Prince William Breaks Silence on 'Brutal' 2024 amid Kate Middleton and King Charles' Cancer Diagnoses: 'Hardest Year of My Life'

"Trying to get through everything else and keep everything on track has been really difficult," the Prince of Wales said

• In an interview on the last day of his four-day visit to Cape Town, South Africa, Prince William detailed how 2024 was “the hardest year of my life”

• The Prince of Wales — who saw both his wife, Kate Middleton, and his father, King Charles, receive a cancer diagnosis this year — said 2024 was “brutal” and “dreadful”

• He also spoke about the work of the Earthshot Prize, which he founded in 2020 after a 2018 visit to Africa

Prince William is speaking out about his “brutal” last year, which he called the “hardest year” of his life.

In a candid reflection on 2024 — which saw his father. King Charles, and then his wife, Kate Middleton, each receive a cancer diagnosis — he said, “It's been dreadful. It's probably been the hardest year in my life.”

He also reflected on his role as Prince of Wales, which he took on two years ago at the death of his grandmother Queen Elizabeth on Sept. 8, 2022.

“So, trying to get through everything else and keep everything on track has been really difficult,” William, 42, said.

He went on to commend both Kate and his father, King Charles, for how they've faced their cancer journeys.

“But I'm so proud of my wife, I'm proud of my father, for handling the things that they have done. But from a personal family point of view, it's been, yeah, it's been brutal.”

Related: Prince William Wraps Up His Earthshot Prize Visit to Cape Town, South Africa: See the Best Photos!

When asked how Kate — who announced Sept. 9 that she had completed chemotherapy — is doing, he said that she is “doing well,” and, after being told he looked relaxed, said, “I couldn’t be less relaxed this year, so it’s very interesting you’re all seeing that.”

“But it’s more a case of just crack on and you’ve got to keep going,” he added. “I enjoy my work and I enjoy pacing myself and keeping sure that I have got time for my family, too.”

While the Prince of Wales admitted that he wasn’t sure if his children Prince George, 11, Prince Charlotte, 9, and Prince Louis, 6, watched the Earthshot Prize Awards — which was streamed live on YouTube — he said “I hope they did,” and mentioned that Charlotte initially wasn’t a fan of his new beard, which he debuted over the summer.

“Charlotte didn’t like it the first time,” William said. “I got floods of tears, the first one I got tears, so I have to shave it off. And then I grew it back. I thought, hang on a second, and I convinced her it was going to be okay.”

The prince made the remarks in a candid interview with reporters at the end of his visit to Cape Town, South Africa, which began Nov. 4 and ended Nov. 7.

Looking back on his week highlighting his Earthshot Prize initiative, he said he got “emotional” hearing the rendition of “Circle of Life” being performed at Cape Town’s iconic Table Mountain.

“Hearing The Lion King and things like that gets me quite emotional,” he said. “So, when they started singing and ... we were all there and it's happened, I did feel quite emotional.”

He added, “But the key thing is really the impact now. We need to translate the sort of effort that we put into the visibility of the prize and particularly the visibility of the solutions.”

Related: Prince William Says 'I Can Be Myself' and 'Get Away' from 'Stuff That Happens in My Normal Life' When in Africa

The Earthshot Prize’s finalists, he said, are “brilliant people”: “Overall all doing fantastic work in the same direction,” he said of the group of 15, of which five became winners at Nov. 6’s awards ceremony. “And I think the key thing for us is how do we translate that into more impact, more scale and, ultimately, greater progress in tackling environmental challenges.”

Earthshot is now entering its fifth year, and he reflected, “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.”

Speaking after he witnessed how one of last year’s finalists, Abalobi, was working to make fishing more sustainable in the seas off South Africa, he said he hoped more businesses would get on board. 

“We’re giving this amazing platform to all of them. And really it's an amazing platform for businesses to come in and poach what they want,” he said.

“But in return, businesses have actually have got to do that, and so there's a little bit of reluctance that I've still going to get through about why businesses are not coming in faster. And a little bit is to do with the fact that I think they think, well, there might be something better around the corner,” Prince William said.

“So my message to business really is hurry up and be courageous. Invest faster because we just don't have that time,” he continued.

Asked about how he sees his role and whether it was more restrictive having greater responsibility and importance in the royal institution, he said, “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,” he added. “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, the Earthshot is a culmination, if you like, of all that put together.”

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He admits to getting “frustrated” at the slowness of some businesses to get behind his environmental project.

“I’d like it to be more a team sport. And so, when you go and approach people and say, like, business or whoever, or even government, when you approach them and say, ‘Listen, we're building this incredible thing,’ ” he added. “Please come on board. Some people are extremely fast and keen to it. Others take a little bit longer, and it's those people who take a little bit longer, I'm like, ‘Guys, we just don't have the time.’ ”