The Prince of Wales admitted it’s been “the hardest year of his life” as he was asked about how the year has been for him amid his wife and father’s cancer diagnoses.
Prince William opened up in an interview with UK print media in South Africa, as he concluded his four-day visit to Cape Town in support of the Earthshot Prize Awards.
“Trying to get through everything else and keep everything on track has been really difficult, he said. “But I’m so proud of my wife, I’m proud of my father, for handling the things that they have done” before saying that “from a personal family point of view” the past year has been “brutal”.
Sharing an update on Kate, he added that she’s “doing really well”.
The King and the Princess of Wales’s health battles were confirmed within weeks another in February and March earlier this year.
Charles, 75, has resumed his treatment after returning to the UK from his tour of Australia and Samoa with wife Camilla, while Kate, 42, completed a course of preventative chemotherapy in September.
The Princess joined her husband during a moving visit to Southport last month as she makes a gradual return to her public duties.
At the conclusion of the Earthshot Prize Awards where William shone a light on the environmental innovation happening across Africa as well as the incredible climate solutions from the 15 finalists, he said he was “really pleased with the progress” the initiative has made so far over the past four years.
When asked if he had any frustrations or things he wanted to achieve, the Prince replied: “At some point my language is going to have to change from ‘It’s just four years to, ‘Oh my God it’s been four years’. At some point that has to change. But I think we’ve built something from scratch. It’s a global environmental Prize. It takes time, it takes a lot of effort. It takes a lot of balancing to get it right. And last night I was really thrilled with the actual award ceremony.”
“But the key thing is really the impact now,” William continued. “We need to translate the sort of effort that we put into the visibility of the prize and particularly the visibility of the solutions.”
© GettyAnd when asked if companies need to do more to help businesses scale up, he urged them to “hurry up and be courageous. Invest faster because we just don’t have that time”.
The five finalists were unveiled at Wednesday night’s star-studded awards ceremony, which opened with Lebo M’s performance of the Circle of Life, which William admitted had made him feel “quite emotional”.
He said he hoped his wife and children had watched the awards from home and when quizzed about his new bearded appearance, laughing, he said: ‘Well Charlotte didn’t like it the first time. I got floods of tears the first time I grew a beard, so I had to shave it off. And then I grew it back.”
© GettyWhen asked whether he was enjoying the responsibility and the freedom that his role as the Prince of Wales gives him, William replied: “It’s a tricky one. Do I like more responsibility? No.
Do I like the freedom that I can build something like Earthshot then yes. And that’s the future for me. It’s very important with my role and my platform, that I’m doing something for good. That I’m helping people’s lives and I’m doing something that is genuinely meaningful.
“So, Earthshot is a culmination, if you like, of all of that put together. But it takes a lot of work, and there’s a lot of unseen stuff that goes on, a lot of meetings, a lot of people coming in, a lot of chatting and phone calls, letters, all trying to make Earthshot get to being the best possible entity it can be.”
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