In the midst of several serious health issues amongst members of the royal family, namely the cancer diagnoses of King Charles III and Kate Middleton, there’s something to celebrate: Sarah Ferguson is feeling “better than ever” after a year she was treated for both breast cancer and skin cancer.
The Duchess of York, 64, spoke with Hello! in an interview published Sunday, saying that she has a positive outlook on her health and her life.
“I have to be checked regularly and I have to put cream on my face to get out past sun damage, which means big blisters on my face, chest, and hands for three weeks,” she said. “But I’m not doing immunotherapy, taking any drugs, or doing chemotherapy, for which I’m very grateful.”
Her daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, are grateful, too. The duchess and her daughters are close, and both have spent significant time with their mother through her treatment, with one source saying that Eugenie had “all but moved in” with Ferguson after her mastectomy in 2023, with Beatrice visiting frequently. After the second “shock” diagnosis, the duchess said that she’s still very straightforward with her daughters about her health.
“I have always brought up my girls to be so honest and frank that they know I’m going to tell it to them straight, however difficult it is,” she told Hello!. “So when they said, ‘Mummy, tell us the absolute truth—have they got all the cancer out?’ and the answer was yes, they knew they were safe.”
“I have the most exceptional family and I have an extraordinarily great team and I have an enormous ability to turn to joy,” she said, which for Ferguson means publishing romance novels and embracing her “huge personality” instead of trying to “keep it under the cushion.”
“I think it woke me up,” she said of her diagnoses. “It gave me a swift kick in the butt and told me, ‘Right, are you going to start living now, at 64, or are you going to keep on not quite living?’ You don’t have to be what everyone wants you to be, just be yourself.”
“One of the only people who saw me properly was the Queen and before she died, she said, ‘Sarah, being yourself is enough.’”
The duchess continues to stress the importance of awareness, regular health checks, and open communication. At an event for the Cannes Film Festival last month, she told People, “I think you always have to be aware. I think it’s great to get checked for breast cancer [and] melanoma. I think you just have to be very candid about it.”
“I think a lot of people get very frightened to talk about these things,” she said. “I’m very happy with my mastectomy and my breasts and just to talk about it.”
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