Breaking news regarding King Charles. We are learning that he
indeed has been diagnosed with cancer.
This comes just a a week after he was released
from the hospital after undergoing a procedure to treat an
enlarged prostate.
Let's bring in our foreign correspondent Maggie Ruley in London.
She's been working all the breaking details.
Maggie, what do we know?
Hey, Carrie. Yeah, well, we've been following the King's Health
now for a few weeks after you mentioned he went
in for that procedure on what at the time they
said as in a large prostate.
But just moments ago Buckingham Palace was out with a
statement.
Let me read it for you.
Now they say during the King's recent hospital procedure for
a benign prostate enlargement,
a separate issue of concern was noted.
Subsequent diagnostic tests have identified a form of cancer.
Now, right now that's really all that we know.
Buckingham Palace again just releasing this statement moments ago.
What's interesting here, Kira, is some of the details that
they're giving.
They go on to say His Majesty chose to share
this diagnosis to prevent speculation and in hope it may
assist public understanding for all those around the world who
are affected by cancer. Now you may remember when he
went into that as large prostate,
he was very open about his medical history again hoping
to raise awareness for prostate issues in men.
It seems he may be doing something similar here.
But of course, Kira, right now our questions are surrounding
his health.
How is he doing? We did see him out and
about yesterday briefly leaving church in Sandragon,
but other than that we haven't seen him.
And so right now people are
thinking of him, wondering exactly what kind of cancer this
is,
how far along it is right now.
We just don't have those details yet,
Kira.
I mean, he was, he's 75 years old.
He's only been king for 17 months.
You and I were together for the,
you know, all the various ceremonies.
As you mentioned, he's been very open about this surgery.
So what do you think the next steps will be?
That's a good question, Karen.
And I think based on how open he has been,
there's questions here. If he will continue to be open,
he obviously has to go in for some form of
treatment.
Again, we don't exactly know what that treatment's going to
look like.
Will he be open about it?
Will he keep informing the public?
Maybe. He has said he wants to raise awareness.
And as he just released in the statement,
he wants to reach out to those people who also
have cancer.
And we know there's a growing number around the world.
And so I think it'll be interesting to follow him
on this journey.
But Kara, something else you just said there are so
important.
If he's only been king,
like you said, about 17 months,
his coronation was less than eight months ago.
You know, he's a man that just entered his Kingdom
right now.
He's been waiting so long for this and to have
this diagnosis happen now,
he's got to be going through a range of emotions.
And it'll be interesting to see how he uses this
diagnosis in his platform to potentially make a difference.
Yeah. And this is, it's interesting.
And you know this from covering
the Royals for so many years.
It, it's unusual, I don't know,
I think to be this open and transparent even sort
of from the beginning because as we know,
Princess Kate also went in for surgery as well.
We were talking about both of them,
her abdominal surgery, what he went in for as well.
There seems to be a,
I guess, more transparency than we've seen in the past.
I mean, when it came down to Queen Elizabeth,
it was very rare that we ever got details about
things like this.
It's a really good point.
And that's what's so curious here.
Will we keep getting this level of detail?
Will we learn more about his cancer and his treatment
plan?
I I think he really does want to make this
something that people can talk about him and and bring
the country together.
As he's mentioned multiple times,
he wants to raise awareness and really make a difference.
And here what's also interesting and something we haven't seen
before is how the other Royals are reacting.
You know, he was in the hospital for three days
for that prostate procedure,
just the end of January,
and his wife, the queen,
visited him every single day he was in the hospital,
even staying with him throughout the entirety of his surgery
and care.
That might seem normal for us to go visit your
spouse,
but historically, Royals haven't visited each other in the hospital.
It just wasn't done. So something else that's unusual,
either changing tradition or perhaps she wanted to be there
and decided she didn't care what happened historically.
But we're definitely seeing new things happening here,
whether it be transparency or even how other Royals are
reacting to the news.
Yeah, have we heard from anybody else?
I'm just looking at all the notes that you've been
putting out
and of course
a number of our producers who help support us in
getting information as it's just coming in.
And I don't see here if any that anybody else
so far has said anything
about his condition or or what we're learning.
Do you know anything else this hour,
if anybody is speaking out or if maybe family members
might be coming in to be with him,
since we now know that this is a different situation
than what we thought a week ago.
Maggie.
It's a good question, Karen,
but we haven't heard anything just yet.
This statement only came out moments ago and so we
can assume the Buckingham Palace wanted to release this information
first.
Perhaps we'll be hearing from other members of the royal
family in the next few hours.
It's interesting, you know, we have been watching his health
the past few weeks.
As you mentioned, you're watching the the health of Catherine,
the Princess of Wales as well and they they were
in the hospital together.
We know that King Charles went to visit Princess Catherine
when they were both in that same hospital.
And so they have been sort of going through medical
trauma together these past few weeks.
It'll be really interesting to see what happens next few
hours and days,
how the royal family comes together.
Will there be a collective statement that,
will there be a statement from the whales
to King Charles? I think these are all things that
we'll be looking out for.
All right, Maggie, really appreciate just the last minute
jumping in and giving us all the latest information.
Appreciate it.