Nearly three months after announcing her cancer diagnosis, Kate Middleton has broken her silence.
“It remains a great honour to be a colonel and I am very disappointed that I will not be able to receive the salute at this year's parade,” Queen Elizabeth wrote to the Irish Guards, who held their annual dress rehearsal on London's Mall, a week before the Queen's birthday celebrations on June 15. “I sincerely hope to be able to represent you again soon.”
Kate made her first public appearance in six months at Trooping the Colour, but the bigger news was the rumoured reason why she missed rehearsals a week earlier on June 8th.
According to internet sleuths, Prince Charles was recently spotted in Houston, about 5,000 miles away.
“Multiple witnesses have claimed to have seen her in Texas,” a source told Life & Style exclusively. “She is thought to be traveling back and forth to Texas to secretly undergo cancer treatment.”
The sightings are very specific: On June 9, one Reddit user reported that they were “visiting a friend at the St. Regis who said she was at the hotel,” while another user claimed they had heard from staff at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center that Kate, 42, was there.
Yet another wrote that he saw her “laughing while hiking with her bodyguard” on a trail near the hospital.
She wouldn't be their first celebrity patient; Terry Bradshaw, Kelly Preston and Eddie Van Halen are among the celebrities who have been treated at MD Anderson. The center is frequently cited as one of the best cancer centers in the world, specializing in some of the deadliest forms of cancer, including breast, ovarian, lung and prostate cancer, melanoma and leukemia. (Kate has not disclosed the type of cancer she has.)
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As locals were abuzz, the Houston Chronicle reached out for comment: “Rumors that Kate is receiving treatment at MD Anderson in Houston are false, according to a Kensington Palace representative,” the paper reported on June 10. However, the source noted, “That doesn't mean she hasn't been there before or that she doesn't see other specialists in the U.S. Of course, that's something they probably don't want to confirm, for a variety of reasons.”
These include safety, privacy and public image. The idea of ​​a member of the royal family receiving treatment outside the NHS is “unseemly”, the source said. “It would suggest that the medical care that 'ordinary' Britons get is not good enough for a princess who can afford better doctors. But the truth is, [Prince] William is willing to pay any amount to help her get better.”
Whatever she's doing, it seems to be working. “It's been tough, but Kate has turned things around,” a source said. After all, Kate looked in high spirits as she congratulated her father-in-law, King Charles III, who is battling prostate cancer, at Horse Guards Parade in London. She was accompanied by her husband, Prince William, and their three children: Prince George, 10, Princess Charlotte, 9, and Prince Louis, 6.
The source added: “She really wants to reassure everyone right away that she's OK.”