Queen Camilla opens up about keeping King's cancer diagnosis a secret

Queen Camilla has revealed the personal difficulty of keeping her husband's cancer diagnosis a secret during a public engagement just days before the news was announced.

In a video released to mark the 30th anniversary of the Maggie's cancer charity, the Queen described her visit to a new support centre in London a week before the King's diagnosis was made public. She said she was "longing" to speak about his condition while meeting people affected by cancer, but knew she could not.

"It had never really come back to roost at home and suddenly your husband is diagnosed and you think goodness," she said in the recording. "To be talking to all these people, now I'm the one who's relation who's got to help to look after my poor husband and try and understand it all."

King Charles III announced on February 5, 2024, that he was undergoing treatment for an undisclosed form of cancer. The decision to go public broke with royal tradition and has been credited with encouraging more men to seek testing for prostate cancer and other forms of the disease.

Queen Camilla has served as president of Maggie's, which operates cancer support centres at 27 hospitals across the UK, since 2008. The charity has reported a 12% increase in male visitors, a trend partly linked to the King's openness about his own diagnosis.