Inside Kate’s Brave Cancer Battle
After weeks of health speculation, wild conspiracy theories and a scandal over her heavily edited U.K. Mother’s Day photo, Kate quieted her critics on March 22 when she announced she has cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy. In a video, she explained that following her January abdominal surgery, post-operative tests “found cancer had been present.” As the public reacted with overwhelming support — some even gave Queen Camilla, 76, get-well signs to pass along — it’s believed Kate retreated to country home Anmer Hall with her family for the children’s spring break. “I am well and getting stronger every day,” Kate said, “by focusing on the things that will help me heal, in my mind, body and spirits.”
“But George doesn’t like all the traditional rules — he hates the bowing and formality. He rolls his eyes and thinks it’s quite silly. Yet he doesn’t complain.”
Even amid her health crisis (see sidebar), Kate and William have been helping George balance school with the extra lessons he’s starting to need. And it’s made them more grateful than ever that they bucked royal tradition and kept their little boy close. While Charles, 75, sent both of his sons, William and Prince Harry, 39, away to boarding school when they were just 8, in 2022, the Prince and Princess of Wales instead enrolled their kids at the $30,000-a-year coed Lambrook School, near their new home on the Windsor Castle estate. “Kate’s always wanted them to have more of a normal upbringing than William did,” an insider previously told Life & Style, “and didn’t necessarily want them to follow every royal tradition.”
She knows the clock is ticking, though. “In a few short years, George’s life is going to drastically change” as he takes on more responsibilities, says the insider, and “Kate thinks he should be out having fun, not living away from his family” — at least until he’s older.
For now, says the first source, “George is really just a regular kid…who just so happens to be second in line to the throne.”