Kate Middleton is “feeling good,” and is on track to return to public duties in the coming weeks, The Daily Beast has been told by a friend of the Waleses.
Additionally, a fellow parent at the school Kate and Prince William’s children attend also told The Daily Beast that Kate had been seen doing the school run in recent days, although it was not clear whether she was driving herself or being chauffeured. The school breaks up on Friday for almost four weeks of Easter holidays, and while there have been hints from the palace that the Princess of Wales may not return to frontline public duties full time until after the holidays conclude, she is understood to be planning to attend church on Easter Sunday in what one friend previously described this week to The Daily Beast as a “big bang” moment.
The new insights came as Kate’s team at Kensington Palace seemed also to be talking up the likelihood of her imminent return to the front line of public life, with suggestions she had been “working from home” not contested by her office. Her spokesperson said that she was being kept in the loop on work on her Shaping Us early childhood project, telling The Daily Beast: “The Princess has been kept updated throughout the process.”
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While the remark is at first glance anodyne, its importance should not be underestimated as it is the only time that the palace has made any comment at all on what Kate has actually been doing since she disappeared from view after having abdominal surgery at the start of the year. Her staff would not have been so (relatively) forthcoming if they were not confident that a full-blooded return to public life was imminent.
A friend of Kate’s echoed that positive messaging, saying, “She is feeling good, and looking forward to getting back to work.” Asked if she had been upset by the recent claims that staff at the exclusive private hospital where she was treated in January had been caught trying to access her private medical records, the friend said they had no special knowledge of her reaction to the matter, but added that it spelt out all too clearly the “relentless pressure” the couple are under in attempting to keep any aspect of their life private.
The reports of attempts to hack her medical records, eerily reminiscent of outrageous tabloid malfeasance in previous decades, has certainly generated a great deal of sympathy for Kate.
Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, accompanied by their parents Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, arrive for a settling-in afternoon at Lambrook School, near Ascot in Berkshire, Britain, September 7, 2022.
Jonathan Brady/Pool via ReutersA fellow parent at the exclusive private school which all three of the Wales children attend said the incident had made it all the more important to parents there that Kate felt she could trust that the school was a safe place. Asked if Kate had been back doing the school run, the source said it was no secret that she had, because she was photographed in paparazzi pictures published by TMZ being driven from the school by her mother, but declined to give specifics and said they did not know if she had subsequently driven herself. The school’s Lent term ends on Friday with students due a more than three-week vacation for Easter.
For Kate and William, much will likely depend on how, when, and how extensively the princess chooses to share information about the health struggles she has been dealing with in recent months.
Suggestions that she may discuss her illness are being floated with increasing regularity, but there seems little likelihood that, having never submitted to a solo, sit-down, access all-areas TV interview she would be likely to do that now. One intriguing possibility raised in a recent lengthy analysis by the Sunday Times is that she could make remarks to a member of the public asking a question as part of a public walkabout.
