Kate's discovery INSIDE HER YEAR OF CHANGE

The princess dealt with curiosity, confusion, conspiracies and cancer, but never lost her spirit

- Judy Kean

It was bad enough that the Princess of Wales had to deal with a shock diagnosis of cancer. But the rumors that flew about why she disappeared from public life earlier this year made an awful situation even worse, according to a royal author.

In new chapters added to his book Charles III, writer Robert Hardman looks back over Kate’s tumultuous year, including focusing on the “bewilderingly fanciful conspiracy theories that took flight around the world” after it was announced in January that the princess was taking time off work to recover from abdominal surgery. These became frenzied until it was revealed in March that she had cancer.

“Even sober publications like America’s Forbes magazine were referencing a Spanish TV report that the princess was in a coma, alongside another fast-trending South American rumor that she was either in hiding following a disastrous haircut or failed cosmetic surgery,” says Robert.

Particularly upsetting was the public reaction after Kate, 42, posted a photograph of herself with her children, Prince George, 11, Princess Charlotte, nine, and Prince Louis, six, to mark Mother’s Day on March 10. Robert says the Waleses and their staff were “astonished” when the main four international photographic agencies in the world, including Associated Press and Reuters, refused to distribute the snap, saying it had been manipulated.