Kate ‘decided to reveal her diagnosis to the public two weeks ago’
THE Princess of Wales decided a fortnight ago to make the emotional video statement revealing her cancer diagnosis to help protect her children from being questioned at school, it was claimed yesterday.
Kate is said to have come to the decision at around the time she was facing intense social media speculation over her editing of a family photo that was released on Mother’s Day.
She was always intent on waiting until her children’s school broke up for Easter on Friday to go public about her health, it was suggested at the weekend.
The princess revealed in a video issued on Friday evening that she was diagnosed with cancer last month, having spent a fortnight in the private London Clinic for abdominal surgery in January.
A friend told The Sunday Times that she wrote her emotional message ‘by herself, very quickly’ but accompanied it with a video, despite never having made such a public address to the nation before, to deliver her news ‘as compassionately as possible’.
A simple written statement was apparently considered ‘too jarring’.
Journalist Victoria Newton told BBC1’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme the timing deliberately coincided with the last day at Lambrook School in Berkshire before the Easter break for Kate’s three children, George, ten, eightyear-old Charlotte and Louis, five.
The Sun editor said: ‘It was actually, I understand, that the princess made the decision two weeks ago that she was going to do this public statement.
‘The key thing for her as a mother, the priority was protecting those three children. She didn’t want them going to school, being asked even more than they already were.
‘They were already being affected at school, so it was always her plan that she would wait until the last day of term. Obviously they’ve endured an incredible amount of social media speculation which has been really hard for them to handle, but the priority for her was always those children.’
Friends have described Kate as a family ‘lynch pin’ and also said she and William were ‘fantastic parents’ and ‘committed to giving the children the happiest and healthiest upbringing possible’, The Sunday Telegraph reported.
‘William is extremely proud of his wife for the courage and strength she has shown not just this week, but since her surgery in January,’ a royal source told the paper.
‘He has always done all he can to protect his family and now more than ever he’s focused on ensuring his wife has the privacy she needs to fully recover and that his children are shielded from the understandable interest in the news that has been shared,’ the source added.
And a former press secretary for the late Queen has praised Kate for being ‘word perfect’ in her ‘brave, powerful and dignified’ statement about her diagnosis.
Simon Lewis, who handled the media for the monarch in 1998, said the princess had ‘broken new ground’ in going public about her health and described her video statement as ‘enormously authentic’.
‘Extremely proud of his wife’