Prince William is calling 2024 the most “dreadful” year of his life following the respective cancer diagnoses of his father, King Charles III, and his wife, Princess Kate Middleton.
“It’s probably been the hardest year in my life,” William, 42, admitted in a candid interview from Cape Town, South Africa at a Wednesday, November 8 Earthshot Prize event. “So, trying to get through everything else and keep everything on track has been really difficult.”
He added, “I’m so proud of my wife, I’m proud of my father, for handling the things that they have done.”
“It’s been brutal,” the future monarch said.
Buckingham Palace announced Charles’ cancer diagnosis in early February. More than a month later, Kate sat down for a video in which she revealed that, after months of speculation, she had been undergoing chemotherapy for a cancer diagnosis. (Neither have disclosed the type of cancer they were diagnosed with.)
While Charles’ treatments are still ongoing, Kate shared publicly in September that she had completed chemotherapy.
“She’s doing well,” the Prince of Wales shared.
William’s candid chat came on the tail end of his trip to Cape Town, South Africa for this year’s Earthshot Prize ceremony, which was held on Wednesday, November 6.
“I’m really pleased with the progress we’ve made so far,” William said of the initiative, which he founded in 2020.
“We’ve built something from scratch. It’s a global environmental prize. It takes time, it takes a lot of effort,” he added. “It takes a lot of balancing to get it right. Last night I was really thrilled with the actual award ceremony.”
Finally, the royal family had something to smile about. On Thursday, April 11, Prince William and his 10-year-old son, Prince George, attended a soccer match at Villa Park stadium in Birmingham to cheer on their favorite team, Aston Villa. The father-son duo stood and clapped throughout the game, which ended with a 2–1 Aston Villa victory. […]
Wednesday’s awards ceremony welcomed the 15 Earthshot Prize finalists but only five went home with $1.3 million to continue their environmentally focused ventures. This year’s winners included Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative (Kazakhstan), the Green Africa Youth Organization (Ghana and Uganda), the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People (Global), Keep IT Cool (Kenya and Uganda) and Advanced Thermovoltaic Systems (USA).
While the Earthshot Prize has grown over the past four years, William admitted that companies have to do more.
“We’re giving this amazing platform to all of them. Really, it’s an amazing platform for businesses to come in and poach what they want,” he said. “But in return, businesses have actually have got to do that, and so there’s a little bit of reluctance that I’ve still going to get through about why businesses are not coming in faster. And a little bit is to do with the fact that I think they think, well, there might be something better around the corner.”
He added, “My message to business really is, hurry up and be courageous. Invest faster because we just don’t have that time.”