Prince William Calls 'Brutal' 2024 the 'Hardest Year of My Life'
Prince William has broken his silence on the "brutal" 2024 he's endured after his wife, Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales, and his father, Charles III, the King of the United Kingdom, were both diagnosed with cancer this year.
In previously unheard comments that emerged this week, William said it's "probably been the hardest year in my life."
The royal made the unreserved remarks to a pool of reporters in South Africa at the end of his trip to the country's capital of Cape Town from Nov. 4–7. There, William attended the fourth annual Earthshot Prize Award ceremony; he also engaged in various environmental initiatives and participated in events through Cape Town as part of "Earthshot Week."
But the reporters at the end of his stay got to the heart of the matter when William made the quite personal comments to them. The royal clearly has been carrying a heavy load over the last year, and the 42-year-old was upfront about his feelings.
"It's been dreadful," William said when asked about the family circumstances, as People reported on Thursday (Nov. 7). "It's probably been the hardest year in my life."
However, William still continues to maintain his commitments as part of the Royal Family, not to mention to his immediate family, leading him to add, "So, trying to get through everything else and keep everything on track has been really difficult."
He continued, "But I'm so proud of my wife, I'm proud of my father, for handling the things that they have done. But from a personal family point of view, it's been, yeah, it's been brutal."
Asked about Middleton, who revealed in September that she had completed chemotherapy, William said that she was "doing well." But after one of the reporters subsequently told him that he looked relaxed, William responded, "I couldn't be less relaxed this year, so it's very interesting you're all seeing that."
He continued, "But it's more a case of just crack on and you've got to keep going. I enjoy my work and I enjoy pacing myself and keeping sure that I have got time for my family, too."
As part of the Earthshot Prize event, William got to witness a rendition of Elton John's classic "Circle of Life" from The Lion King be performed at Cape Town's Table Mountain, and it apparently hit him in the feels.
"Hearing The Lion King and things like that gets me quite emotional," William said. "So, when they started singing and ... we were all there and it's happened, I did feel quite emotional."
He added, "But the key thing is really the impact now. We need to translate the sort of effort that we put into the visibility of the prize and particularly the visibility of the solutions."
