Today is the Princess of Wales’s 43rd birthday. I always find it interesting that she’s a Capricorn. The past year was pretty bonkers for Kate, and I would imagine the coming year will be significantly strange as well. As I’ve said before, the palaces have enacted a “kick the can down the road” strategy, where nothing is promised for Kate beyond her attendance at a handful of major events. It will be interesting if we see much of her in the next three months, and then when spring comes, there will be a new briefing that she’s still resting and recuperating and focusing on her family, how dare you expect her to work once a week. Here’s People Magazine’s birthday exclusive:
Kate Middleton is putting herself first as she rings in her birthday four months after announcing that she completed chemotherapy treatment for an undisclosed form of cancer. The Princess of Wales turned 43 on Jan. 9, celebrating her first birthday after a difficult year. In March 2024, Princess Kate announced that she was undergoing treatment for cancer and shared in September that she completed chemo. In a rare revelation at her Together at Christmas carol service in December, Princess Kate said, “I didn’t know this year was going to be the year that I’ve just had.”
Looking ahead, a family friend exclusively tells PEOPLE that the Princess of Wales, described as “a real running, skipping and jumping” type of sporty person, is wisely prioritizing her health now. “She is looking after herself and is wise to do so. She will know when she wakes up if she is well enough or not [to do something],” the family friend says.
Adds a source, “She has been allowed to get back in her own way. She has been able to pace it and do it her way, and that’s great.”
“Family has seen [Kate] through thick and thin this year … There is a sense of optimism going forward,” an insider says.
Princess Kate is spending her birthday at home with Prince William and their children, who recently returned to the classroom at the Lambrook School after a holiday break.
I was thinking this week about William’s behavior during the “Kate is missing” months, and how he really didn’t want anyone to have any sympathy for her or worry about her health at all. He kept shrugging off people’s concerns in public and he seemed annoyed when people wanted to know about how she was doing. We still have no idea what the original “abdominal surgery” was even about. “She is looking after herself and is wise to do so.” I would be willing to bet that Kate did have to look after herself, and her mother had to look after her, because William couldn’t be bothered.
Oh, Kensington Palace just released a new portrait of Kate for her birthday. What a strange pic, especially her hands in halfway in her pockets… I guess to show that she’s wearing Big Blue?
To the most incredible wife and mother. The strength you’ve shown over the last year has been remarkable. George, Charlotte, Louis and I are so proud of you. Happy Birthday, Catherine. We love you. W pic.twitter.com/VIW5v2aKlu
— The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) January 9, 2025
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- Catherine The Princess of Wales attends the The King’s Birthday Parade at Horse Guards Parade, London, England, UK on Saturday 15 June, 2024.,Image: 881844189, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Please credit photographer and agency when publishing as Justin Ng/UPPA/Avalon., Model Release: no, Credit line: Justin Ng / Avalon
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- Catherine The Princess of Wales attends the The King’s Birthday Parade at Horse Guards Parade, London, England, UK on Saturday 15 June, 2024.,Image: 881844217, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Please credit photographer and agency when publishing as Justin Ng/UPPA/Avalon., Model Release: no, Credit line: Justin Ng / Avalon
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- London, UK. 15th June 2024. Catherine, the Princess of Wales rides in a carriage with her children and waves at the crowds. The annual Trooping the Colour ceremonial procession for the King’s Birthday makes its way from Buckingham Palace to Horse Guards Parade for proceedings there, and back to the Palace for a balcony appearance. Catherine, the Princess of Wales, is making her first public appearance this year.,Image: 881847743, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Imageplotter / Avalon
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- Prince William, Catherine Princess of Wales, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis photographed on the palace balcony following Trooping of the Colour on Saturday 15 June 2024 at Buckingham Palace, London. Trooping the Colour is a traditional parade held to mark the British Sovereign’s official birthday. This year the colours were trooped by The Irish Guards. .,Image: 881899137, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: World Rights – Julie Edwards/Avalon.Red, Model Release: no, Credit line: Julie Edwards / Avalon
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- Catherine, Princess of Wales in the Royal box with Daughter Princess Charlotte and sister Pippa during the men’s final on centre court between Carlos Alcaraz (ESP) and Novak Djokovic (SRB) at the 2024 Wimbledon Championships at The All England Club, London, United Kingdom , 14 July 2024,Image: 889673403, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: World Rights, Model Release: no, Credit line: Peter van den Berg / Avalon
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- Tennis : Wimbledon 2024 – Kate Middleton Princess of Wales – remet le trophy au vainqueur Carlos Alcaraz,Image: 889695015, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Chryslene Caillaud / Panoramic / Panoramic / Avalon
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- Carlos Alcaraz (Spa) defeated Novak Djokovic (Ser) in the Wimbledon final with Kate Middleton,Image: 889709773, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Antoine Couvercelle / Panoramic / Panoramic / Avalon
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- Mandatory Credit:,Image: 889858411, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Javier Garcia/Shutterstock / Panoramic / Avalon
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- Mandatory Credit:,Image: 889859218, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: James Marsh/Shutterstock / Panoramic / Avalon
All the Capricorns I’ve ever known have always been hard working individuals. I guess that trait skipped this one.
Now, now don’t be so hard on the poor little sausage. She worked very hard for Big Blue! She’s still worn out from that.
Yes her job was done when she caught her Prince and the kids were the icing on the cake for a job well done. She will do nothing more.
What are you talking about? She worked harder than everyone (except Carole) to nab a prince. And since then, she’s been working tirelessly on
taking average fashion items and turning them into a spectacular button and lace mess. You’d think she’s have given it up by now, but no. She has a singular focus and fierce determination to ruin every outfit. That is no accident, it takes werk.
Mea culpa!! You are right about that🤣🤣
Or… hear me out… Astrology is nonsense.
You say potato, she says potahto, astrology seems a strange hill to die on.
She’s worked very hard looking after herself. Always has, always will.
So putting your hands in your pockets is only wrong when the biracial duchess does it?
(what a weird pic)
That and hundreds of other things were only “protocol” for Meghan.
So true!
Her hands give the impression of AI photo..
They must stop this black and white photos. Extremely 😴.
I don’t remember them EVER putting out a B/W pic….before H&M did. And H&M were reamed for being “artsy”. Now, it’s ok? De rigueur to be “fashionable”, in a competitive way, of course!
So weird @Inge! Who poses like that? She looks so uncomfortable.
“She is looking after herself and is wise to do so.”
All Lazy Kate has ever done is look after herself. So she’s perfected it by now.
That portrait is lackluster and boring. Exactly who Kate is.
My reaction to the head line was ‘BAU then?’
Oh to have a fully taxpayer funded life where I can wake up and wonder what I feel like doing today.
Yeah……as opposed to what? Kate has always put herself first.
I read that as hinting at her mental health, and as I’ve thought all along I think that were it started.
The hand positioning on that portrait is SO distractingly awkward.
Not to mention the spaniel ears hairstyle
Oh my gosh this is exactly what I call hair that is too long and not layered properly! Kate tends to have spaniel ears when her hair gets too long without appropriate layers. I have had this exact thought multiple times over the years with her
As is the Italian tablecloth she’s draped around her neck.
Yes! The clothing is casual but the pose is overdone and awkward.
The hands are in a super weird position
Sounds like huevo has somebody write that for him. Kate’s birthday will be overshadowed by Carter’s funeral. I don’t think the wails spend a lot of time under the same roof.
My first thought was whether Carole, Pippa, or Natasha wrote the caption for him 🤣
I wouldn’t be surprised if Kate wrote it herself. Weird to call her Catherine in a personal birthday post.
William has always called her Catherine.
Has he though? Really?
The birthday photo and caption is ummmm…interesting.
The way they’ve captioned birthday and mothers/Father’s Day posts has changed. It’s very Harry and Meghan now. They did not speak so emotive before.
I noticed that too. Harry and meghan were the first ones to place a personal message during birthdays. The others always simply said happy birthday
Not an original thought among those 2
They are really overdoing it this year and I bet it’s because Meghan has her own Instagram.
She will look after herself going to Wimbledon and preening.
Putting your thumb under the waistband of your jeans doesn’t scream future queen. and she looks stoned all the time.
No life behind her eyes. Also looks like she had been crying before the photo was taken. Something happened to her physically and worst mentally.
That’s a weird photo. I guess the world has to stop again because it’s her birthday.
A lot of touching up on that picture. All she needs is a farmer’s hat for a rural look
I’d expect this kind of dedication message in a present and not to a photo of the wife. They really need to be pictured as a couple…firstly, the second honeymoon and now this? What’s going on in KP?
The queen sent Charles and Diana and their children on a second honeymoon cruise in 1991. It turned out to be a disaster. Is Charles pushing William to keep up appearances
With the checkered picnic rug scarf (over a tshirt with a collar).
That is a horribly hideous scarf to wear on a normal day but it is even worse that it was chosen for a birthday photo.
It’s outfit choices like this that make the decision to hire her as an ACCESSORIES buyer a patently obvious favor to her parents.
The birthday photo is just weird. I’m going to guess that the first time we see Kate this year will be at the Easter church service.
The shamrock is in March so that might be one. Last year she was still in all in hideout mode.
There is no way she approved of that portrait. She makes sure her pics are photoshopped to the hell. She was looking like a different woman in the photoshoot she did for her 40th birthday and 3 years later she is allowing this to be her public birthday photo?
No mention of the school runs
Sorry, The School Runs!
Now that more like it….
It’s like the third person in that marriage at this point.
It looks like she posed for a catalog that sells jeans
The tip-toeing continues. This has to be the most secretive cancer diagnosis I have ever seen. As for the portrait, I’ve seen benches look less stiff. Kaiser’s right, I guess it’s to highlight that big blue is still hers.
I’ve said this above , to me it reads like hinting at mental health .
How come she can’t do any work? If she felt well enough to take this photo shoot, how come she couldn’t do a charity visit the same day? They wouldn’t even have has actually released the photos of her they could have just said she did it. I don’t get the messaging around her, and I don’t think KP really knows what they’re doing from moment to moment. They’re incompetence usually just gets an eye roll from me, but this is actually a really bad look. Are people who are paying to support them supposed to be happy to get professional shots of her every couple of months while she does nothing else?
People is avoiding how there were no birthday wishes for her from that account last year.
But how many different photo shoots did this woman do while claiming she was too ill to do royal work. It is preposterous that she couldn’t show up to a few more charities last year. This narcissism here is wild. It is not a milestone birthday and she’s been seen enough that we don’t need a proof of life. This ego trip is like her 40th birthday look at me in heavily edited photos nonsense.
To me, it’s one of three things:
1) she’s not working because she’s lazy and doesn’t want to.
2) she’s been benched from working as a way to help her disappear from the public mind in the lead up to a separation.
3) she’s much sicker than they’re telling us (digestive, mental etc) and for some reason they cannot or will not disclose that.
I think it’s a combination of 1 and 2 but it’s hard to tell at this point.
Either way KP continues to bungle this. The message that a 43 year old woman who is able to go to the gym, do the school run, etc can’t do a few charity visits a week – for which she is paid millions of pounds a year – is a really bad message and I don’t know why they can’t see that.
Well, a family friend is saying that she won’t know if she feels well enough to do anything until she wakes up in the morning. Which makes no sense since she made a video about how she completed her cancer treatments.
Some don’t have the luxury to plan their day only when they get up in the morning
@Jais a video where she is frolicking in the woods and on the beach, looking relatively healthy and active.
Like @nic919 said in a comment here – she’s arranged how many photo shoots and videos by this point in time but has done one charity visit in a year , and that was tagging along with William???
Something is going on, whether it’s laziness or something else.
If that’s the case then why did KP put out that Kate would be seen at the big royal events this year?
I got up this morning with a bottle of chemo attached to my port for the next 2 days. I had 3 hours of infusion yesterday. I actually don’t feel too bad, had a good night’s sleep thanks to the sleeping pills my doctor gives me because I also have to take steroids for 4 days and they make me super hyper. So today I’m going to eat a healthy breakfast, go grocery shopping, do 30 minutes on the treadmill and cook dinner. Gee I wonder if the birthday girl will lie in bed for hours pondering what she’ll wear?
Showing off her engagement ring.
I understand prioritizing her health, but there is no reason why, since she is cancer-free, she can’t do at least one engagement a week, especially since all three kids are in school.
That birthday pic isn’t good.
This looks like her weird pastiche of some things Meghan has done- black and white, hand in pocket, jeans not skirts. But with this stilted, Victorian photo studio pose, the whole thing looks odd.
This would have been an ideal time to launch a cancer related charity event as a thank you. But no, its all about Kate, no giving back.
Hands up if anyone believes that William wrote the birthday wishes himself. To the most wonderful wife and mother in the world. Who is he trying to convince.
I think he’s playing or trying to play devoted family man. And had someone write this for him.
Her hair is hiding her new scar over her eye and brow. But the skinny jeans camel toe is not a good look girl!
The hair and the white button down shirt w/ jeans no belt looks a lot like those summery Christmas card pics from a couple years ago. Perhaps this is just an unused photo from that session?
LOL William definitely did not write that message but I think he was told “he”
Had to post something. I mean the man can’t look at her without disgust in public but he’s posting that? Sure Jan.
A family friend says that Kate will know when she gets up if she’s well enough to do or not do something. Huh? It says in the article she completed treatment four months ago. This is the part that makes no sense in what they’re saying.
Why are they still using X to post their pictures?
Capricorn and Cancer are considered to be a very compatible pairing, as they balance each other well with Cancer’s nurturing nature complementing Capricorn’s practical and ambitious side, creating a strong and stable relationship built on mutual respect and shared values like security and family life; making them a potentially excellent match for long-term commitment.
William, who was born under the sign of Cancer, has a nurturing nature???? Huh? The opposite is most likely.
@Chrissy the above horoscope compatibility was AI generated.
I see Kate is in her Hoedown Era.
When has Willy (KP comms team) ever posted something affectionate like this about Kate?
This post is really in anticipation of what W&K and the KP comms team expect from empath @ /Meghan on IG. Yesterday’s post reg. Guy’s passing is a great example of what to expect from M, and how the world (digital media and social media) has ambraced her with tens of articles and thousands of SM posts. They studied it thoroughly and want the same affection and reactions.
So there will be a new, full blow social/media competition from the Waleses camp with Meghan.
Somebody on X already showed the stats that, on January 1, after Meg’s IG was launched, KP immediately started buying followers on that day. Pathetic.
“She is looking after herself and is wise to do so.”
If only the British taxpayers were as wise and started looking after themselves, no longer financing those lazy billionaire Slumlord grifters who haven’t yet worked a single day in their lives.
And, as others have said, the bw photo is remarkably bad and unimaginative.
Someone on Twitter re-quoted that with the caption “From William’s house to Kate’s house” 😂
She’s trying to look youthful and modern, but she’s so awkward and stiff. Like they posed a Barbie doll.
A great choice of photos, Kaiser, Putting the one in the purple dress immediately after the X posting, giving the impression that she’s giving the side eye to the posting. Love it!
I swear Kate is the only woman who has ever had cancer or has a young family. Cancer and young family is the only thing that is hers so how dare anyone ask her to work ? Family friend Carole , we get it . Your daughter is lazy as f and you don’t want your precious meal ticket to have to interact with the phebs. I wonder if these people hear themselves before they write this self righteous, self centered nonsense. They are real people in this world who are truly suffering and don’t hav the advantage and means to do f all all year and still live a life of luxury.
Love isn’t a stilted public birthday greeting. It isn’t a performance staged in a meadow for the cameras.
It’s showing up at the hospital repeatedly when your spouse is supposedly seriously ill. It’s speaking respectfully and warmly — consistently — about your spouse. It’s a supportive arm, or hand on your spouse’s back, when she’s going up stairs in heels. It’s the kind of unforced ease and affection that Harry shows Meghan, always.
Try harder, William (or Kensington Palace lackey who wrote that message).
I went to the ER two months ago when I was somewhere with the kids and not my husband (I’m totally fine, well relatively, just had a weird fainting episode.) Anyway, my husband left where he was with his friends (first time he had seen them in forever), drove to the hospital to see me, then drove back home (25 minutes) to get our children and put them in bed, and then drove back to pick me up at 3 am when I was discharged.
I cant imagine being in the hospital for two weeks and him only visiting once, ESPECIALLY if childcare is not an issue.
I hear you. When I was in the hospital for massive surgery last March (8 days) Mr. Jaded came to the hospital 2 to 3 times a day even though I was half out of it or sleeping from all the meds I was on. Whatever went down last December, Slumlord/Workshy Bill was the cause of it, and his continued and obvious lack of caring, despite the cheezy Harlequin Romance video, shows absolutely no concern for her. He didn’t write that Twitter message, it was likely her PA Natasha.
So glad you’re OK, Becks1. And yep, how your husband showed up is real love. Not whatever William is feigning.
After I shattered my femur (it was years ago), my husband visited me every day in the hospital — and built a wheelchair ramp on our front porch because I couldn’t walk for a while (I’m totally fine now). And he painted it purple because he wanted to make me smile. (Sorry again about that, neighbors!)
Only 43? She looks terrible for her age.
“Kate is looking after herself and is wise to do so.” Is that pointing out that William will not?
How many articles are we going to get she is putting herself and her health first? We’re almost close to six months since she completed chemo. Are we to believe she has to take two years off from doing anything beyond the important events? If by end of 2025 she’s still parroting “I’m focusing on myself and my health” we will know she is just being her usual lazy self.
What does this woman do with her days? Really? She’s not shopping, not reading, not doing household chores, not working…. I mean – she 43 .. is she far duller than I think she is?
The sodding School Run! Maybe, and probably only some days of the week. Also clothes fittings and perusing fabric swatches and sketches from British designers. Working out with her private trainer. Weekly manipedis.
Well, the picture is better than those “Gone With the Wind” portraits on her 40th. I don’t care so much about that, as the fact that the media keeps coming up with new and improved ways to say, “she ain’t doing shit anytime soon.” 🤪
Those jeans are too tight to get more than her fingertips in even if she weren’t wearing Big Blue.