Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says the late Queen Elizabeth II had bone cancer prior to her death.
Johnson makes the claim in his upcoming memoir, in which he also chronicles his final meeting with the monarch two days before she died on Sept. 8, 2022.
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In his book, “Unleashed,” Johnson writes that he was aware “for more than a year that she had a form of bone cancer and her doctors were worried that at any time she could enter a sharp decline.”
Johnson also writes that “she seemed pale and more stooped and she had dark bruising on her hands and her wrists” when the two met for the final time. Her right hand appeared to be purple in final photos taken of her.
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Despite the physical problems she appeared to have, Johnson says the queen was mentally sharp.
“But her mind ... was completely unimpaired ... she still flashed that great white smile in its sudden mood-lifting beauty,” he writes.
Buckingham Palace had no comment on Johnson’s claims and did not disclose an illness at the time of the queen's death. She was 96 when she died and her cause of death was listed as old age.
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The palace also said it doesn’t comment on books or claims like Johnson’s.
Johnson also writes the queen was steadfast in maintaining her role, noting she “had known all summer that she was going, but was determined to hang on and do her last duty” by overseeing the “peaceful and orderly transition” of power from him to his successor, Liz Truss.
It was made public in February that her oldest son, King Charles, was being treated for an unspecified type of cancer. A month later, Catherine, Princess of Wales, who is married to the queen’s grandson, Prince William, revealed she was undergoing cancer treatment. She returned to work in September after finishing treatment.
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