Kensington Palace has finally taken action to address an apparent error made by a well-known royal reporter, who incorrectly suggested in September that Kate Middleton never had cancer but was instead diagnosed with “pre-cancerous cells.”
The report by Rhiannon Mills, the senior royal editor for Sky News, resurfaced over the past week and prompted a new round of conspiracy theories surrounding the Princess of Wales’ cancer diagnosis and recovery, the Daily Beast reported. Vicious online rumors once again erupted on social media, with royal critics accusing Kate of either faking her cancer or exaggerating her health crisis to cover up personal difficulties.
Mills made the apparent error while writing about the uplifting, stylishly produced video that Kate and Kensington Palace released September 9. In the video, the princess declared that she had completed her cancer treatment and was ready to resume royal duties, the Daily Beast reported. She even said she was “cancer free.”
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While writing about Kate’s joyful video, Mills reportedly wrote: “In March, the princess confirmed that pre-cancerous cells had been found following abdominal surgery and that she would have to undergo a course of preventative chemotherapy.”
Mills was referring to the earlier video that Kate released on March 22, in which she explained to the world why she had been missing from public view since December 2023.
“In January, I underwent major abdominal surgery in London and at the time, it was thought that my condition was non-cancerous,” the princess said in that March video. “The surgery was successful. However, tests after the operation found cancer had been present. My medical team therefore advised that I should undergo a course of preventative chemotherapy and I am now in the early stages of that treatment.”
Kate never used the words “pre-cancerous” in her video and the palace never used the words in their brief and sometimes opaque statements about the princess’ health challenges. As a doctor told the Daily Beast, there’s a difference between “pre-cancerous cells” and having cancer, “You either have pre-cancerous cells or you have cancer, the two terms are not interchangeable.”
But Mills wrote “pre-cancerous,” and the journalist’s use of this term either didn’t get noticed by the palace at the time, or the palace apparently didn’t seek a correction until earlier this week, the Daily Beast reported.
Mills’ Sky News story was apparently updated on Monday, with a new paragraph that reads, “In March the princess confirmed that she was having preventative chemotherapy after cancer was found in tests.”
Daily Beast editor Tom Sykes explained how the palace should have been able to “clean up” this confusion much sooner. That’s because Mills is a member of the “royal rota,” a group of royal journalists working for British media who are given unique access to royal events and palace aides. While they maintain their editorial independence and may write critical stories about the royals, these journalists also cooperate with the palace on logistics and other matters, with palace aides able to reach out to them behind the scenes to brief them “on background.” Palace staffers also can contact rota reporters to get simple errors or false reports corrected.
Sykes reported that “reputable journalists” began contacting Kensington Palace last week to seek clarification on Mills’ “pre-cancerous” wording, but her Sky News story was left unchanged until Monday. According to Sykes, the palace’s sluggish response is part of the larger problem in how it has managed the release of news about Kate’s health crisis since the early part of this year.
Sykes said the palace has adopted a “half-transparent/half-secretive approach,” which first fueled concerns about Kate’s well-being in January, when it revealed that she had undergone “planned abdominal surgery” and would need to stay in the hospital for up to two weeks.
The palace refused to release any more information about the reasons for the surgery, saying it wanted to respect her medical privacy. But many raised alarms over the news, especially because they felt that such a lengthy hospital stay for a seemingly healthy woman in her 40s suggested that her condition was serious.
Kate then effectively disappeared for the next couple months — and no new information was forthcoming. In this vacuum, speculation and rumors about her whereabouts began to grow. The princess finally reappeared in a family photo with her three children that was released in early March to celebrate the UK’s version of Mother’s Day.
But the photo’s release “turbocharged” the conspiracy theories, Sykes wrote, after major international news agencies reported that the photo had been edited. Sykes said the photo’s release turned out to be “one of the most disastrous episodes of news management ever seen in the royal family,”
It was reported Kate felt compelled to finally reveal her cancer diagnosis in her March 22 video in order to quiet the conspiracy theories. But again, in the palace’s “half-transparent/half-secretive approach,” the princess didn’t explain what kind of cancer she had.
Sykes explained that Kate’s September video fueled more confusion about messaging and a disconnect between her and the palace. In the video, he noted that Kate also described herself as “cancer free,” with her saying, “Doing what I can to stay cancer free is now my focus.”
At the time, though, her office advised the media to not use the phrase “cancer free,” Sykes reported. It’s not clear what Kate meant when she said she was “cancer free,” or why her staff asked reporters to not use that term.
According to the National Cancer Institute, there’s a difference between being cured of cancer and being in in remission.
A cure suggests there are no traces of cancer after treatment, and the cancer will never come back, while remission means that the signs and symptoms of cancer have been reduced, according to the cancer institute. If someone remains in complete remission for five or more years — as in all signs and symptoms of cancer have disappeared — some doctors may tell a patient that they are cured. Still, some cancer cells can also remain in a person’s bodies for years afterwards.
—Martha Rossi, The Mercury News (TNS)
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