Something few people are discussing at the moment: who knew about the Princess of Wales’s cancer diagnosis and when did they know? While some of Kensington Palace’s months of fiascoes can be explained in retrospect with Kate’s cancer diagnosis, that doesn’t change the fact that KP blamed the Mother’s Day photo on a woman with cancer, nor does it explain all of the crazy briefings in the past month, nor does does the timeline make much sense. Maybe we’ll eventually get clarity on some of that stuff. But in the meantime, People Magazine is running exclusives (from their cover story this week) about how barely anyone knew about Kate’s diagnosis.
Always wary of leaks to the press, Kate Middleton had been open about her cancer diagnosis to some, but other close friends and confidants were unaware.
“It was a heck of a shock,” one tells PEOPLE exclusively in this week’s cover story. Adds a former palace aide: “The circle of knowledge was very tight. ”
In a video that sent shockwaves around the globe on March 22, Princess Kate, 42, revealed that she had been diagnosed with cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy. The royal mom, so famous for her unerring poise, spoke about initially keeping the diagnosis private for “the sake of our young family,” her voice cracking at the reference to Prince George, 10, Princess Charlotte, 8, and Prince Louis, 5, whom she shares with Prince William.
Says a source close to the royal household, “She held it together.”
Behind the scenes, the Princess of Wales has been taking steps to prioritize her health and well-being, but she hasn’t been in complete seclusion. Both she and Prince William, 41, have been spotted at their children’s sports events and lessons in recent weeks. On March 16, the couple were photographed running errands together at Windsor’s Farm Shop.
“Having fun together when they can is very important,” says a family friend. “This is about her feeling supported. She doesn’t feel isolated at all.”
Kate’s parents, Carole and Michael Middleton, have been an additional source of help, with Carole accompanying her daughter on school drop-offs. Kate’s younger siblings, Pippa and James, along with their families, are also nearby. In a touching statement accompanied by a photo of himself and Kate as children, James wrote on Instagram: “Over the years, we have climbed many mountains together. As a family we will climb this one with you too.”
While Kate’s health crisis has strengthened the safety net around her, it has also highlighted the royal family’s ongoing estrangement from Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, who learned the news at the same time as the rest of the world. However, they privately reached out to William and Kate following the announcement and publicly released a statement: “We wish health and healing for Kate and the family, and hope they are able to do so privately and in peace.”
“On March 16, the couple were photographed running errands together at Windsor’s Farm Shop.” Yeah, this bugs me. The Windsor Farm Shop video is, to me, still extremely questionable and I hate that the palace has taken the position now that if you question the farm shop video, you’re bullying Kate. That IS the palace’s position too, and they’ve been trying to cover their tracks ever since Kate’s cancer-announcement video. Someone told Roya Nikkhah at the Times last weekend that Kate “wants to be able to carry on with as active and normal a routine as possible and not have it become a huge issue when she goes to a farm shop near their home in Windsor, with people then suggesting that’s a PR move.” It was a PR move and a sloppy one at that, given the palace was actively working with the Sun on that story and that video.
As for the secrecy… Nikkhah’s story mentioned that as well, that Kate’s closest friends were caught off guard by the news. At some point, someone will have to ask when Kate’s staffers learned of the news and when Buckingham Palace was informed. Because I think the answer is “last week” for both.
#KateMiddleton seemed to be in good spirits while out and about with #PrinceWilliam Saturday. https://t.co/kLUsfvt3b2 (🎥: TMZ/The Sun) pic.twitter.com/EqbtVojBcw
— TMZ (@TMZ) March 18, 2024
Photos courtesy of Cover Images & Kensington Palace’s video, cover courtesy of People.
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- The Prince and Princess of Wales leave Bisham Abbey National Sports Centre after taking part in a SportsAid mental fitness workshop Featuring: Catherine, Princess of Wales Where: Marlow, United Kingbom When: 12 Oct 2023 Credit: John Rainford/Cover Images **NOT AVAILABLE FOR PUBLICATION IN THE UK**
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- The Prince and Princess of Wales arrive at Bisham Abbey National Sports Centre to take part in a SportsAid mental fitness workshop Featuring: Catherine, Princess of Wales, Prince William, Prince of Wales Where: Marlow, United Kingbom When: 12 Oct 2023 Credit: John Rainford/Cover Images **NOT AVAILABLE FOR PUBLICATION IN THE UK**
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- The Prince and Princess of Wales leave Buckingham Palace, central London, on day one of the President of South Korea Yoon Suk Yeol’s state visit to the UK. Featuring: Catherine, Princess of Wales and William, Prince of Wales Where: London, United Kingdom When: 21 Nov 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Prince and Princess of Wales during the ceremonial welcome for President of South Korea, Yoon Suk Yeol, and his wife, Kim Keon Hee, at Horse Guards Parade, central London, on day one of the state visit to the UK Featuring: William, Prince of Wales with Catherine, Princess of Wales Where: London, United Kingdom When: 21 Nov 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
What friends??? So more lies
LOL
The “friends” in question are the KP staffers that they themselves clearly do not trust if they didn’t bother informing of the cancer diagnosis as soon as they could but instead did it just last week.
Camila T @ Torygraph.
The only friend I ever saw photographed with Kate was Rose, and we all know how that turned out!
My thoughts exactly! What friends? What confidantes? Also, it doesn’t take weeks to get biopsy results back. So their timeline is still not adding up. I mean Pippa was chilling in St. Barts without a care in the world and James was shilling his autobiography focused on a dead dog. And we’re to believe this was happening while their sister was undergoing cancer treatment? Very odd.
In the farm market she looked perky, walking fast and healthy. ( if that was her) in the video she looks and sounds like she is on death’s door.
Total lies. No friends and if she had any, it would be RoseBush: she’s the only one who invited her out to a party!
The DM can do as many articles profiling “Kate’s inner circle” as much as they want, it doesn’t make this inner circle real. Also they include her sister in this inner circle and Pippa was on holidays while her sister was still recovering in the hospital.
Oh, please. Kate does not have “close friends and confidants.” She never has. Go back through 30 years of stories and photographs and all you will find is Kate and her sister (and one sad pic of her lollipop head standing all by herself at a festival that Rose supposedly invited her to attend).
I was just about to ask, on behalf of those of us who only became royal watchers when Meghan came along, if Kate had ever had any friends. I assumed that she probably did at some point, but then they drifted apart after she married William. Not to be all “poor Kate!” or anything, but damn, it really is sad that she’s apparently never had anyone outside of her own family.
Honestly, there are a number of things about Kate’s history that are objectively sad and would ordinarily be deserving of sympathy, and it speaks volumes about her that she has squandered all of that potential goodwill.
There are one or two who have been consistently mentioned…..Sophie Carter and Emilia Jardine-Patterson. Both have connections in William’s circle and I feel were “chosen” for that reason, which sounds cold but this is Kate soooo……🤷♀️
This recent article claims to list Kate’s closest friends, but may not be reliable since it says the kids attend (present tense) Battersea, where one of the friends teaches.
https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/kate-middletons-inner-circle-the-royals-family-and-friends/
I watched them post St. Andrews and during the Mahiki, Whiskey Mist days and stopped after the engagement coming back after Meghan. I can’t recall her even then spending a lot of time with friends that weren’t connected to William’s friends as girlfriends or through their own aristocratic connections other than Pippa. None that were from Marlborough or Buckleberry or her ” jobs”. I honestly don’t believe she has any friends. It’s seems unlikely even given the press ” privacy” that two people in their thirties could live in one of the largest cities in the world in a super popular area for bars and nightlife for years and NEVER get papped by random bystanders or professionals. We’ve seen William papped plenty. You never hear about them entertaining friends, parents of their kids friends anything.
@Dee(2) I think the most we’ve heard was a story about one of George’s bday parties at KP.
And its an interesting contrast to Meghan, considering how much we do hear about her hosting – how she’s a good cook, how she’s thoughtful, how she loves to have friends stay, etc.
I believe that was one of the reasons for the outcry over the baby shower – Kate didn’t have friends like that to celebrate her the way Meghan did/does.
@Becks1 I remember that too, and her taking Charlotte and her friends to the ballet, and I think William took Charlotte to a pizza party a few years ago. So they do stuff with their kids and William clearly hangs out with his friends ( cough dad dancing cough), it’s just her. You never even hear about, even if we don’t see photos stories about her spotted having lunch in London or coming in or out of some townhouse in Kensington or Chelsea, or at a private club before being shuffled out by her RPOs. Just nothing.
She’s the epitome of not being a girls-girl. Like when she joined the rowing team to get William’s attention during the breakup but as soon as he took her back, he bailed on them leaving them in a bad place for their charity event.
Could be a little of this (not really a girl’s girl) & a little of that (husband is controlling & abusive & isolates her from her friends, who are now former friends).
Which leaves me to believe that it’s not as bad as she may want us to think after her bench speech. The bench speech was very good PR. So no one knew till the bench speech and because they lie so often I wonder about this preventative cancer treatment. You can only cry wolf so often and then people don’t believe what your selling.
Thank you! I feel like if her mouth is open, she is lying to someone.
This pity-party is most likely going to be proven to be a bid for attention. Don’t trust her or any of them for a second. As Susan Collins said, she has form.
Kate sees other women as rivals.
As she should.
Probably mommie dearest Carole has told her she’s her best friend. Narcissistic mothers can be very smothering and over involved.
William was Carole’s goal as much as Kate’s. It was a joint effort. She wouldn’t want Kate being distracted by pals who might encourage her to be more independent and lose sight of ‘the catch’.
The Kate in the farm video was bouncing, bounding, swinging a bag.
The Kate in the bench video was extremely frail, like even standing would exhaust her.
The King is going through cancer treatment but can’t be at Maundy service due to crowds.
Kate is going through cancer treatment but is shopping unmasked and attending school sporting events with huge crowds of children.
The “circle of knowledge” didn’t include Kate’s close friends and confidantes, but did include a BBC camera crew (studios, not news) and a former royal aide (not current)?
The children are still attending school and events, and previously images or stories about them have been used in times of royal pr crisis, but zero images and minimal stories about the children have been released since Christmas, including the frankenphoto in which they were edited too.
It’s actually insulting that the public is being berated and shamed for asking very reasonable questions when the Firm’s contradictions and lies are immediately obvious with even the lightest scrutiny.
How very royal of them to punish others for the consequences of THEIR actions.
KP concocted this tale , so they shouldn’t get mad when we want to see the man behind the curtain.
She is not a girls girls and her only once close friend was her sister. That’s fine some women just dont have girlfriends and are not comfortable with other females. She never looked comfy even with Chelsy back in the day when they were both just royal girlfriends.
Of course she wasn’t comfy with Chelsey – Chelsey was Harry’s girlfriend and in Kate’s mind, her rival!! 🙄
Given her mistreatment of women who she feels may be her rivals, I’m not surprised if she hasn’t any friends.
Serious question: does Kate have any actual friends other than her mom and sister? I don’t recall her EVER being documented being with any friends, as long as I’ve been following her and William being together.
Emilia d’Erlanger is the main one I’ve heard of, and she is one of Prince George’s godmothers.
There was a DM article about her friends a week or so ago. Hope this link works. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-13191165/kate-middleton-inner-circle.html
There was a story from very early on that rang true-ish to me. I think it was when they’d split and reunited and then he was away for military training or something. The basic story was that she’d gotten drunk on white wine with some other women (possibly university friends) and complained about how alone and unhappy she was. The way it was spun in the story was that was her one and only lapse in discretion and that she’d learned never to do that again.
As if she’s close to anyone outside of her family. And LOL, they really need to be silent about the garden center video because it is beyond obvious now that the woman bouncing along was NOT her. Keep bringing it up and see how that works for your tanked credibility, KP.
As ambivalent as I am about W&K, it must be bloody awful to not be able to talk about your life without someone leaking it, whether deliberately or inadvertently. The feeling of someone always listening, someone always watching must be mentally hard.
Princess Margaret once remarked when Lilibet was upset about speculation over her romance with Philip “Poor Lil, nothing of your own – not even your own love affair” – she said it to their governess who then put it in her book. Her marriage, her kids is one thing, but now even her cancer and her recovery belongs to the world. It’s just so unrelenting. And I know, she signed up for it etc etc but god I don’t envy her.
The announcement video is true to me. I don’t understand the AI nonsense and rumours etc. But yes that video in the garden centre was faked up. The hostility of the headlines around it was extreme – now you’ve seen her, back off. Well, we didn’t see her – skippy was someone else.
At this point I just want to roar “BUT I THOUGHT THE REASON FOR WILLS ABSENCE WAS THAT HE WAS DOING THE SCHOOL RUN SO IF CANCER STRICKEN KATE AND HER MOM HAVE BEEN DOING IT WHEREFORE HAST THOU BEEN WILLS???”
aughhhh such a great catch, @Chaine!
Small inconsistencies (or perceived inconsistencies) happen in conversations. The press jumps on Meghan for that all the time (like the fake misunderstanding/abuse re: the pre-wedding vow exchange). It’s because normal people don’t talk like they’re trying to prevent a Twitter troll from coming back with a whataboutism, so in normal conversation these little gaps or potential confusions authentically crop up.
But the fact that they’re now obviously reviewing all the “facts” out there in the public realm and trying to reconcile their lies to this degree tells me they’re really trying to hide something. I said at the time that the TMZ photo of “Kate and Carole” was a big deal because it exposed Will’s school run excuse as a lie. And now we have Prince William in USWeekly’s article specifically doing the afternoon school run and Kate and her mom here doing the morning.
And really, the school run is the dumbest thing for them to worry about, like would anyone be surprised or care if the Wales children are driven by a valet?
It’s not the crime, it’s the cover up. I’m not even sure what the “crime” here is, but their obvious, desperate cover up tells me there absolutely is one.
That stood out to me too! now we learn Kate has been doing them with her mother – so the car photo makes sense.
Good grief, everybody is squeezing in on those verkakta short school runs — must be crowded in the car!
Judge Judy: “If you don’t lie, you don’t need to have a good memory”
By ‘close friends and confidants’ they just mean ‘the people who usually leak stories to the press’, obviously. Those people are never *actually* close friends – they are tools.
Name one friend.
Ummm.. the reflection she sees in her mirror?
@Susan Collins, I wouldn’t even count her reflection. Kate has always impressed me as lacking confidence. If I had to guess, I would say that Kate is a self-loathing mess. I’ll bet she doesn’t like herself even a little.
I think it’s natural that she wouldn’t go around telling everybody she has cancer. But i think the main objective of this piece was to talk about Harry and Meghan.
This woman has been around for over 2 decades in the public eye and there has been no photos or stories of her with friends, female or otherwise. No one from her school days, nothing.
I don’t wanna say this woman never had friends, but now I wonder.
There’s something off about this and I’m becoming more suspicious as to what is really going on behind the scenes. William is being boxed in and the fallout is going to be spectacular.
That absolutely was not her at the farm shop. I don’t know why they’re still claiming it was real. And the video is suspect too. I am awaiting the resurrection of Kate after Easter with interest but I won’t be surprised if she doesn’t reappear. I still think this goes a lot deeper than anyone is admitting.
I agree it doesn’t look like Kate in that farm store video. It can’t be if the woman in the BBC video is Kate and not a deep fake. They’re so completely different.
Over the years I’ve seen fluff pieces written about “Who are Kate’s friends?” and there are different women pictured and listed. They never make an impression the way Meghan’s friends do because we never really see her in public with them or talking about them.
I hope she’s not as isolated as she seems. She could have had a best friend in Meghan if only she and William weren’t so weird and destructively insecure. Everything Harry wrote about the both of them in Spare made them come across really weirdly prickly and standoffish.
Nobody so far can explain, for example, why on earth two adults should be so bent out of shape over Easter presents. Is Harry leaving out pertinent details about some sacred Faberge Egg gifting ritual?
All I could think was that ever since she visited that Faberge Egg exhibit she misunderstood or didn’t really listen all that closely to the history but I’m thinking she may have gotten the impression that this is a tradition that should be continuing–somebody get that woman her Faberge egg!
I really do think they kept the diagnosis under wraps. It fits with a lot of things, including the story about how Kate hadn’t spoken to any of her staff in weeks. she really did just go into hiding at Adelaide and Anmer.
I think a lot of us would tell family & friends, but might hold off on informing anyone at work. The less they know, the better; until you can no longer hide things, I guess.
Kate must have been galled by how many close female friends Meghan has. Meghan’s desire to lift up other women would be unfathomable to Kate. Meghan’s confidence around other women was likely one more reason Kate resented Meghan.
“…so famous for her unerring poise”. Wait…what?
@Brassy Rebel, lol I know. I am going to assume this is some form of British humor. Unerring poise? Sure….
I guess this is part of the karma for how W&K have lived their lives…they’ve brutalized others through the press but now it’s clear that they trust absolutely no one around them not to leak: not their staff, not their “friends”, and certainly not Charles and Camilla. (And they obviously don’t trust each other either.)
However unappetizing Camilla is , she scores on the friends front, she is even good friends with her ex . Kate does come to life around men..Roger Federer, David Beckham and other pin up types..but where is her girl gang ? Even sister Pippa and children don’t seem to be welcome around her brood..sad that Kates children appear to be isolated from cousins on both sides . William was popular enough before Kate got her tentacles around him. If he had a normal social circle and good friends he might have shaped up differently .Therapy required all round . I hope the kids come out of all this unscathed ..their only constant seems to be their dysfunctional parents , Carole and nanny Maria.
People brings up the Farm video that is certainly NOT her or FAKE. They then bring up Carol and her doing the school runs to bring back claim to the 5 tire car picture.
I don’t even believe the newest video is actually real. After learning about AI and all the inconsistencies with the video I believe it is AI. Just the simple fact of using the green screen and inserting the loop recording nature background was enough for me to look further.
I also believe they have been playing around with AI for awhile. I saw an old video comparison on YouTube of kates first speech and another video of kate speaking (not in person/live) and her lips weren’t matching up to her speech completely. I am going to go back and try to find the original video of her speech for reference. I’m not saying she was “disappeared” then but just stating an observation about them already experimenting with AI.
And I now don’t even believe she has cancer. After all the lies, photo manipulations, body doubles, Williams behavior, weird inconsistencies, etc etc…. nothing is adding up. Absolutely nothing makes sense. And no. I don’t believe her. I don’t believe a word that comes out of her mouth.
I agree with this completely. I think the video is A.I. too. In fact i think it’s pretty obvious that it is. The fake background, fake nature sounds—Just that alone makes it so very suspect because after getting caught doing all that fakery, IF they were recording a video of Kate talking, they would make sure there was NOTHING fake in it. And then there’s the fact that her face looks weird & unnatural; it “glitches”; her eyes look way “off”. So WHY would the palace release ANOTHER fake video? (And the farm video was so obviously NOT Kate.) Because they were backed into a corner and desperate. The cancer announcement explains away all their weird behavior and makes people back off, and have sympathy for them. It’s ALL FAKE. What in the hell is really going on with them????
This, K Peace. And there’s progression of fakery and fraud with every photo and video that have come out. I think she’s being phased out. Until there is a live appearance with family (or other people), I’m not buying what KP is portraying as reality. Does she have cancer? I want to believe she or KP would not lie about this, so I’ll grant that it is true. But the cancer card really did stop the question — that I think is relevant until we see a live body — Where is Kate?
JULIANNA, you have read my mind.
Friends, staff and even family members (like Uncle Gary) unaware of Kate’s serious illness/cancer until the public announcement, tells me – again – that Kate currently doensn’t have cancer. It could have been an older diagnosis, conveniently used as a last resort to stem the damage of the failed PR attempts to calm down the ‘where’s Kate’ online wave of jokes/trolling/concerns, to create sympathy for Kate, and to boost lost trust in the RF/KP (which so far only seems to be working with some Brits).
If she’s not confiding in you, are you really a “close” friend and “confidante”?
I can’t figure out if this is from the Escort of Ma Mids.