Johnson’s memoir reveals Queen Elizabeth's secret cancer battle
Britons are eagerly awaiting the release of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson's autobiography. The politician has included an extensive section about Queen Elizabeth's illness, which he says she struggled with in the final years of her life.
30 September 2024 18:54
The former British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, announced at the beginning of 2023 the release of his autobiography, in which he promised to detail his three-year term. His tenure coincided with an incredibly intense period triggered by Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic. From the first pre-release excerpts, it is known that the author admitted to considering an invasion of a warehouse in the Netherlands to seize five million doses of COVID-19 vaccines. He also recounted his participation in illegal parties organised during the lockdown.
The nearly 800-page publication is dedicated mainly to the British monarch who passed away two years ago. Johnson claims that Queen Elizabeth took a great secret to her grave. As he wrote in his memoirs, he had known "for a year or longer" that the senior member of the Windsor family was suffering from bone marrow cancer.
Boris Johnson saw Queen Elizabeth two days before her death
The last meeting between the main representative of the royal family and the then-Prime Minister took place on 6 September 2022. The 96-year-old reportedly received the news of his resignation calmly. The politician emphasised that if other rulers showed as much understanding, "the world would be a much happier place".
Boris Johnson wrote in his autobiography, she [the Queen] had known all summer that she was going, but was determined to hang on and do her last duty. He also ventured to say that her illness was becoming increasingly apparent.
She seemed pale and more stooped, and she had dark bruising on her hands and wrists, probably from drips or injections - wrote the politician, adding a note about her consistently good mood, which "did not deteriorate due to poor health".
The information about the Queen's cancer was first made public by Gyles Brandreth, the author of the biography "Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait", published in November 2022. However, this was never officially confirmed by representatives of the royals and old age was listed as the cause of death on her death certificate.
