The late Queen Elizabeth II had a form of bone cancer in her final years, former U.K. prime minister Boris Johnson has controversially claimed in his memoir.
In an extract from Unleashed, due out later this month and serialized by the Daily Mail, Johnson broke royal protocol and shared that the monarch was suffering from bone cancer before she died in 2022.
He wrote that two days before the Queen’s Sept. 8, 2022, death, he travelled to Balmoral Castle in Scotland to formally resign from his post, as is customary. The Queen appointed Liz Truss to be the U.K.’s new prime minister.
Her official cause of death was recorded as “old age” but Johnson said she had bone cancer and knew “all summer that she was going.”
“Edward Young, her private secretary, tried to prepare me,” Johnson wrote. “I had known for a year or more that she had a form of bone cancer, and her doctors were worried that at any time she could enter a sharp decline.
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“‘She’s gone down quite a bit over the summer,’ he said. And then the footman knocked and showed me into Her Majesty’s drawing room.”
Johnson wrote that during their final visit, the Queen appeared “pale and more stooped, and she had dark bruising on her hands and wrists, probably from drips or injections.”
However, he also wrote that she remained mentally sharp and described her bright smile.
“But her mind—as Edward had also said—was completely unimpaired by her illness, and from time to time in our conversation she still flashed that great white smile in its sudden mood-lifting beauty.”
He also wrote that Elizabeth shared with him one last “crucial” piece of advice during the visit.
“‘There’s no point in bitterness,’ she said, and amen to that. If everyone in politics — and life — could see that as clearly as she did, the world would be a much, much happier place,” he shared.
Johnson served as the 14th prime minister to hold the position during the queen’s historic 70-year reign.
His admission is likely to raise eyebrows at Buckingham Palace, as the Royal Family is notoriously tight-lipped around matters of personal health. The late queen never shared private medical details surrounding her health with the public.
Since her passing, however, the royal protocol has relaxed a bit, especially this year as King Charles III and Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales, have both faced cancer diagnoses and shared health updates with the world.
Neither the King nor the Princess have shared the specific type of cancer they were diagnosed with, speaking more generally about their progress through treatment and their respective returns to royal duties.
Both Royal Family members have said, through aides, that they are sharing their experiences to raise awareness.
Buckingham Palace has not commented on the contents of Johnson’s book.
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