Catherine, Princess of Wales, has reportedly resumed her charity work and “has been working from home,” months after she underwent abdominal surgery in January and sparked speculation about her whereabouts.
A spokesperson for Kensington Palace confirmed to the Telegraph on Thursday that King Charles III‘s daughter-in-law, formerly Kate Middleton, is slowly returning to her Royal Foundation Centre of Early Childhood commitments. The charity seeks to improve the lives of babies and young children.
Catherine, who is married to Prince William, has reportedly received updates about her campaign amid her recovery. Kensington Palace also said a study that she inspired has garnered “overwhelmingly positive” results, the Telegraph added.
The Times could not reach a representative for Kensington Palace on Thursday.
Kensington Palace provided its update as the Princess of Wales’ time away from the public eye continues to spark conspiracy theories about her health, whereabouts and her relationship with Prince William, with whom she shares three children. Recently, bungled photos of the princess only fueled the conjectures.
Earlier this month, a person identified only as “C” tweeted an apology on the Prince and Princess of Wales’ official X (formerly Twitter) account claiming responsibility for a doctored Mother’s Day photo.
“Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing,” the social media message said. “I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday has caused.”
Since the debacle, internet sleuths, royal fanatics and others have scrutinized “new” pictures and videos of and allegedly from the Princess of Wales. Earlier this week, Getty Images announced that it would review a recently shared photo of the British royal, noting that it was “digitally enhanced.”
On Saturday, the Sun reported that Catherine was spotted in public for the first time since December, taking a casual shopping trip about a mile from her Adelaide Cottage home . The video raised red flags among fans, but TMZ, which shared a video of the same stroll, reported that the clip was taken on Saturday, and not anytime prior.
Amid the buzz surrounding photo and video of Catherine’s latest public moves, the hospital where she underwent surgery was reportedly a target of a medical record breach. Multiple outlets reported Wednesday that “up to three people” could be involved in allegedly accessing the princess’ medical records.
“We take enormous pride in the outstanding care and discretion we aim to deliver for all our patients that put their trust in us every day,” the London Clinic chief executive, Al Russell, said in a Wednesday statement to The Times. “We have systems in place to monitor management of patient information and, in the case of any breach, all appropriate investigatory, regulatory and disciplinary steps will be taken. There is no place at our hospital for those who intentionally breach the trust of any of our patients or colleagues.”
Times staff writer Nardine Saad contributed to this report.