Kate Middleton Has Returned to Work—and Now She’s Doing Her Favorite Fun Things, Too

As Kate Middleton resumes her royal duties after completing chemotherapy, the Princess of Wales has also returned to some of her favorite pastimes. On Thursday, Kate privately took in a matinee performance of Giselle by the English National Ballet in London, and later, publicly thanked the performers in a note championing the company’s creativity.

“Congratulations and thank you to @ENBallet and @Sadlers_Wells for the wonderfully powerful, moving and inspiring performance of Akram Khan’s Giselle,” she posted on her official social media account, alongside a photo of the cast onstage. “Creativity at its best! C”

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She signed the tweet note with her first initial, “C,” signaling that the message came directly from her, rather than the Kensington Palace team.

The outing was a personal one, rather than professional: Kate isn’t royal patron to the National Ballet; that role is held by Queen Camilla. The princess has long been a fan of ballet and dance, more broadly, and has attended performances with her children in the past. She and Princess Charlotte once took in a dress rehearsal of The Nutcracker together, and Charlotte has reportedly taken private ballet lessons.

Kate’s enthusiasm isn’t limited just to ballet: She took Charlotte and her youngest child Prince Louis to a taping of the reality dance competition show Strictly Come Dancing in December 2023, and her husband Prince William has dished that she is “a huge fan” of the show. That Kate is well enough to take in one of her favorite pastimes is a promising hint that the princess is slowly returning to normalcy.

Thus far, outings have been rare for Kate this year, with the January announcement from Kensington Palace that she had undergone an undisclosed abdominal procedure and would be recovering until April, and then Kate’s disclosure of her cancer diagnosis in March. Though she appeared at Trooping the Colour, the official celebration of King Charles III’s birthday in June, and at the Wimbledon tennis finals later in the summer, royal watchers were cautioned to temper their expectations of how often they would see the princess out and about. Even now that she’s finished with her treatment, William warned that she still has “a long way to go” in her cancer recovery.

In the early September video where she shared her most recent health update, Kate said, “I cannot tell you what a relief it is to have finally completed my chemotherapy treatment.” She called her nine months of treatment “incredibly tough” for not just her, but her family as well. “The cancer journey is complex, scary and unpredictable for everyone, especially those closest to you.”

Though Kate began working from home over the summer, her in-person work schedule has ramped up in recent days. First, she met with key personnel in her early childhood initiative to be updated on the multifaceted project’s status, and earlier this week hosted a planning confab for her annual Christmas carol concert, which will mark her fourth time spearheading the event.