After Kate Middleton announced her diagnosis with an unspecified form of cancer in March, she reportedly received tens of thousands of letters from well-wishers around the world and set about responding to as many as she could. According to a report in The Asian Standard, one of those responses went to Bollywood actress Manisha Koirala, who has been open about her own 2012 treatment for stage IV ovarian cancer.
Koirala, who recently starred in the Hindi-language Netflix period drama Heeramandi, described her motivations for reaching out to the Princess of Wales in a statement. “I wanted to reach out to HRH The Princess of Wales to send my good wishes, particularly due to my own experiences,” she said, per the outlet. “I am deeply heartened to receive such a warm response from her and wish her the very best of health.”
The newspaper added that Kate’s letter also expressed joy at learning that Koirala is now cancer-free and wished her well on her travels to the UK earlier this month. During Koirala’s visit, she visited the headquarters of the London-based charity Ovacome and spoke to staff and members of their ovarian cancer support group.
When the palace released the annual Sovereign Grant report in July, they gave an update about the amount of correspondence that had been sent to the palace in the wake of King Charles III’s cancer diagnosis in February and Kate’s in March. “Some 27,000 messages of well-wishes for The King and Princess of Wales following the announcements about their health, building on the 31,000 kind messages that had been received for The Coronation and reaching a total of 138,000 items of correspondence for the year 2023-24,” said Sir Michael Stevens, Keeper of the Privy Purse. He added that the palace correspondence team was able to adjust quickly to keep up with the new pace of mail.