Kate Middleton, the 42-year-old wife of Prince William and mother of their three children, announces her diagnosis after months of feared speculation regarding her health and well-being. Since January, Kate has undergone abdominal surgery, taken time off from public duties, and endured a photo editing controversy.
On March 22nd, the Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton, announced in a video that she was diagnosed with an unspecified form of cancer, which she would soon be treating through chemotherapy. In the video, she states that after undergoing major abdominal surgery, tests showed that “cancer had been present.”
“In January, I underwent major abdominal surgery in London and at the time, it was thought that my condition was non-cancerous. The surgery was successful,” Kate shares. “However, tests after the operation found cancer had been present. My medical team, therefore, advised that I should undergo a course of preventive chemotherapy, and I am now in the early stages of that treatment.”
However, before we knew about her cancer diagnosis, many theories were being made about where Kate had been. She hadn’t been seen in public since December 25th, 2023 morning, following royal Christmas traditions. This raised many concerns for not only the people of Britain but everyone around the world, as she hadn’t been seen for weeks.
On January 17th, 2024, Kensington released an official statement regarding the Princess of Wales, stating that she had undergone planned abdominal surgery and that she was expected to stay at the hospital between 10 to 14 days before going home to finish her recovery and eventually returning to her royal duties around Easter time.
People began to question what kind of abdominal surgery this was. Why does she need so long to recover? This then led to people speculating on her health status, some people believed it was a hysterectomy, appendicitis, gallbladder removal, as well as many other surgeries. However, people who have undergone these surgeries have said that these types of procedures wouldn’t need as long as a recovery, especially one that lasts a few months unless there are serious complications. And as the statement from the Kensington Post shared, she was doing just fine, so we can assume that she didn’t have these surgeries.
The most outlandish of speculations or, rather, rumors suggested that Kate Middleton had gotten BBL surgery. People believed this because the suspected time to recover from BBL surgery was between two and three months, which is how long her recovery was planned to be.
Not only was Kate’s “disappearance” suspicious, but also an edited photo that was released on British Mother’s Day (March 10th). Kate celebrated Mother’s Day in the UK by sharing a photo on X featuring her and her three children, George, Charlotte, and Louis. This photo was the first photo of Kate the public had seen since December.
“Thank you for your kind wishes and continued support over the last two months. Wishing everyone a Happy Mother’s Day,” Kate wrote in the post.
However, upon further review, people began to notice strange editing to the picture. This soon began to be picked up by several international news agencies, they later retracted the image, saying the royal family may have edited it before its release.
“If you look at the sleeve of the girl on the right, you see what looks like traces of manipulation,” Farid said, referring to the sleeve of Charlotte’s sweater. “I think most likely it is either some bad photoshop to, for example, remove a stain on the sweater, or is the result of on-camera photo compositing that combines multiple photos to get a photo where everyone is smiling. For the latter, if the subjects move between successive images, it can cause this type of ghosting.”
Farid continued, “Either way, I think it is unlikely that this is anything more than a relatively minor photo manipulation. In addition, there is no evidence that this image is entirely AI-generated.”
Kate later acknowledged in a public apology, stating, “Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing,” she said in a statement on X. “I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused. I hope everyone celebrating had a very happy Mother’s Day.”
On March 16th, 2024, Kate was spotted at a farm shop with Prince William. She was pictured looking “happy, relaxed and healthy” while visiting a local farm shop near their home in Windsor, England. A video of Kate and William at the farm shop, which was obtained by TMZ was later shared on March 18th. This was the first footage the public had seen of Kate since her hospitalization.
