Surprise! Kate Middleton just made her first official public appearance since announcing she’d completed chemotherapy.
The Princess of Wales tagged along, unannounced, with her husband, Prince William, on a visit to Southport today. There, they met with the families of the children and one teacher killed earlier this year in a knife attack on a Taylor Swift-themed dance class.
Wearing a brown coat and a burgundy pussy-bow dress, Kate was a surprise addition to Prince William’s scheduled engagement. She decided to join him, per royal sources quoted by the BBC, “to show her ‘support, empathy, and compassion to the local community.’”
At any juncture pre-2024, Kate’s appearance at this sort of event would hardly be surprising, particularly given her affinity for causes that support young children and their well-being.
This is notable, however, for a few reasons: Not only is it her first official public appearance since she shared the news that she’d finished chemo following her cancer diagnosis earlier this year, but it’s just one of a handful of engagements she’s done all year.
It is also, barring Trooping the Colour (which is more of a group event), the first time that she’s been on a proper official engagement with her husband this year, although they’ve appeared together several times in less official royal contexts: Papped in public several times over the course of this year, for example, and the royal-version-of-PDA-packed video that Kate used to announce her chemo treatment had ended.
This latest engagement, the most “return to normal” yet, is another sign that Kate’s making good on her promise to make a slow, measured return to public life. Last week, for example, she shared a post on social media that indicated she’d been unofficially in attendance at an investiture ceremony, and there have been several closed-door meetings in the Court Circular — basically a public schedule of what royals are up to — over the last weeks that show she’s back to work in some capacity.
The last-minute nature of her attendance today, however, is another reminder that while things may seem to be edging closer to normalcy, the Princess of Wales continues to, as she put it herself in a statement, take things one day a time — and that there will be good days and bad days as she recovers.
This, it seems, was a good day.
