Breaking News: Queen Camilla Harbored Major Secret During Heartbreaking Visit….Read More

Queen Camilla visited a cancer charity secretly knowing King Charles III had the disease before it was publicly known and could not “show the slightest flicker of vulnerability,” an aide told Newsweek.

The first days after Charles was diagnosed, but before the public announcement of his cancer, held major emotional challenges for the queen, who could not show the world what she was experiencing privately.

Her “never complain” spirit was tested to its limits when she visited a new Maggie’s cancer support center at the Royal Free Hospital, in London, on January 31, 2024. The public would not be told the king was himself a cancer patient until February 6.

An aide told Newsweek: “She had to undertake public duties knowing that the king had been diagnosed with cancer, including a visit to a Maggie’s center in London, and yet not be able to show the slightest flicker of vulnerability when she went there knowing what she knew privately.”

And during the visit Camilla was actually asked how Charles was recovering from a procedure on his prostate, replying in stoic terms: “He’s getting on, doing his best.”

The revelation came as part of a Newsweek cover story on the queen which hits newsstands this week.

The queen was being pulled in two directions, on the one hand wanting to stay home to help support her husband and on the other needing to step up and carry the torch for the monarchy.

“It was astonishing how she balanced both of those roles alongside her own private anxieties, in particular during the first period of about a week or 10 days,” the aide said.

At the time Prince William had stepped back from public duties to help Princess Kate, who was recovering from abdominal surgery, which would also lead to a diagnosis of cancer.

That meant Camilla was keeping the ship afloat virtually single-handedly. “It was exhausting,” the aide continued. “It would have been draining for a woman half her age. But I think if one is to attempt to see a benefit from that period, actually it did give a chance for the media, and the world, to see some of the work that she had always been doing with greater interest and clarity.”

And Camilla is not one for complaining: “She’s a stranger to self-pity. It’s something she’s inherited really I think from her late father and his wartime experiences.”

They are the ultimate ‘never complain’ family,” the aide continued. “She’s weathered some pretty stiff criticism over the years, but she’s very good at not letting it get to her and just cracking on, driven by a sense of duty and purpose, and self-pity is not seen as an attractive quality in anyone.”

Newsweek shadowed the queen during a series of royal visits in the first two months of 2025, learning about some of the projects closest to her heart.

Insights included the fact Camilla wrote a letter of support to Gisèle Pelicot, the French woman repeatedly drugged and raped by her husband Dominique Pelicot and dozens of other men he had recruited to abuse her.

So, as a long-term supporter of survivors of domestic and sexual abuse, the queen wrote to Madame Pelicot privately,” an aide told Newsweek. “It was very much her instigation and determination to write to express support from the highest level.”

Jack Royston is chief royal correspondent for Newsweek, based in London. You can find him on X, formerly Twitter, at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek’s The Royals Facebook page.