Prince William and Princess Kate Middleton issued a new photo of William on Saturday, his 43rd birthday, but otherwise hid themselves away from public view as Kate “recalibrat[es] her entire life” after a bruising week in which she cancelled a high-profile public appearance.
Kate’s team cited her need to find “balance” as she recovers from cancer when she failed to appear at the iconic carriage ride at Royal Ascot races on Wednesday alongside the king.
By pulling out of such a high-profile event just over an hour before she was due to appear, Kate sowed panic and confusion among royal staff, although press reports in the United Kingdom have largely played down the drama.
Multiple sources told The Daily Beast they expected Kate to dramatically scale back her public appearances for the rest of the year and instead increase her online and digital footprint, remotely supporting causes close to her heart.
The issuance of William’s birthday photo, which showed him playing with the family’s new puppies, while he was due to make no public appearance, seemed a textbook example of that.
A post shared by The Prince and Princess of Wales (@princeandprincessofwales)
One well-connected source, a former royal staffer, told The Daily Beast: “Kate is recalibrating her entire life, her entire work-life balance. Wednesday was a wake-up call, not a one-off. She has never found the public appearances, and the forensic attention and criticism that goes with them, at all easy to deal with, and it was just too much this week.
“The last few years have been horrific; the disgusting things that Harry said about her and William and her family, the relentless speculation about her and William, the queen’s death, the king’s diagnosis which had them both thinking they were going to have to take over and then her own cancer diagnosis and treatment. It’s all taken its toll, and if she needs more time to recover, William will fight tooth and nail to see she is given it.”
Another royal insider said, “The important thing here is Kate’s recovery. It was too much, unfortunately, for her to have three appearances in under a week, and the lesson has been learned. Kate will take it much easier for the rest of the year. I’d be surprised if you see her more than three times in the next three months.”
William and Kate have both spoken openly about the challenges of the past year. Kate has said she has “good days and bad days,” and William said, “It’s been dreadful. It’s probably been the hardest year in my life.”
Kate’s March 2024 announcement that she had cancer came after the catastrophic failure to impose a news blackout on Kate’s health. The information vacuum meant Kate’s whereabouts became the subject of worldwide speculation.
William might have hoped that the couple would now be able to put Kate’s brush with cancer behind them, but on Wednesday, the world received a dramatic reminder of just how hard recovery from the disease can be on a both a physical and emotional level after Kate pulled out of the famous carriage procession, which would have seen her seated alongside the king, at Ascot racecourse Wednesday, with less than two hours notice.
Her team later briefed the media that Kate was seeking to find the right “balance” between a return to public life and recovering from cancer.
Kate’s last-minute change of plans sowed panic behind palace walls, a source told the Daily Beast this week, with an insider saying, “Everyone was wandering around going, ‘What is going on?’ One minute she was going, and the next she wasn’t. This is one of the biggest days of the year in the royal calendar; you don’t just miss Ascot on a whim, so there was a real sense of panic. The chaotic nature of the announcement was eerily reminiscent of the dark days of last year. People were bewildered and worried.”
Kate’s office did not respond to The Daily Beast’s requests for comment.
The post Kate Middleton ‘Recalibrating Her Entire Life’ as Prince William Hides on His Birthday appeared first on The Daily Beast.
