Culture

Palace Shuts Down Claims Kate Middleton Was In a Coma, Near Death

‘TOTALLY MADE-UP’

Kate’s life, a Spanish journalist said, “was in great danger” after her abdominal surgery, and that doctors had to save her. Palace sources vigorously deny the claims.

Catherine, Princess of Wales
Chris Jackson/Pool via Reuters/File Photo

Claims on Spanish TV that Kate Middleton’s life was in “great danger” and that she was put into an induced coma have been dismissed as “total nonsense,” and “fundamentally, totally made-up,” by a Palace source.

The claims were made by Spanish journalist Concha Calleja the day before Kate was released from hospital after abdominal surgery, The Times of London reported.

Kate’s life, Calleja said, “was in great danger” after the operation, and that doctors had to save her. Calleja said she had “spoken to an aide from the royal household in a completely off-the-record manner,” which the Palace denies.

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“The doctors had to take drastic decisions at that moment because of the complications that arose,” Calleja reportedly said. “The decision was to put her (Kate) in an induced coma. They had to intubate her. There were serious complications that they didn’t expect because the operation went well, but the postoperative period didn’t go so well.”

“The concern in the royal household was palpable,” Calleja said. “It was about saving her life.”

Kate was “possibly going to require a lot of assistance, and I’m not just referring to her family,” Calleja said of Kate’s at-home care, which began earlier this week after her two-week hospital stay. Health-care staff were looking after Kate, Calleja reported, adding “practically an entire hospital is being set up” at Prince William and Kate’s home.

Calleja reported that Kate had been taken into the hospital for several days on Dec. 28—three days after she was last seen in public, at the royal family’s Christmas Day walk to church in Sandringham—after she “began to feel unwell, not for the first time.” After that, her abdominal surgery was planned.

“It’s total nonsense,” a palace source told the Times. “No attempt was made by that journalist to fact-check anything that she said with anyone in the household. It’s fundamentally, totally made-up, and I’ll use polite English here: it’s absolutely not the case.”