The royal family has always been protected by the British press, but palace insiders are now at a point where they feel they can no longer ignore King Charles III’s health issues.

It’s no secret that the monarch is battling cancer, even though no one knows exactly what type it is, but Tom Sykes’ The Royalist Substack is now saying the quiet part out loud. “I was horrified by photographs that have emerged in the last few hours of the King at a joint engagement with his son, the Prince of Wales, in London for the COP30 climate summit….It’s impossible to look at these images without seeing how much King Charles’s health has declined,” he wrote.

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It’s not hard to see that there’s been significant weight loss, and as Sykes pointed out, “The man’s suit is falling off him.” He believed that Charles’ “illness is taking a heavier toll than the institution will admit.” The royal expert praised the king for his “extraordinary courage” and for showing up with excitement each time he appears, but Sykes is alluding to a cover-up about the state of his health.

The one person who seems to be realistic about King Charles’ battle is Prince Harry. In May, he spoke to the BBC about he is eagerness to mend the rift with his father. “I would love reconciliation with my family. There’s no point continuing to fight any more, life is precious,” the Duke of Sussex explained while noting that he did “not know how much longer [his] father has.”

That should have been the first clue that Charles wasn’t doing as well as his family and doctors had hoped. It’s also why Harry and Charles seem to be fast-tracking the reunion process. Their September meeting was described by People insiders as a positive interaction. “It shows the way forward,” a source said. “It is a good starting point.”

Other royal experts, including Tina Brown, know that Charles is looking heavily at his legacy, and keeping the family feud going “is a bad look.”

“Charles knows that in these times of ugly political discord, a fractured royal family is a bad look,” Brown wrote in a September New York Times op-ed. “But it was also the fulfillment of paternal longing. It’s no secret that Charles desperately misses his prodigal son who, in earlier days, was always the fun, ebullient scamp compared with the haughtier, more Hanoverian William.”

That’s why Sykes is reminding people that it’s important to talk about King Charles’ health right now — his life or possible death are “a legitimate matter of public interest.”

He added, “Charles has told us he has cancer, and his aides have admitted it is incurable, it is frankly an insult to intelligence to try and suppress reporting of it. Charles himself—his condition, his mortality—is the key to understanding everything that is happening in the royal family right now: Harry’s urgency to reconcile, William’s resistance to that reconciliation, the tension between the brothers over how their father’s legacy will be managed.”

It’s a heavy topic to think about, but it might be time for the palace to be honest about what is happening to King Charles right now.

Before you go, click here all the biggest royal scandals in the past 50 years.

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