Prince William has been breaking the norm on two fronts recently, sharing rare updates about both his wife, Kate Middleton, and his estranged brother, Prince Harry.
Elaborating on Middleton’s cancer journey, the future King told British reporters on Nov. 6 that his wife is “doing well,” a few months after she ended her chemotherapy treatment in September. Princess Kate first shared news of her diagnosis with an unnamed form of cancer in February, after weeks of withdrawing from royal duties and inviting much scrutiny from the public.
In what marks perhaps his lengthiest update about Kate’s health, Prince William said she has “been amazing this whole year,” adding that he hoped she would be “cheering me on” as he underwent a royal engagement at the Earthshot Prize awards in Cape Town, South Africa. “I know she will be really keen to see tonight be a success,” Prince William told reporters, without revealing whether Kate’s absence was due to her illness and recovery.
While the royal family has rarely commented on Kate’s health since her diagnosis became public, perhaps stifled by that photo editing controversy, reports over the months have indicated that her recovery has been successful. In September, it was revealed that her treatment had finished, resulting in her becoming cancer free. Since then, Kate has gradually returned to public duties, and was most recently seen at a royal visit to Southport, England, in mid-October.
In the same interview with British reporters, the Prince went on to further pull back the curtain on his family life, revealing that his daughter — Princess Charlotte — had gifted him a Taylor Swift friendship bracelet to remind him of home. “This is a relic, if you like, from a Taylor Swift concert that my daughter decided that she wanted to create a bracelet for,” William explained of the makeshift jewelery. “She gave it to me when I came away. So I promised that I’d wear it and try not to lose it while I was out here.”
William’s rare elaboration on Kate’s health adds to his uncharacteristic candor around family matters of late, having recently mentioned his brother by name for the first time in six years. The name-drop came during a documentary — titled Prince William: We Can End Homelessness — which aired in the U.K. last week, and saw William reference his brother while recalling a childhood memory of visiting a homeless shelter with their late mother.
“My mother took me to The Passage; she took Harry and I both there,” William recalled in the documentary. “I must have been 11 at the time, maybe 10. I had never been to anything like that before, and I was a bit anxious about what to expect.” The documentary also featured an old photograph of William and Harry smiling with their mother, Princess Diana.
That was believed to be William’s first public mention of Harry in many years, as reports of their souring relationship in the wake of Harry’s marriage to Meghan Markle have only continued to proliferate. For her part, Middleton has been making headlines of her own, from reports of her and William’s “regular” married and home life to her post-recovery decision to adopt a “less is more” approach to royal engagements.