
It’s not that complicated.
The taxpayers are not entitled to every details but they are entitled to knowing some of it (like for Charles where people know some of it but not all of it). Especially when we realize how bad the health system is in the UK. Most people with cancer don’t have access to that level of care or are placed on waiting lists for months if not years.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2024/feb/29/nhs-waiting-lists-falling-but-will-stay-above-pre-covid-levels-until-2030-ifs-says
@tealily in the jurisdiction where I operate my business it’s illegal for me to ask an employee to disclose their medical condition. I can ask for a letter from their healthcare provider confirming their need for a leave of absence, but that’s it.
Lory, it means when she’s going not be working for months on end (I suspect she won’t be back before at least Fall), and the taxpayer is paying her to work, then they needed to be transparent enough to explain her not working. There were a number of ways they could have handled this without bringing chaos like they did.
I have no idea why there are people who refuse to acknowledge that a taxpayer funded person has to be more transparent than their neighbor.
When William skipped the memorial service he set off all the speculation. It is then that they should have said this. No fake photo was needed or anything else.
Agreed.
I agree. That would have been the perfect time to make an announcement. It’s a shame KP handled this so poorly that Kate made the announcement herself. They could have handled it exactly like Charles’s announcement, the blueprint was there.
This is what they should have released 2 months ago. Even if she couldn’t do a video, this statement, perhaps written in her own handwriting so we’d know it actually came from her and not some coke-addled aristotwit slacking off in the KP offices, would have gone a long way.
Glad it wasn’t DV. Still doesn’t explain all of Huevo’s behaviour the last 2 months, given how blatantly he despises her when they’re together in public. I would have said perhaps the man is capable of regret, after his display at the Investiture where he dropped the medal; but then he had to go and put his foot in an entire sack of poo by throwing his cancer-dx’d wife under the media bus in full view of the public to cover his shady ass over a frankenphoto that HE originally took credit for taking.
So she’s ill, but in good hands, and godspeed to her. Hope her reflection time includes making peace with and apologizing to H&M for what she did to them.
Oh, and noted: she’s wearing Big Blue in the video. No one will ever convince me that Big Blue isn’t cursed.
Men leaving their wives after they get sick is frustratingly common, but William can’t leave Kate now, soooo.
i think this is all on their PR dept. i think she had surgery, removed a mass or something, and they thought it was benign and she would recover. then it became more concerning when the path results came back. so everything got super bizarre. but even if she was diagnosed in Jan…the woman is allowed the time to disclose it on her own timeline. don’t think any cancer patient wants to immediately shout it to the world they have cancer????
She didn’t need to say she had cancer weeks ago, just a fing clear video of her waving from a window to show she wasn’t dead, broken or in a coma.
That is not encroaching on her privacy, proof of life was all that was needed. Before things got ridiculous
kkat, agreed. KP could have handled this simply and professionally without forcing disclosure of the information. Instead it was crazy games and nonsense.
It was foolish and frankly, cruel to have played the photoshop/windsor walk nonsense when she is dealing with a condition this serious.
KP has let the world know they are dishonest amateurs that can not be trusted.
It really does call in to question exactly what in the hell was the photo with Carole all about? She’s clearly lost weight, when she didn’t have weight to lose in the first place.
Why was Buckingham Palace / her in laws publicly taking shots at her when they presumably knew this?
Because they’re all TERRIBLE people.
I feel bad for her. From the outside, it does not look like anyone in that wretched family, her husband included, is in her corner and supporting her.
Yeah, WTaF? Of course we thought something squirrely was happening. Even KP was throwing shade at Kate. And they did that KNOWING she has a cancer diagnosis? That she’s starting chemo? For Kate’s sake, I believe this video was the right move to curb the speculation and get the privacy she and her children very much need right now, but it makes the BRF look absolutely monstrous.
That’s right, BP has been trolling her. They are stone cold.
Queen Jump Off has been positively smug! She looks like the cat that got the canary.
How you can seem so cold when your family member is struggling? The Firm has no resemblance to a family!
Kate did a good job of stating what is going on.
I only wish that the public could’ve been informed earlier on to quell the fascination.
This is the best speech I have ever heard her give. Not nervous, with inner strength and quiet confidence I always wished she’d have.
Terrible diagnosis, I wish her well.
Seeing how wrll she handled herself, releasing the manipulated pic truly is bizarre.
PS William truly is a clown, throwing cancer sick wife under the bus.
I thought the same. This is absolutely the best public speaking she has ever done. It was a lot more than she needed to do, under the circumstances.
It humanized her in a way she hasn’t been since she married PW.
And,while she looks frail, there is no reason they could not have released a real picture of her. Just very curious about what KP was thinking with all these subterfuges…
This really is her best speech ever.
That’s too bad. It’s also too bad that this complete circus around them could’ve been prevented. It could’ve been this easy (publicly) a month ago.
My thoughts and prayers are with the millions of UK taxpayers going through cancer treatment with a strained NHS. 🤷🏾♀️
This.
That was my first thought! It’s nice she mentioned other cancer patients, but she will no doubt will be going private while my friend who is the same age also with three kids will be getting NHS chemo treatment this Spring.
I thought about that, too. Ambulance services so delayed, and people can’t get help for months. It makes the entire Royal Family look out of date to have the people starving and without medical care while they get gold plated service.
Exactly this sentiment in this household.
They started on with the “difficult for her in her position in the public eye” crap on the BBC 1 news this evening. As my OH said, no its difficult for single mothers with kids scraping by on whatever meagre wage they are earning whilst waiting for treatment on the NHS. As bad as I feel for Kate she has access to the best treatment, all the help needed and so much more. My heart goes out to those that dont have this available to them and wish them the best as I do Kate.
I have watched old people, with no one in the world to help them, shuffling in to the infusion center to get chemo. How they managed alone, I will never know. You want to get your heart ripped out, hang around a hospital.
@Fifee, I support your comment 100%
I truly cannot BELIEVE that kensington palace PR threw a woman with cancer under the bus and blamed her for that photoshop disaster.
What kind of monsters do that?
You said it: They are monsters. William included.
My husband — an actual decent British guy — would have REFUSED to let me take the fall in any circumstance, let alone these circumstances.
Mine would have burned down the world before this would have been allowed to happen. Glad you have a good one too.
This is what absolutely kills me. We act like these are normal people who run their own Instagram accounts…they’re not. As we know from Harry, everything is so carefully controlled, and statements are made on your behalf. Kate might have a laundry list of questionable character traits/previous actions that are problematic, but I can’t imagine the stress of dealing with cancer and what that means for your three young children, and seeing your PR team screw this up SO BADLY, including throwing you under the bus.
To be fair it has been reported widely and often that none of their staff knew what was wrong with her. It’s entirely possible KP staff found out as the video was being uploaded. They probably didn’t know they were throwing a woman with cancer under the bus.
William knew and he let that statement go out blaming her when he should have taken the hit. He SUCKS.
Yep, he actually threw her under the bus for the lie of wanting to make her children look their best, when she’s very obviously frail. He’s always sucked, but this is next level.
Harry’s point about always protecting the heir has never been so well made.
The fact that they did that only enhanced the suspicion that she was fine and this was all just smoke and mirrors to deflect from something else. Now that we know, it’s time to back off any speculation involving Kate’s health, but KP/BP and the entire farce of a public relations strategy are fair game.
Agree BettyRose
And why isn’t William in the video with her? He doesn’t have to say anything, he can just sit beside her and offer support. It makes them look like even more of an asshole..
I was wondering that too. Sitting next to her, holding her hand without speaking. It would have been a strong message of we’re a team.
Yep. William is still Williaming.
Yes! What kind of cad isn’t there supporting his wife on camera!? The kind who still plans to divorce her. I think they’re separate here because they’re separate, period.
Same thought. Unless she didn’t want him, but how can she talk about how supportive he is without this showing how supportive he is? It feels as if they’re really hanging her out to dry here. Wishing her well.
Yea I liked it better when they were cohesive with HM UNDER THE BUS.
I said this in a comment that disappeared, but while I’ve been critical of Kate, I felt an actual pang when I saw her sitting alone in that video … while reassuring other people with cancer that they’re not alone.
William is useless.
100% agree. She looks frail and alone. What kind of “support” could he be providing to her when he throws her under the bus for the stupid photo and then lets her make this statement by herself ?!
This has actually made me feel really sorry for Kate, and William is truly the worst. She does look utterly alone.
Not only KP but Buckingham too because what do you want to bet only the king gets to have all the cancer attention? Monsters
Cancer is horrible and I wish Kate a good, speedy, and complete recovery
Too soon to ask if we must give up wig jokes?
I know I drag her on this site day in and day out lol, but my heart still goes out to her. I’m sure she’s scared and I hope she recovers fully.
That said….KP mismanaged this so much. Was that bc she and William wanted to delay the announcement, never wanted to make one, was the plan to hope she could undergo chemo without telling anyone, what? This statement two weeks ago and the majority of the conspiracy theories never would have taken hold.
Exactly, both those things can be true at the same time.
How many things can we trace to William making this all worse? Basically all of it.
And that would make some sense as to the wigs for so long (as someone posted down below) they may have known for a while and never said anything.
I hope she has a full recovery. This video was by far the most genuine and heartfelt I have ever seen from her. She feels it all and you can tell.
A close female friend of the family recently went through chemo for colon cancer. She did not lose her hair.
She could be doing the cold-cap therapy.
Or she has a great wig.
I’m very relieved that she’s ok enough to make this video. I hope she’s able to make a full recovery. This does explain quite a lot of the terrible PR. They’re reacting to an unplanned and unknown situation. I hope the kids can be sheltered from this as much as possible. If chemo is going to suppress her immune system then it makes sense for William and the kids to avoid the public to prevent bringing germs home.
Wishing her a speedy recovery and that her three children are being protected right now.
Nothing else needs to be said.
This is the correct response.
Best protection for the children is not to bring them up in the first place.
Best protection is to tell the truth like Charles’s did. No drama. Not much details. Just the bare fact.
There would be no photoshopped photo to apologize for. No TMZ video. No crisis.
Well I’m shocked. I hope she is ok, cancer sucks no matter who you are. I myself had a scare at the start of the year and needed a couple of procedures. I didn’t tell anyone until everything was ok and I knew more information, because I didn’t want to worry anyone. So I can understand wanting to keep as much information to yourself until you know more.
Piers. It seems heard this from Camilla. He spoke about something being very wrong with kate.
Yeah, Piers Morgan was right. The evil little twerp probably did hear it from Camzilla, or another royal. I do appreciate that during this period, if due to the small speck of conscience he still possesses or due to being friends with the source, he refrained from blaming anything on the Sussexes unlike most of the British media. He actually did the right thing.
Not necessarily female organs related . It could be intestinal/colon ,or bladder, etc., etc….
Awful fact – bladder cancer is the #2 cancer caused by smoking cigarettes.
Does she smoke? Charles does not.
Also adrenal.
OMG a commenter on a previous post mentioned that they saw this theory from a YouTuber. So crazy!
Cancer is terrible and I wish her all the best in her recovery. KP is an absolute disaster of incompetence so hopefully she is isolated from their decision making and under the care of a competent medical team. She is the meanest of mean girls but no one deserves cancer.
I was just about to say that someone yesterday said she had ovarian cancer.
She did not look well. Too bad they created this entire circus when they knew it was so serious. I hope she recovers.
I’ve seen articles saying she’s having trouble eating which would track with abdominal surgery and cancer treatment. She was already too thin.
I noticed she was wearing baggy clothes. That made more sense than that pap video of her bouncing around in jeggings.
I feel like seeing her in this video announcement basically confirms that wasn’t her in the garden center footage.
Definitely a DupliKate at the garden center. In the video she still has that awful poodle bangs that she’s been rocking since last summer. No fringe in the video from the garden shop.
I think that video was the straw that broke the camel’s back because everyone was disbelieving it. And rightly so because it was so ineptly done, and they realized they had to now come forth with the truth. I just can’t believe how William and KP threw a sick woman under the bus like that with the MD photo manipulation. All my best wishes for a healthy recovery goes out to Kate and l hope she and her children are in a protected environment.
Good point. It’s clear that wasn’t her. Shame on the Sun and all of those lying trash rags.
Sad.
So they blamed the Photoshop mess on a woman who has cancer.
My jaw is black and blue from dropping.
That was my initial response as well…but there was this leak to US Weekly saying her staff hadn’t seen or heard from her. Potentially you can blame effing W and his staff at KP, and there’s a good chance the staff might not have been aware of her condition. W is an effing douche.
Blamed her on Mother’s Day. I shouldn’t be shocked at the depths they’ll descend to yet here I am.
Yes but she’s not in the Tower. Why nobody could see her at all?
They’re supposed to be the closest so does that mean she doesn’t trust them?
As for blaming her, she and her family could say that was a joke on Will part and that he was trying is hand on photoshop. It’s not like he loves her so why bother?
Seriously. Well said, Dee.
Looks like the original comment I responded to was removed (rightly so) but just fyi for others wondering…
The hair doesn’t fall out all at once the moment you’re exposed to chemo. Many also choose to wear wigs when they start to lose hair.
I hope this puts a damper on the speculation. As someone with health issues, I found some of the comments to be really cruel.
You can hate on their comms strategy all day for sure- but the medical conspiracies were really sad to me.
Exactly, and some don’t lose their hair at all. We have some patients (I work in oncology research) who have had great outcomes using cold caps. Despite years of treatments, the ladies didn’t lose their hair. But it’s cost-prohibitive for most, especially in the States. Kate will likely utilize one, and hopefully donate it once she finishes treatments.
As someone who finished chemo for breast cancer on November 1st and DID lose her hair – this is nonsense. Not everyone has the same treatments, we don’t know what kind of cancer she has or whether she actually does need chemo (some early stage breast cancers, for eg, are treated with radiation following surgery) and if she does need it she may not even be undergoing chemo so soon after surgery – I had a 2.5 month gap between surgery and starting chemo due to wound healing issues and even with the wait I still got a bad infection during chemo. Idgaf about the royals or this entire PR mess but stop propagating harmful myths.
She said in the video she has already started chemo.
It’s pretty obvious to me by that hair line she is wearing a wig in this video.
Thank you @come on
Just so. And there are different cell types with different treatments, all under one umbrella. Cancer is many diseases. You may know about your own treatment or surgery or whatever, or your spouses, but you cannot apply that to other people who ostensibly have the “same kind” of cancer. It may be, on a cellular level, completely different. There are many new drugs now, that are different from the classic chemo drugs. One’s experience may well not be applicable here.
If William had put out a statement acknowledging the cancer and treatment toward the end of February, there wouldn’t have been all of the questions. There would not have been a frankenphoto or the KP chaos communications.
Well, I’m guessing we won’t see her for public engagements before Fall at the earliest.
As I would feel for anyone: I am so sorry to hear. I wish her a full recovery.
Is that The Bench?
Yes! Seeing The Bench made my heart sing: That’s really our Kate!!! I’m so relieved.
You’ll note that she says the cancer cells were not discovered until later tests which could’ve been late February when William canceled his memorial service appearance.
That was March and they specifically said it was not related to Kate’s health. I think h would have gotten more sympathy if it was related and they had said so at the time.
Since they lied about the cancer they probably lied about why William skipped things too. KP isn’t really trust worthy at this point.
They absolutely could have lied but if they did that was stupid. All they had to say was he missed it bc of Kate’s
Health, instead they used that stupid “personal matter” excuse.
Of course they’ve been stupid throughout this whole process so what’s one more example of stupidity 🤷♀️
Jude, I think they knew in January. I believe they did a biopsy at the time of surgery. They would have known quite quickly.
Plus can you imagine William caring sooo much for Kate to be distraught by anything that’s happening to her?
If I was her , I would be very careful of my medication…. Will the grieving widow is very much a thing that will give him huge sympathy.
I’m sorry she’s going through this but dang they need to fire their entire PR team. King Charles was open about his health problem, posted a pic reading get well cards. Has been captured on video and in pics that were not grainy, clearly showing his face. He did not photoshop a photo. If she had done any of the above, it never would have gotten as crazy as it did.
100% – The handling could not have been worse. I don’t wish this on anyone – even the mean girl – When you have young children, your thoughts scatter with all the terrible “what if’s” hopefully for the family’s sake it was caught early enough, so she can concentrate on regaining optimal health – I’ll withhold all other platitudes for now
The statement reads to me that the surgery may have removed the cancer (“had been present”), and hence the “preventative” chemo, to stop it recurring. Not that it makes much difference but that’s what I think she was saying.
The press is now saying that this news is why PW pulled out of his godfather’s memorial service at such short notice, but the timing in that seems a bit off.
They got clean margins. Took some lymph nodes as well that came back clean. Disease was contained to the mass, no sign of spread or spots anywhere else – probably had the CT and it too was clear.
My mother and sister both had colon cancer. Both took Xeloda, one also infusions. Neither lost their hair, though the infusions were absolutely devastating and took weeks to recover from in between sessions.
They have a cap you wear that freezes the hair follicles so you don’t lose a lot of hair. My cousin had this happen, she lost just a little bit of hair.
This is why all the speculation about someone’s health always feels a little icky to me.
Aside from however else people feel about her as a person and what she’s said and done over the years, I can’t imagine facing that diagnosis, at a relatively young age with three small kids, and having everyone speculate and joke and make memes about it.
That said, the public relations of all this were handled very poorly, let all the talk run wild, and led to having to do this video.
Hope this is treatable and she’s able to recover fully.
Lucy2, We hadn’t heard or seen K since Xmas and she’s in a family which has a history of mistreating the women who marry into it. We know that they removed Meghan’s passport, she was super dependent on staff for all sorts of stuff, and W has a nasty temper. In fact, knowing that his wife had major abdominal surgery and unrelated cancer, he still publicly through her under a bus! Women disappear all the time. I don’t think calling out the fact that she was missing or speculating as to why was wrong.
I also hope it’s treatable and she makes a full recovery. A commenter elsewhere said ovarian cancer, and that’s rough.
I don’t wish this on anyone, especially a young mother with young children. I hope her husband is truly a support to her and I wish her a speedy recovery. Hopefully, she can stop obsessing with her sister in law.
That being said, I wonder if Charles doesn’t have cancer and the goal was to keep Kate’s cancer a secret?
This all seems too strange. Just a simple, press release would have been fine.
I’m not understanding your comment. It’s pretty clear from Kate’s statement that her cancer results came after Charles had already been diagnosed. Plus, Charles does not look well. People aren’t going to lie about cancer. No conspiracy.
I’m sorry. If you can hire BODY DOUBLES literally 2 days before this video you can lie about cancer. I don’t believe them about anything anymore.
It’s not clear that Kensington Palace hired body doubles for that video. It could have been a setup arranged among the models and the videographer, for sale.
@Who WERE These People, yeah I don’t think so. For some one to stage a fake outing and TMZ to buy and release – no way. KP would be all over it and they would definitely find who it was – way too much at stake to let people get away with impersonating them. The Firm would eat them alive.
It’s possible that hte videographer hired those body doubles and KP didn’t have anything to do with it. He made 200Gs for it. The Kate look alike, imo, was this woman: https://www.instagram.com/katelookalike/?hl=en
This makes me so sad. I hope she’s truly doing well and on the road to recovery. She’s my age. Her kids are my age. I wouldn’t wish that conversation on anyone.
WHERE THE F IS WILLIAM?! He should be on that damn bench holding her hand. I think it’s absolutely disgusting that he couldn’t manage things for her while she was recovering and now with chemo. Instead this entire thing blew up to epic proportions forcing her to make a public statement. It’s gross. I won’t put that blame on her at all.
This is such a good point! You know if this were Meghan or Harry, both of them would be sitting on that bench holding the other’s hand. But no, William is nowhere to be seen. I doubt she wanted to do this by herself, she sounds very emotional and on the verge of tears the entire video. She’s likely emotionally very fragile. She says William has been a huge support but is he really that helpful to her? We only saw him visit her once in the two weeks she stayed at the hospital. Yes, maybe he was going through a private entry but we saw Camilla check in on Charles publicly at least 3 or 4 times and he was only in the hospital for a couple of days. We can criticize Charles and Camilla all we want but none of us doubt there is genuine love and affection there. W&K did go to the farm store together but that was mostly to be like “look she’s walking and moving she’s fine!”
I just had a flash of Kate sitting alone not on this bench, but in front of the Taj Mahal
This was my Mom’s first reaction as well. If William and their staff handled things competently then Kate would never have been forced to make a video telling the world such difficult news
Yeah. It looks pretty lonely on that bench. I hope someone close to her is taking care of her. I am not sure if that someone is her husband…
Underhill, a commenter elsewhere (I can’t find them) on this site mentioned hearing this. How sad for Kate and her family. Wishing her well in her battle against cancer.
Kensington Palace has a lot of explaining to do. First off, much better messaging would have spared her and them a lot of confusion and embarrassment. Also, why on earth blame Kate for picture editing under these circumstances? A certain royal dude is an absolute disgrace as well.
last night I ran across a clip on YouTube, and I can’t find it now. I will look later and post it here if I can. British guy said she had emergency surgery for ED, and then was subsequently found to have ovarian cancer. I do not know who he was, or if he is correct.
I’m willing to believe his tea. And the palaces scrub so much from the internet that I have started screenshotting things because they disappear a lot.
It was a Forbes Breaking News clip, but I think they may have pulled that one? I can’t find it now.
Tuesday, I didn’t think to screenshot it for which I am sorry. I had no real reason last night to think that this guy was correct…I am not sure now that he was correct about the details. I dearly hope he is not correct.
I may not like her, but I really wish her well.
That said, amateur hour at KP handled this so terribly.
Their entire team needs to be fired. They damaged their credibility by staying silent and distributing fake photos and videos (because there is no way the woman in the video IS Kate) Their inaction and leaking encouraged conspiracies. This video – or a simple statement like Charles’ – should have been released a month ago.
Firing the team will probably not help with anything because the main problem is William and he cannot be fired from his job, which he clearly is not fit for.
I agree with you. I suspect William has been the obstacle to proper comms for this from day one. BP and Charles had set the example that they could have easily followed. If she didn’t want to be as public as him, she didn’t have to, especially if chemo treatments were going to be given.
Preventive chemo? You don’t give cytotoxic drugs if the cancer is removed. And if you have cancer, chemo is active, not preventive. Strange parsing of words.
You can take the cancer out then do chemo to prevent it from coming back. it’s just semantics. But they don’t do the chemo unless they think there is a strong chance of it coming back.
It’s weird, but sometimes during surgery, even a single cancer cell can be left behind or can break away… that’s why they do preventive chemo.
Agree. Plus, I think sometimes they can’t be 100% sure that some cancer cells are not still in the body. I’ve heard it called adjuvant therapy.
My uncle had lung cancer 2 times his oncologyst told himeven if he seems fine and the results came back and he is cancer free he can be 100% sure the cancer would be back, and he was right the third time it came back in his bones he died 10 minutes before his chemo treathment
She said the tests found cancer “had been” present, which I read to mean it had actually been removed by the surgery (hence preventative chemo, I guess), but it could have been expressed more clearly. And the press don’t seem to have picked up that nuance, if it was intended.
I noticed that too but I read it as a coping mechanism. People often try to frame a disease in a positive light, it’s good actually. I don’t just have to get chemo- I have to get preventative chemo which just sounds better and feels better to say.
Yes, there is preventive chemotherapy, also known as adjuvant chemotherapy. I had stage III endometrial cancer that was completely removed by surgery. However, there was no way to know if there were still cancer cells circulating in my body. Adjuvant chemotherapy was a proactive measure to reduce the risk of cancer recurrence.
Not accurate. I had cancer of the renal pelvis that required a radical nephroureterectomy. Everything was removed, margins were clear, no apparent lymph node involvement. However, biopsy of the tumor revealed the cancer was VERY aggressive and had invaded the muscularis , so PREVENTATIVE chemotherapy was recommended in order to get any potential micro-metastases that may have occurred. Everything she said tracks with my own experience with cancer, including that she hasn’t started the chemo yet. There is a certain amount of healing from surgery that has to happen first. I was mildly overweight when I started chemo, and I lost 30 pounds from the treatment. Depending on they type of therapy she receives, it can be brutal. I wish her the best in her recovery.
It’s actually called adjuvant chemotherapy – from mayoclinic.org: “Adjuvant therapy is often used after primary treatments, such as surgery, to lessen the chance of your cancer coming back. Even if your surgery was successful at removing all visible cancer, microscopic bits of cancer sometimes remain and are undetectable with current methods.” I imagine “preventative” was said as it’s a better understood word than adjuvant.
I had a cancerous tumour removed from my colon along with surrounding lymph nodes – pathology found that one lymph node contained cancer cells, so even though there was no evidence that I still had any cancer in my body, because of how the lymphatic system works there was no way to know that I didn’t have any cancer cells left, so I underwent adjuvant chemotherapy – started it about 7 weeks post surgery, it continued over the next 4 months. And not every type of chemo treatment causes hair loss – chemo for colorectal cancers typically do not, I did not lose any of my hair.
Nope. Even if they think they got it all there’s very often chemo, or radiation, or both. My surgeons were very sure they got it all but my type of cancer had a very poor survival rate. I did four months of aggressive chemo starting six weeks after my surgery to greatly reduce the chance of a recurrence. And my hair didn’t fall out until past the halfway point. I was very lucky and I’m many years past any chance of a recurrence now.
You are incorrect.
I wish her handlers hadn’t said preventative chemo. But chemo is done to stop cancer from spreading and to kill any cancer cells that couldn’t be removed by surgery.
So, you are an oncologist?
Then you better tell my oncology team because I took targeted therapy drugs (chemo) for a full year and did 30 days of radiation *after* I had a clear MRI and surgical margins.
Yeah, now I feel like an a—hole.
But none of this would have happened without their disastrous handling of the situation, and it doesn’t change what W&K did to Meghan.
I agree, Shawna. I feel totally stupid, and sad at myself for speculating. I’m hands up saying it. But yes they could’ve stopped things running wild if they’d said something, particularly in the last 3/4 weeks. And all this “big bang” at Easter. What the hell are they trying to do with this silliness.
Don’t feel like an asshole. Being concerned about her wellbeing and her whereabouts, especially with regard to that family’s entire history of abusing women, was not a bad thing.
William’s arrogance and his staff’s incompetence, and the rota’s complicity are what caused all the theories and concerns.
I am grateful I was wrong about this being a DV issue and I’m grateful she will get the best medical care. No guilt, just relief she is cognitively aware, ambulatory, and unharmed by William (other than him throwing her under the bus).
The terrible public relations errors make sense now. Stress causes people to lose a lot of IQ points. They were probably overwhelmed by the diagnosis, but unfortunately their instinct to retreat led to more problems and ever more stress.
This doesn’t excuse the total incompetence of the KP comms staff.
Of course not. But staff cannot override the Wales’ bad decisions.
Public relations management is about cost-benefit decisions. When they learned she had cancer, she and William had to decide whether to announce and what. Stunned and shocked by the diagnosis, and already wary of the press, they decided to stay silent. Benefit: private time. But in the absence of real information, speculation developed, then spun wildly. The failure of the “proof of life” and ensuing controversy created conditions where continued silence was intolerable. Cost: unpleasant gossip, and more significantly, the credibility of the future king and of the Monarchy itself are questioned.
Overall, I think the fiasco is a net loss. I doubt they will ever be regarded as completely trustworthy.
It’s a pity. All this trouble could so easily have been avoided.
BP faced the same scenario except with a head of state and they handled it far better.
Sorry but, I’m not buying that excuse. These people are supposedly professionals. A half decent PR person wouldn’t have let this situation fester into the almighty clusterfcuk it’s become. They’re paid to handle situations like these and they have been found severely lacking.
You needn’t apologize for your opinion! I don’t think it’s an excuse to say that in terrible circumstances Kate and William erred terribly.
The key is in your comment about a half-decent PR person. K&W had/have/can get better than half-decent public relations experts, but if K&W won’t permit staff to the work, the work doesn’t get done. Now we see the consequences of their poor decision.
I thought Kate’s announcement and message was well-handled and this should have been done last month. Hearts obviously will go out to her and the children. So are we to conclude that there are two members of the royal family undergoing treatment for cancer?
I feel bad for her and her babies and her family. I’m bracing myself for the attacks that they will unleashed by that disgusting royal press. I want for them to be protected and hunker down and live their lives to the fullest.
This was terribly mishandled by KP as others have said. Smh. The shenanigans and lies were just ridiculous. And why the hell would they throw her under the bus about the photoshop situation?? Everything about how the royal family and the machine around them operates is so gross… I hope she can recover from this and will be cancer free at the end of her treatment. I also hope she has truly good people around her… but since she’s so enmeshed in that world, i doubt it. Maybe her mother would actually have her best interests at heart, but i even question that.
Having lost my best friend to cancer, I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.
My heart goes out to her children.
As with others I have every sympathy for her but I am still left wondering if that video of her and William at the farmer’s market was real or was it faked. And if faked I am hoping it wasn’t by anyone connected to KP because given this announcement that would really really be horrible of them.
The hair in that video does not look like her hair here. Maybe she got a haircut though 🤷♀️ but why stage that video if you knew you were going to release this?
I don’t think they were going to release this. The parking lot video was a last-ditch effort to show she was fine and get the press off her back, which was all because of the bungled way it has been handled this past month. But the breaching of her medical records, or attempt to, is what was finally the tipping point. The press had wind of it. I mean, Piers Morgan last week said what he had heard, that if it was even only half true, was still bad. So Kate and William realized it was going to come out, and it was better to come out from her and take control.
I’m not entirely sure K and W were on the same page. I do buy that K didn’t want to announce anything, but W seemed to be going out of his way to make her seem healthy and even blamed her for the Frankenphoto. I can’t imagine that being squirrelly about her health issues and at the same time trying their best to make K seem like she was healing is logical on K’s part knowing what we know now. What did W think the benefit would be of presenting her as healthy and blaming her for photoshopping, though?
After seeing Kate in today’s video, I’m doubling down that the woman in the farm market video was not her.
Her appearance today makes it even less believable that it’s her in the farm shop video. There’s a part of me that wonders if The Sun or TMZ staged it as a means to “smoke them out” or force KP’S hand. Which is very fucked up, but I don’t put anything past the tabloids.
Oh I feel terrible. That is very very sad. I wish her a speedy recovery and I hope her kids are alright! I know lots of people who have fought cancer and survived and thrived! Wishing the best for everyone involved!
I can speak to the cold cap– it’s horrible and painful. my best friend was diagnosed with breast cancer in january and started out wearing the cold cap because she did not want to lose her hair. then she ditched it after one treatment.
Everyone’s experience is different but hair usually starts to fall out from chemo at about 4 weeks. So it’s possible she has not lost her hair yet. My friend had all her hair then lost 90% of it after her fourth week of chemo.
If she began chemo in late february it’s possible her hair will fall out soon.
This is horrible and I wish her a speedy recovery. I do not at all believe they are lying about this. But i’m incandescent that Kensington Palace blamed HER for the photoshop disaster.
Not all chemo results in hair loss. Treatments have advanced a lot. My mom recently switched her meds (stage 4, lots of med changing). Her new med doesn’t have hair loss as a side effect and her hair is growing back. Previously she had some balding areas.
This is true some chemo treatments don’t lead to hair loss.
I had bile duct cancer and did a huge surgery to remove the tumor. After that I needed to heal and recover for three months before I could start adjuvant treatment. The chemo they put me on is called Capecitabine and most people who takes it does not loose their hair. I lost some but to others I think it looked like my hair just got thinner.
It looks like she’s lost weight. No doubt a stressful situation. Hopefully it’s been caught early and she can make a full recovery.
If the cancer is in her abdominal area it could be pancreatic or colon or who knows, but none of those are good, and most likely will kill or will permanently disable her unfortunately.
My father in law had a tumor removed from his pancreas last month and is now on what his doctors are calling a preventative course of chemo. He was lucky in that they caught it super duper early because they were looking for something else and that popped up, and his prognosis is excellent.
My Dad had pancreatic cancer 7 years ago and was one of the lucky ones. He had surgery for it and decided at his age he didn’t want to pursue chemo or radiation. 7 years later and he’s still going strong. It does happen. But that said pancreatic cancer is one of the worst because it so rarely does get caught early. If this is the form of cancer Kate has, well or really any form of cancer, I am hoping this earlier surgery may be instrumental in saving her life by having her doctors find it in the early stages.
Strangely Daily Fail made Harry and Meghan their main focus of the year by posting articles on their vacation, lifestyle brand and how they’re aiming to be “Alternate Royals”. It’s clear DM knew Kate had cancer, and painted Harry in advance in a negative light. Now they get a million clicks from “Did Meghan know while she launched her lifestyle brand!?” “How callous are they!?” I can practically hear the blonde louse, that gets 10 pounds a word, writing her takedown article on the Sussexes right now lol.
I mean did her sister know when she went on vacation? Did her brother know when he announced he was writing a book? I’m not even knocking them for that lives go on You can’t stop living. Of course they’ll never see it that way with Harry and Megan but I don’t blame her siblings or anyone else for keeping it moving.
I’m glad Kate is safe and hope she has a speedy recovery.
Yeah KP absolutely messed up the comms on this in so many ways. Putting a statement out earlier that “she appreciates the well-wishes” would’ve dampened the speculation and given her time for the tests to come back and then figure out how to disclose that information.
I don’t think their staff has been involved in any of this and if at least a good comms person had been involved they could’ve given advice on what to say and when to keep the public and media at bay while giving her time.
I’m just going to report what I said on the post.
Sorry to hear about this but just makes what the Palace did even worse. She says she has the support of William but this wasn’t the way to go about this. And why did KP tell reporters that it wasn’t cancer? Just terrible all around. The Palace threw Kate under bus.
And where is “William by my side”?
Under the bench? Behind the hedge?
When I had my thyroid removed, they discovered cancer. Totally y expected, had zero u dictation that it was cancer. A few radiation treatments later, I was okay. But it was shocking and very scary.
It doesn’t make anything they’ve done better, she and her husband are still terrible people. But I hope she heals well and does better from here on out.
And I hope their children are well, and being informed of her condition in appropriate ways.
Horrible news. And telling that out of all the speculation this didn’t come up because no one wanted it to be something so awful. (Except for some of the Waleses so-called “fans”, I guess.)
Absolutely insane how KP botched this and threw her under the bus repeatedly.
My heart does go out to her and her children, especially. Charlotte and George are old enough to understand their mom is sick but Louis is probably still too young too quite comprehend what is going on.
At the same time, this was so badly mishandled from the first statement of her abdominal surgery (which we still don’t know why she had it but that’s not really that important). No one suspected cancer because KP leaked the issue was non cancerous from the get go. Whether they were lying at the time or whether the cancer was discovered afterwards who knows. But had they followed the same playbook as Charles, revealing the cancer diagnosis shortly after the surgery and that she would be getting chemotherapy, the press and social media would have left her alone to recover. They also would have given William space who probably wanted to make sure not just that Kate was settled, but that his kids were okay before he started resuming duties. At the same time, it shouldn’t have taken 3 months to announce this, not even the kids would need that long to understand what’s going on.
This makes KP (aka William) look all the worse for letting her take the fall for the fake Mother’s Day photo while recovering from surgery and chemo.
And while I’ll never be a fan of Kate’s, I do hope she gets better. Recovery from cancer doesn’t really have a timeline and I hope they were able to catch it early.
Wow, best wishes for her recovery. All that nonsense that came before was so unnecessary.
Well, this is lot worse than a divorce, or growing out her bangs or appearing on the masked singer.
I hope she makes a recovery for the sake of her children.
She looks great. So why, for the love of God, did they release the doctored photo and refuse to release the original? I feel sorry for her and still think the PR was abysmal.
Yes why? She seems well enough to make a photo or two…
She didn’t even have to say what she had….it’s strange.
Like I said on another post I wish her well because no one deserves cancer. That being said they need to clean house. Pay a comms person more than 25k a year and hire some competent crisis management people. I don’t think their team could have handled this worse. This is a situation where even people that despise her would say back off and they instead made sure she trended everyday for having a BBL. I have never really speculated on her procedure but I’ve always said what they are saying and how she’s behaving doesn’t match and this makes WAY more sense.
All sympathy for Kate. Feelings that the PR botch has been because of William’s demanding to be in control and lashing out remain. They should have said something. They should not have put out the photo. You do things right all along so you have some good will from people when things go wrong.
While this is just gossip and fodder for most of us. People forget she has 3 minor children and how terrifying it must be for them right now.
I learned my Dad had pancreatic cancer when I was 42. I was terrified, cried every night. Tried to make a deal with God to take me and not him. Deal denied. And God took him from me 10 months later. I’m sure many of us know what that devastation feels like losing a parent.
I really hope they caught it early enough to zap it out. And Kate uses her platform to encourage young women for early testing. And if something does not feel right. And your doctor dismisses it. Get a second opinion. It may save your life.
The woman is in treatment for cancer and they throw her under the bus for the ghastly photoshop? Gurl, you in danger.
I wish her and her kids well. It’s the most human we’ve ever seen Kate, which is so very sad. But honestly, this is what they should have done in the first place. Straightforward and succinct.
KP PR is a disaster.
More importantly, if she’s that well why not make a photo and thanks everyone for their kindness? She didn’t have to announce anything.
Please don’t. Not everyone loses their hair. There is even a treatment, using a “cold cap”, a refrigerated cap, to help prevent hair loss. If they do lose hair, it usually starts after a treatment or two and isn’t always complete. Wigs make it much easier to deal with if it happens.
People being afraid of side effects can discourage them from seeking or finishing treatment, so untruths and wrong information isn’t harmless.
I wish Kate well. Wishing and praying for total healing.
Terrible for Kate and the family. Why on earth would William and Kensington Palace throw the blame on a woman with cancer for the Mother’s Day photo?
Thank you. Like yes, not everyone knew about this but William could have easily stopped the statement from being created/sent.
May she fully recover.
Agree 💯. There is more to come.
I wish her nothing but the best. And hope she recovers quickly and well.
The other stuff can wait for later.
Finale someone with good sense made the right decision. I understand how difficult it mah have been to disclose such a difficult situation, but the whole circus could have been prevented right from the start if they had been honest – especially after Chuck was. KP people are really that incompetent.
Anyways, I feel very sorry for Kate and her family and I wish her well.
The autocorrect did a number on me, oh my god.
Except she didn’t have to make that statement….she could have just say that she took time for recovery (without saying anything).
An idea about the context, guys:
Today, 22nd March, is Daffodil Day in the UK and Ireland. It’s a huge nationwide fundraiser for cancer in which people buy daffodil pins and flowers to fund research and hospice care. That would be why she’s posed in front of a field of daffodils, and it could possibly explain why they chose today in particular for the announcement.
Ah! Ty for that bit of info.
Certainly adds to the emotional quality of the released vid. A good decision on someone’s part!
Thank you for that insight! That is incredibly poignant, but I’m afraid we haven’t seen much thoughtfulness from either Kate or unWilling. Perhaps this dreadful diagnosis has provoked a new way of her doing things though.
Nah, the whole thing reeks of BP saying enough we’re doing a statement.
Because Charles is jealous of anyone taking the spotlight away from him, do you suppose she didn’t want to steal his limelight by announcing she also has cancer?
You talk about the woman that spend her time in front of the Queen during her Jubile lol
I’m wondering if she didn’t say anything because Charles did not want his cancer diagnosis upstaged.
My thoughts exactly.
I don’t think that’s it, William and his dad are always in competition. I don’t think they necessarily knew when Charles announced it at the beginning of February. They announced Kate and Charles’s surgeries in quick succession on the same day. I’m not sure they coordinated that, it’s hard to know given how much BP and KP are at war. Even if they had wanted to stagger the announcements, they didn’t need to wait 2 months to do it. I really do think it was all about privacy and trying to come to terms after the initial shock. But they waited way too long too announce it and when William noped out of his godfather’s memorial, the rumor mill went out of control.
I’m sorry to hear this as well. If only KP, W and whoever hadn’t made this all so much horribly worse with their incompetence. Imagine how damaging that is on recovery.
Honestly this is a great video. She looks, sounds and feels credible and focused.
Onward, I guess.
I wish her a full recovery. And it’s sad to me that KP managed to bungle this so badly. If they had been a bit more transparent (like Charles) it would have been an outpouring of goodwill.
I’m slightly younger than Kate and have lost two close friends to cancer, with several more that successfully treated cancer. Some people were very open from the start, others didn’t tell anyone until treatment was over. It’s a terrifying ordeal, and perhaps especially for people with young children.
Kate made this announcement today and the whole country knows. Tomorrow, all the parents of her kids’ classmates will know. The day after, all the classmates. I can’t imagine putting my kids through that. I think they were indeed hoping they could get through end of treatment without making a comment.
I agree that the actions of KP have been idiotic and poor from a PR perspective, but this is not the same situation as Charles’ diagnosis and I think it’s ridiculous to say they “should” have said something before.
I have my own (very negative) thoughts about the royal family, but on a human level, this is awful.
I wish Kate a full recovery.
So she was diagnosed and is undergoing treatment for cancer, and KP’s impulse was to lie to the international media, try to pass off a fake photo (multiple fakes?), maybe-maybe-not participate in a body double sighting, and finally make Kate film a video alone, in which she admits to lying after being left to shoulder the photoshop blame personally?
I hope that we can separate wishing Kate a speedy, thorough, and private recovery from the valid, pertinent questions that deserve to be asked regarding the office for a future head of state being caught openly lying to the public (again). It’s not just hiding Kate’s health info because she wanted privacy. It’s the instinct to go so far as to frankenstein together a photo and lie to the public about it. If they wanted to protect her they wouldn’t have had her take the blame for an international k*ill order that could’ve so easily been blamed on some staff member instead.
A Brit pundit is now on television sneering about conspiracy theorists. Well, the conspiracy theorists were correct, weren’t they?
KP dealt with this situation SO badly. Throwing Kate in front of the bus with the photo editing?!
I think Will and Kate are separated and have been for some time. I hope Kate beats the cancer and divorces him and gets a Diana sized settlement.
My mum didn’t loose her hair on pill chemo but did lose it on the drip chemo. She’s back to pill chemo now, and is happy her hair has grown back in.
This is sad, and I hope she makes a full recovery.
I am curious about why neither she nor Charles have specified the type of cancer she has. Maybe people don’t typically specify in the UK? I feel like people in the US always specify which type. And after their full-throated support of Bowel Babe who was fighting bowel cancer, why not just say the type? Perhaps to keep people from speculating on “survival rates?” People will speculate anyway, and the royals have access to the best medical care available. It’s also a missed opportunity to bring awareness and donations to specific cancer societies or advocacy groups. And to de-stigmatize what’s maybe now considered an embarrassing problem! Katie Couric and recently Anne Helen Peterson have been really public and up front about getting surveillance colonoscopies. That is such valuable information for people!! It’s scary, embarrassing and taboo to talk about so openly.
Ultimately the PR team failed Kate in this situation. Fire them all and pay well to get real professionals who know how to deal with difficult clients.
Well, there it is. To me this explains pretty much everything from the past two months. I think the reason why this is only being released now is because people needed to hear this from Kate’s mouth, with her sitting in front of a camera, and until now she wasn’t in a condition where she could record this. Also explains the secrecy around her health and how very few people knew what was actually going on. It all tracks, sadly.
Cannot believe how appallingly KP mishandled this when this was the reality. If nothing else, even if they did not know, William should have steered them correctly for the sake of his wife who is literally battling cancer. But we all know who he is and how he is so it’s hardly worth mentioning. On top of all the frantic word vomit constantly ensuing from KP, there’s also BP just standing by and laughing. One word from William to shut down all the tomfoolery and panic damage control would have sufficed and yet he lifted not a finger. Extremely tragic. To say nothing of the frankenphoto.
Can’t imagine how difficult this must be for the children. Hope she beats the cancer – those are three extremely young kids who do not deserve to lose a parent to this. Seeing a loved one fight cancer and go through chemotherapy is a special type of terror, fear and pain I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.
I wonder if William is ready for how badly this is going to reflect on him in the international media.
This was so badly mismanaged. She has cancer. Okay. The public would have understood her stepping away from public life to treat and heal. To protect her children from rumors and speculation. But the PR genius decided to lie to the public. To gaslight and manipulate the truth. And when they were caught in a lie, he didn’t fall on his sword for his ill wife, he and his lackies in the media and in KP have done everything possible to throw Kate under the bus. William has made this so much worse than it needed to be.
I find her explanation a bit odd. You don’t go in not knowing its most likely cancer. There is a lot involved like a lot imaging, MRI’s and specialist to have enough suspicion that it most likely is cancer to then have the operation. Her statement is also almost exactly the same as Charles’s statement. This is all strange but she is human and who knows how to feel about his when it happens to you. My sister just went through this and I was by her side at all the appointments.
This doesn’t explain why she was thrown under the bus over the photo. Wouldn’t this make her even more important to protect ?
She might be in shock from it all still and having a hard time repeating what happened. I wish her health and healing.
They dumped this on a Friday afternoon. That’s a well known PR tactic and a sure sign they wanted this story to go away over the weekend.
More amateur hour antics from KP.
Do you know what – now I feel really sorry for Kate. A horrible thing to go through under any circumstances but to do it whilst the team around you – supposedly professional and on your side – so thoroughly makes it worse is just appalling. I wish her a full and quick recovery
ALL of this – ALL – could have been avoided without interfering with her recovery process or disturbing her whatsoever. One statement FROM her thanking people for their well wishes and cards and a few updates signed C on their instagram would have avoided all this.
Instead we got this sh*tshow AND then the frankenphoto and THEN – as many here have pointed out already – they let the woman with cancer take the fall for editing the photo they made a big deal out of saying William took.
What. A. Mess.
Uber grim possibility: if her prognosis is bad, then maybe they’re going to try to pin everything on her. Some thought that they’d try to blame her for Sussexit etc if they divorced. If they can hang it all on a dying/dead woman, then they can demand that people shut up about the whole thing in the name of decency and the kids. Like he managed to do with the panorama interview. I sincerely hope they’re not vile enough to scapegoat her if she’s on her way out.
Now was that so hard?!
I hope Kate has a full recovery because she is the mother of young children. I hope too that lessons were learned by her and her sociopath husband and their staff. The stunt Queen bs they did was unnecessary. No one would begrudge her privacy and time to heal from this so they caused an international sh!tstorm for nothing.
Yes, it was hard (for Kate). They have not caused “international shitstorm for nothing”.
I hope karma will bring you all the things you hoped for Kate ❤️
Actually, I’m sure this has been the hardest thing she’s ever done. i’m sure she’d thank you for asking.
We all already know the hardest thing she’s ever had to do…
https://www.celebitchy.com/812089/princess_kate_walking_with_meghan_was_one_of_the_hardest_things_shed_ever_had_to_do/
I see the smug morality police have entered the chat. Seriously, why would anyone think anyone here wished cancer on someone? All I’ve seen is speculation based on the facts that Will and Kate, and KP and the BRF, have a history of being lying grifters from time to time. Therefore, what are onlookers supposed to expect besides lying and grifting, cruelty and racism, etc? Seems odd to chastise anybody here who was (and still justifiably is) skeptical of this whole situation. Spare everyone your holier than thou hand slaps.
Agreed. The royalists and British media are going to go into hypocritical scolding mode for at least a week when they’ve said far worse about other royals than the vast majority of people observing this bizarre saga.
Moral hand slapping is nothing compared to the absolute torching people were getting for daring to suggest Kate might actually be sick in the last few weeks.
Sites like this are weird that way sometimes. We come to read and offer opinions, but many of us feel so strongly about being “right” that condescension and mean-spiritedness get free reign. Luckily this site is better than most, but lots of sanctimonious “whataboutism” still finds its way here. It’s nicer when people just say they disagree instead of jumping on each other.
My SIL went in for fibroid surgery at 42, they came back cancerous and she had to have a hysterectomy maybe 2 weeks later. She unfortunately only survived 4 year after that. It was devastating, and all I could think about with this video. Hopefully it’s a different situation all together.
Most likely uterine or ovarian cancer, I would imagine. Terrifying to face~
If we take what the palace said at face value (2 weeks in the hospital, at least two months off work, preventative chemo), I believe she has early-stage pancreatic cancer.
An open Whipple Procedure is a 10 day stay in the hospital, followed by 2-4 months of recovery.
One big takeaway from this is that the palace has failed Kate in a pretty stunning way, given the way they’ve shielded her over the years. It’s completely bizarre all around in that context. They could’ve easily doubled down on their initial “we’re not commenting further” statement and shut the commentary out. They could’ve done a million and one things differently for one of the most famous members of their institution, and yet…
It really is monarch-and-heir-only for guaranteed protection. Even for a woman with cancer, they still put her out to shield the heir who was happy to take credit for that fake photo. I wonder how she feels about that.
Lost my best friend to cancer 2 months ago-I wish her the best.
That would’ve also been a great opportunity for him to beat back the affair rumors and rally male partners of female cancer patients to support them (instead of leaving them, as a large percentage of husbands do).
I do wish Kate well as cancer is scary and brutal and chemo is no joke.
But yeah their teams handled this soooo badly. The fact that these insane conspiracy theories popped up and all the gossip about William’s affairs was brought up is bad. The need new PR people. They need PR people who aren’t British and will not be intimidated by the monarchy and will give them the straight up truth and not be ‘yes’ men.
Heartbreaking. Imagine being William, having lost your own mom as a child and now facing a real risk that your children lose theirs at an even younger age. What a nightmare. This is actually ever since I became a mom, one of my worst nightmares. That I cannot be there for my daughter until she is safely settled in adulthood.
KP got some Olivia Pope-level consulting and have deployed the PR equivalent of a nuclear bomb. It’s an unassailable, bullet-proof explanation with 180 degree turn of public sentiment. No one can possibly say a bad thing or question anything now, right? They’d be ghouls.
Wish her the very best.
Hopefully now they stop blaming her for all the fake photos they have released
I wish her nothing but total and complete recovery. I’ve had family members with cancer before. Some become cancer free but sadly some didn’t and died to it. So I know how horrible it is first hand. It’s hard on kids especially no matter how old they are. So I feel for all of them I really do.
However, they completely bungled the communications about this. It is why the conspiracy theories went as wild as they did. Cancer is a shock to deal with especially when you have your children to tell/deal with but this is why you have (competent) advisors/communications staff when you’re famous – they’re the rational ones when you’re dealing with an irrational situation/feelings. They didn’t need to announce cancer from the very beginning but a simple “We will keep the public updated with any news.” rather than “No updates, see her at Easter. Bye and don’t bother us ever again.” would have been a lot better. It’s one of the reasons why people left Charles alone after he announced he had cancer – BP were open from the very beginning and so there was no reason to speculate
I hope this has been a lesson to all communications staff but to W&K themselves that their staff are, quite frankly, terrible. I will end by reiterating that I truly do wish her and her family nothing but peace and recovery during this time.
no… i don’t think so. i think there’s clearly a difference in how the public thinks what women owe to the world and what a man owes. bc she didn’t want to be paraded around or give talks or be photographed while recovering or coping with her cancer diagnosis, it became open season on her.
Call me cruel, heartless, mean etc but the reality is she’s a public figure and the future consort. There is going to be speculation about her regardless and her own team failed her (or she failed to hire decent staff) and increased it by not handling it well.
As I said above, a statement such as “The Princess will share more with the public if there is more to share and she feels comfortable” back in January. It doesn’t share the cancer diagonsis but it’s also not “no you’re not getting an info bye until easter”. It’s that secrecy that created the conspiracies in the first place.
It’s perfectly fine to say Kate deserves medical privacy but also admitted this was a communications failure. If you can’t see that then agree to disagree with me then.
She became “open season” because KP obfuscated and were deceptive, creating the atmosphere were their hole-filled explanation(s) led to all the theories. All they had to do was do what Charles did, no more. She would have been given even more grace than Charles because she has young children.
The team at KP handled this HORRIBLY. It will be taught as a ‘how not to handle the serious illness of a tax-funded public figure’ in PR courses.
She is a public figure and was more than happy to help the British Media feed the lie that royals have no expectation of privacy because the public pays for them. For years, she has participated in/sanctioned articles touting her as the face of the nation, the savior of the royal family, the lynchpin in it all. There is a flip side to the coin she has been playing with, and we have seen it show its tail over the last few months.
Also, there is a galaxy between carefully releasing selected information to keep the public feeling informed and sympathetic and parading her around. Going completely dark for months after years of chasing the spotlight is something no one with even five minutes in communications would advise.
The fault isn’t on the public for speculating, that is as predictable as rain. It is on the palace (and most likely, specifically, William) for the way it handled things.
i agree the comms could have been handled better. that picture was bad and shouldn’t have been released. but it was released as a forced gesture of proof of life. that statement you said would help would not have helped quell speculation would not have worked at all. if she said that the speculation would still be there: people will still want to see her to see “what’s wrong”, people will put all sorts of rumors out there, that she’s lying or it’s a coverup or her kids is sick or infidelity etc. my point is the public will ALWAYS always be harder on women in the public then men. and all i’m saying is we just need to be better and not fuel these speculations.
You don’t know if a more truthful statement would or would not have been enough because they didn’t release one. All you’re doing is guessing.
The fact of the matter is their communications led to public speculation in such a way that Kate became an internet meme. Any halfway decent PR professional would tell you that a more transparent comms strategy would not have to that kind of drama (even if society has different expectations for women). A statement with more transparency, a follow up message from Kate thanking the public for their best wishes (clue: she has a staff, she wouldn’t even have to write it)..so much more could have been done better, and I have a very hard time believing a better strategy would still have led to the circus we’ve seen.
That must not have been easy for her doing this video alone. I wonder why William wasn’t by her side for this. Wishing her a full recovery. Thankful it wasn’t DV.
I would assume because it would pull focus. This is her story and health journey to take.
Oh my god.
Hoping she recovers for the sake of her kids.
I mentioned the same thing to a friend of mine. He didn’t have to be there, but showing him sitting next to her holding her hand or something would have made sense….
I was commenting under someone else’s post about why it was weird William wasn’t in the video
I am so sad to hear this but also feel strongly that she should allow herself to be seen, it would send a powerful message to those going through treatment that they are not alone and normalize appearance changes that result from treatment.
I hope Kate gets better for her sake and the sake of her children. William and KP messed this up so badly. Who would blame the Photoshop mess on a woman who has cancer? Then send out additional fake photos?
Camilla looking SO HAPPY the past few weeks makes the “queen” look like even more of a monster than usual. Queen Side Piece pranced around with GLEE for weeks. She is beyond awful.
this. Camilla’s behavior seems really off given this news. The entire RF’s behavior-esp. William has been so odd that it provoked all this unnecessary speculation. I just don’t understand why they didn’t release a statement about her condition instead of these grainy photos?
all the best to kate, hope she makes a full and speedy recovery. Her poor kids must be scared ♥️
So, that’s it then. No more lies, the truth is better. Now people can be fully supportive without wondering what it is they are supporting. I certainly hope the Princess does well in her treatment and I wish her good health.
The video of her making the announcement regarding the cancer diagnosis is by far the best media that KP has done to date. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned from this entire debacle.
GB News is saying William pulled out the memorial because of the diagnosis. But at the time they said it had nothing to do with cancer. KP just handled this so badly.
@Amy Bee a lot still doesn’t add up. Everything was being centered around blaming Kate. Kate did the picture, Kate apologized, Kate is sad over the backlash, Kate not being seen leave or arriving at the hospital and William nowhere to be seen. I don’t think William wants to step up as the face of the monarch in any real way. I’m happy she is alive and getting treatment. I just cant wrap my head around this considering Charles is going through the same thing and people were very supportive. There is still more to this and if they are all gone *privacy* it leave just Camilla.
Also, Cam has been super gleeful.
@ Amy Bee Given that she was wearing some seriously massive obvious wigs during her last few public appearances I would say that they are massively fudging the time frames during which certain discoveries about her health were made. I think the cancer has been known to the family for much longer than we are being led to believe. And that’s fine.
I’m wondering about that too. It’s not just the matter of wearing obvious wigs imo. In many of those appearances for a good chunk of 2023, she hadn’t looked well.
@Schrodinger’s Kate, on those appearances Will was behaving like an a**hole to Kate. Would he treat her like that if she was sick at the time? He can’t be that cruel?
I agree with you. I think the time-frame doesn’t add up.
The time frame doesn’t add up. Also, if they didn’t get the cancer diagnosis until after Kate was released from the hospital (according to their still fuzzy timeline), why did they announce she’d need months to recover right away? It makes sense for someone undergoing chemo to take time, but supposedly that wasn’t on the horizon at that point. And she was not looking well for much of 2023.
@sevenblue, Will’s an a**hole, and it’s not out of the question that he’d treat her so poorly even knowing she wasn’t well. And it may have taken a while to figure out exactly how sick Kate was. I do believe they knew about the cancer before their timeline. I also believe she was ill for much of last year but how ill wasn’t known until some point in late December.
Tragic news. Well composed message. Poor management before hand. Hopefully she can have a peaceful recovery now that has been cleared up. Lots of threads connected. Stress does bad things to the body. Give grace a second shot! Brand new start. Goodluck.
That’s a lovely post. Whatever our history with this lady, I wish her all the best. I hope this time provides her space for reflection and a sense of forwardness. If only they’d given some more detail along the way – all the unnecessary speculation and KP nonsense could’ve been avoided.
Terrible news.
Yes, KP did a lousy job handling this, but tbf the timeline and her particular situation wasn’t an easy one. And does it really matter now?
The released vid was quite well done. Kate looks frail and drawn in that way I know so many of us are sadly familiar with, but also brave and forthright. I’m sorry it became necessary for her to do this. Praying for her and her children.
It was totally mishandled. But I wish Kate a full recovery. I do feel bad for saying she was out longer because of plastic surgery.
I know it’s a tough time for not just her, but Will and the kids. She did great in the video. I have two siblings with cancer right now. One never said a word for two years because he didn’t want that to be the topic. He was healthy and living life to the fullest. It has progressed, and he’s still out there doing so much. I appreciated his reason for never telling anyone except his family. He’s stil out doing sports. My other sibling was caught very early and is doing well.
Sending healing thoughts to your siblings.
Okay I am in so much shock. I just saw the news. My screen name seems totally inappropriate now. However I am so glad she’s alive and wasn’t murdered or hurt or something and that maybe just maybe her husband does care and is taking good care of her. One would hope.
My husband is going through this and it’s a nightmare. He’s in the hospital all week and I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. Fellow CBers are going through this. It’s hell.
I’ve seen cancer news about Olivia Munn as well and many many other people. It’s like an epidemic. Fuck cancer!
Beat this shit Kate. Come back with glorious buttons and crazy fashions. Know that Meghan said just because we like her it doesn’t mean we have to hate you and vice versa. I root for you to beat this.
So sorry about your husband.
@Schrodinger’s Kate
I am sorry to hear about your husband. I hope you are taking care of YOU too. Caregivers have a hard road and don’t get nearly enough concern for them
I love your last comment
“Beat this shit Kate. Come back with glorious buttons and crazy fashions”
I second that!
p.s. nah don’t change your handle and don’t feel bad. None of us had any clue. Especially with how ham fisted this has been played out
I hope Kate has a successful recovery.
None of this had to happen. None of it. They caused too much worry and inadvertently blew up their credibility over the handout photos they gave to press agencies for years.
BP needs to bring all royal communications under one office and stop William/KP playing these games. All anyone wanted was proof of life. This all could been entirely different if they simply released a video like this to begin with.
Exactly.
Wishing her a speedy recovery, but all future communications to be handled by Buckingham Palace.
They knew she had cancer before she left the OR in Jan, this cant be the reason Will pulled out of the funeral..
I believe it was confirmed just before the service. That’s what I read.
I doubt it would have taken almost two months for results for her.
Same @Becks1. That timeline does not add up at all. I’ve had family members diagnosed with cancer (one with a very rare type of cancer), and while the process is not quick, the diagnosis/typing/etc. does not take close to two months.
And we’re not talking about an everyday UK citizen using the NHS and dealing with long wait times here, we’re talking about the wife of the next king.
If I recall recorrectly, in the original announcement from KP, they didn’t just say abdominal surgery, but specifically it was non-cancerous. It’s possible that they actually held off the actual announcement until the children were told, and they waited until the holidays to tell them. That doesn’t explain all the attempts to pull the wool over the public’s eyes until today, however.
I suspect so.
Poor kids. I hope she pulls through.
Such a sympathetic reality compared to the explosion at the conspiracy factory and weeks of meme-ing that resulted from all their stupid lying and obfuscation. I feel properly sheepish and guilty for having fun with it. That said, they should have done this months ago, especially given they had Charles handling a cancer diagnosis perfectly wrt PR as an example to follow.
This must be heartbreaking for Kate and her children. Shame on Peg for throwing her under the bus. Some transparency at the start of this fiasco would have given Keen the privacy she needs to heal.
If there was a Dunce of the Year award, I would definitely nominate Peg. He would be a shoo-in.
Oh no. This is sad and no matter what her kids need her more than ever. I cant believe William throw his sick wife under the bus. What a piece of crap.
Ps I think Sussex will be back as working royal.
I don’t think after everything they (the family and the firm)put them trough they would be back, they have no home in the uk no security and they just got demoted on the list. The royals made it clear to them the are not a part of the family every time they helped the tabloids slander them and never stood up for them. Harry and Meghan have their own life far from them im pretty sure William and Charles now think they should have handled thinks differently and they would have them as working royals still at least i hope but knowing what a ass W. is he would say they should have suck it up and accept the abuse. Harry and Meghan worked hard when they where active royals where loved and W. did not liked it so slander them with lies they offered to work as parttime royals was not good enough so left now there is no one to pick up the work because im 100% sure Kate would not be working this year and Charles is out to. Thal leaves Anne, Cowmilla, Edward and Sophie and our favourite uncle who still got his security and bills payd randy Andy
This has actually been one of my theories for why the PR has been so mishandled. That William and the KP staff were all prepped to continue/ramp up the divorce roll out and then Kate had surgery which turned into cancer. So behind scenes William has been desperately trying to find a way to continue the divorce roll out.
You know the one weird thing this video doesn’t explain is why William has seemed so isolated since December.
I have been an oncology chaplain for @ 14 years. People behave very weirdly under crisis and stress. William is exhibiting behaviors of some one not coping well and probably experiencing immense amounts of grief with both his father and wife SERIOUSLY ill. There has been a lot of discussion about his lack of emotional bandwidth and lack of any real inner work. So, he appears out of sorts publically? Day Drinking and self-medicating with whatever his “meds” of choice are? Kate looked weird with her mother and in the appointment photo? What might she be dealing with medically now? Possibly with her treatments she is also on some heavy meds or pain meds, too. She could be checked out because of who she is with. William probably is NOT rising to the challenge of supportive spouse as we have see so far. Plus, I am sure she is thinking of her young children continually. Finally, when a family has a series of people with this level of illness, it is very destabilizing. The “rocks” are not there as the foundation and it is showing the level of under-functioning in real time.
I pray strength and healing for her and her family as I am sure this entire chapter – both what she said they have been facing privately and the public conversation must have been overwhelming. It’s also good to see she received public support from BP via a spoks for The King with support for his beloved DIL. that is so sweet of KC.
My heart also goes out to Meghan as the British Press is going to attack her , they will use this sad situation to heighten the narrative of saint vs sinner, it’s going to be a ride of awful slander at her – God protect and help her.
I am checking out of the entire BRF narrative and storyline, its not going to be a let’s use this moment to all heal and move forward, the tabloid divisiveness will be intolerable!
May God heal and bless them all.
So why the secrecy all this time? This is information that could have been shared months ago, which could have avoided the frenzy and speculations.
They told us that Charles has cancer, which, according to BP, was discovered AFTER a planned procedure …. as well. Hers, according to Kate, is the same situation. So why did she/Willy/KP handle it differently?
Same as with Sarah Duchess of York, who was diagnosed with cancer and was open about her diagnoses and recovery.
And why did they use the UK tabloid media and RRs to lie and to deflect from the “truth”, with different narratives and… worse, to endanger the livelihood of credible photographers ?
And by the way….
Why was Willy not in the video to support his wife?
I’m sure that prince Harry would have appeared beside his wife in a video announcement, if his wife was gravely ill.
And this thought; could is be that Kate’s cancer diagnoses is from sometime ago. She’s been wearing wigs/wiglets over one year now.
I’ve had cancer and am ok now and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. So I have much sympathy for Kate and wish her a speedy recovery. It is incredibly stressful and debilitating even when caught early.
That said, WTAF was KP thinking? WHY LIE? They said she didn’t have cancer. Testing is very rapid – only the more sophisticated DNA tests take a few weeks but that is more to fine-tune treatment, not diagnosis. All they had to do was SHOW HER FACE and have her thank people for their good wishes and say she was ill but is recovering. That would have not only garnered world-wide sympathy, empathy, and encouragement, but would have put an quick stop to the stupid, stupid imbecilic PR spin and LYING. When you start treatment, you still look relatively healthy. You need several weeks to heal after surgery before you can start chemo or radiation. William is wholly to blame for subjecting his wife to this.
And this explanation also does not explain why NO ONE visited her after surgery. Especially William. WTF was he doing then? That made no sense then and makes no sense now.
I wonder if she has an HPV-related cancer and if so, that would at least slightly explain why she didn’t want to say anything.
So KP will never be trusted again with ANY information or ANY photos. William flat-out lied about taking that photo and made Kate’s stress worse by having her get slammed for its fakery. What kind of man is he, anyway? (Rhetorical question….)
I’ve only seen the footage once but is she technically cancer-free and the course of chemo is precautionary? My tumour was removed after being diagnosed with endometrial cancer and afterwards was informed that I didn’t even need chemo.
Cancer blows all the a** and I am hoping she makes a full recovery.
I am also hoping she can actually GET some loving support from someone, anyone cuz it sure doesn’t seem like she’s getting any now, but of course I could be wrong. Which I actually hope I am.
As an aside. Charles AND Kate????
What the hell is in the water at those palaces???
Don’t forget Fergie twice.
I feel sorry for her. She has a serious illness that her husband only appeared to visit her once. KP, William and Kate are horrible for their behavior. They have been gaslighting everyone. It’s obvious that it wasn’t them at the farm. They probably knew that she had cancer before she had the surgery. She was having treatment before the surgery. This means that William has been abusive towards her while she was sick. William and KP didn’t want the public to know because would be insensitive to divorce a princess battling cancer. I don’t think that William will change his behavior towards her while she is sick. He only cares about himself. He made her take the blame for editing a picture knowing that she was sick. He only comes out when there are celebrity events. They wanted us to believe that she was working from home. He’s not doing anything to help his father. William and KP aren’t ready for the big league. The need to come out of the medieval days of media. The public (except derangers) is smarter than they think we are and can see through their BS. He’ll use her as an excuse to continue to be lazy.
Credit where it’s due: Kate did an incredibly good job in that message, especially as it concerned such a personal, frightening subject.
It appears the Firm really failed her during this crisis. We could hope they’d learn to do better in future…but they never have.
Best wishes for her recovery.
Omg one of the twitter account who broke the initial Kate announcement today said she has stage 4 cancer. It relates to cervix cancer. Wtf how they missed ?? UK as general have good healthcare and Kate being princess get excellent world class. How they missed if it’s TRUE?? This is really sad and I pray for the kids.
Ps I hope Sussex have strong people around them because media is going to drag them in this and blame them. This is very sad and upsetting on all sides.
Of course the tabs are never consistent, especially where Harry and Meghan are concerned so it will be interesting – and infuriating – to see them spin their “the Sussexes have been kept out of the loop about Kate” with their about to be launched “the Sussexes party on despite knowing dire Kate news”. We all know this is about to come.
Why would they blame Harry and Meghan? They have nothing to do with this. Seems to me they are getting on with their lives as the Wales should.
I hope she heals quickly. But, all these don’t explain the months long silence of no PR from KP. There were no stories about how Kate is getting better, her children are making cards for her, Will is making her breakfast, etc. Those type of stories were so constant, then it just stopped. Like, they fired all of their PR team. They could still hide all of these, if they weren’t acting so shady. Will is the worst husband ever, especially when you get sick. Whatever his problem is, I hope he gets it together and be there for Kate when she needs him.
This was a shock but I’m glad she finally said something. It’s a shame her incompetent PR folks backed her into this corner instead of being proactive once the narrative started to spin out of control. I agree that William should have been in the video too to apologize for his handling of this. It would have made him more human and won him points in the court of public opinion. Now she can have the privacy that others were saying she should have. She’s not some rarely heard of celebrity or average person. Her PR folks should have been helping her find a time to release a statement. She wouldn’t have had to do a video even and could have said the same things. What a shame.
I feel for her and hope she has a swift recovery. Finally they just spoke some truth about the situation.
Cancer is always hard to handle of course, but her shitty husband and idiotic kp comms team haven’t made anything easier for her or her kids. Hope she’s got her mom’s support behind her, because her husband’s sure isn’t.
My mother just texted me and now is wondering if Obama gave them advice to just Tell the Truth .