The King and the Princess of Wales exchanged a warm greeting at the Duchess of Kent’s funeral on Tuesday that royal watchers and commentators interpreted as a sign of a close personal bond.
Photographs from Westminster Cathedral show the Princess of Wales curtsying and kissing the King on the cheek as the pair embraced while paying respects to the late royal. The King put his arm around the Princess of Wales as the couple, joined by the Prince of Wales, appeared to exchange a few quiet words at the service.
Commentators have pointed to the two royals’ respective cancer diagnoses earlier in 2024 as a factor that has brought them closer. Reporting in the Daily Mail and a Channel 5 documentary, "Kate: A Queen for the Future," described meetings between the two at the London Clinic in Harley Street while they underwent treatment. In the documentary, the Daily Mail’s editor-at-large Richard Kay said the King visited the Princess of Wales while both were patients and that they "compared notes" about hospital food and their treatments.
Body language analysts and royal correspondents have highlighted other public moments that, they say, illustrate a longstanding mutual regard. Judi James, a body language expert cited by the Daily Mail, said the King made the Princess of Wales “his centre of attention” at last year’s Trooping the Colour by standing beside her rather than beside the Prince of Wales. India McTaggart, the Telegraph’s royal correspondent, told the Channel 5 programme that King Charles has long respected the Princess and had praised her during Prince William’s wedding speech.
Royal commentator Robert Jobson told the documentary that the Princess of Wales plays an important role in facilitating the King’s relationship with his three eldest grandchildren, Charlotte, George and Louis. Jobson said she helps ensure that the King sees the children, particularly in moments when he and the Prince of Wales have not been in close agreement.
Public displays of affection between the King and the Princess of Wales are not new. Photographs from 2021 show the then-Duchess of Cambridge comforting the then-Prince of Wales at Prince Philip’s funeral, placing a hand on his shoulder and giving him a kiss on the cheek as they left St. George’s Chapel. At a G7 reception in 2021, the Princess of Wales referred to the King by the family nickname "grandpa," a moment widely reported in the press.
Palace aides have not issued a contemporaneous statement about the meanings of private conversations or hospital visits, and Buckingham Palace customarily does not comment on family interactions beyond official engagements. Media reports and commentators have nonetheless underscored the shared experiences of illness and family life as contributing to a more visibly affectionate public relationship between the monarch and his daughter-in-law.
The funeral of the Duchess of Kent drew senior members of the royal family and provided one of several recent occasions on which the King and the Princess of Wales have been photographed together. Those images, and accounts in the press and in broadcast features, have formed the basis of assessments by commentators who focus on royal family dynamics and public image.
Reporting for this story relied on coverage in the Daily Mail and commentary featured in the Channel 5 documentary cited by that outlet.