LONDON - Queen Camilla has spoken about the difficulty of not revealing King Charles III had cancer when she visited a support charity shortly after her husband had been diagnosed with the disease.
Buckingham Palace announced the British monarch’s shock diagnosis in February 2024 and that he had begun a schedule of regular treatments, though it has never said what kind of cancer he has been treated for.
In a short film made in a collaboration between the Palace and the cancer support charity Maggie’s — which Camilla is president of — the queen recalled visiting one of its centres “just after the King (was) diagnosed”.
“Nobody could say anything at the time. That was quite difficult,” she told Maggie’s chief executive Laura Lee, in a filmed conversation at the monarch’s London residence Clarence House.
“I almost said something but, you know, I felt that it wasn’t the time to say,” Camilla added, noting “I was just longing to let it out but obviously I couldn’t.”
Camilla said making the visit knowing her own husband had cancer underlined the valuable role played by Maggie’s, which has 27 centres across the UK built in the grounds of hospitals.
“(I) looked at everybody who was suffering and all the relations and I think it made me realise even more how important these places were,” she noted in the seven-minute video, which was posted on YouTube late on Tuesday.
Charles, 77, made a gradual return to public duties within months of starting what has become years of treatment.
Last December in a televised speech the monarch said that thanks to early diagnosis, effective intervention and following medical orders, that treatment schedule would be reduced in 2026.
Camilla said her husband had refused to let the diagnosis stop him doing public duties.
“Nothing stopped him. He just said: ‘This is my way. I’m going to cope with it’.”
