Prince William was at “the lowest I’ve ever seen him” after his wife Kate Middleton was diagnosed with cancer, a former royal aide said. In an interview with 60 Minutes Australia, Jason Knauf Knauf said the situation was “absolutely awful.”

“Within a couple of weeks, if you’re Prince William, you find out that both your wife and your father have cancer. I couldn’t believe it,” Mr Knauf added.

Both the Princess of Wales and King Charles were diagnosed with cancer last year. While Kate is now in remission, King Charles is undergoing treatment. Mr Knauf worked for William and Kate from 2015 to 2021. He stepped down from his position at the end of 2021.

Mr Knauf also addressed all the conspiracies surrounding Kate Middleton’s illness. He said, “The problem was that all this crazy conspiracy theory stuff kicked off in the background, online. ‘Was she really ill?’. But they didn’t want to say yet that she had cancer because they hadn’t told the children and they were still working through how to tell the children.”

Last year, in March, the Princess of Wales announced that she was undergoing cancer treatment. A few months later in September, she shared that she had completed chemotherapy. In January, this year, she revealed she was now in recovery and focusing on “remission”.

Mr Knauf also shared what Prince William talked about the most in his early years. They used to talk about “how he and the princess were going to prepare their children for life in the public eye,” he said. These comments were made about Prince William’s upbringing in the spotlight. 

He said, “His childhood in front of the media was quite difficult at times, and he knew that he was going to be raising his kids to deal with social media and mobile phones and all of that stuff.”