Queen Elizabeth Battled Bone Cancer 'A Year Or More' Before Her Death, Boris Johnson Claims
Queen Elizabeth II battled bone cancer before she passed away two years ago, according to former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
In his new book titled "Unleashed," which is scheduled for release next week, the British politician, 60, disclosed that he had known for a while about the late monarch's condition.
"I had known for a year or more that she had a form of bone cancer, and her doctors were worried that at any time she could enter a sharp decline," Johnson stated in an excerpt obtained by the Daily Mail and published on Saturday.
In his new memoir, Johnson described his final meeting with the monarch who died on Sept. 8, 2022, at 96.
According to him, Queen Elizabeth's private secretary, Sir Edward Young, admitted that the late royal's health had "gone down quite a bit over the summer" before her passing.
"She seemed pale and more stooped, and she had dark bruising on her hands and wrists, probably from drips or injections," Johnson wrote in the excerpt.
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Two days before her demise, the late monarch made headlines after photos of her meeting with former Prime Minister Liz Truss circulated online. The snaps shared by several news outlets apparently featured a dark blue bruise on her right hand.
At the time, speculations arose that she might have been struggling with a serious health issue since Prince Philip had similar bruising before his death.
Despite the bruise and other signs of weakening, however, Johnson indicated in his book that as per her secretary, Queen Elizabeth's mind "was completely unimpaired by her illness."
"... from time to time in our conversation, she still flashed that great white smile in its sudden mood-lifting beauty," the politician recalled before noting that the Queen was determined to carry out her "last duty" of ensuring a "peaceful and orderly transition" of power between him and Truss at the time.
Johnson was not the first to mention the late monarch's alleged battle with cancer before her passing. Royal reporter Robert Jobson also stated in his book "Catherine, the Princess of Wales: A Biography of the Future Queen" that Queen Elizabeth had a kind of bone marrow cancer, which caused her health to "rapidly" deteriorate.
"Unleashed" will release in the U.K. on Oct. 10. It will hit U.S. shelves on Oct. 22.
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