Kate Middleton is keeping her loved ones close.
As the Princess of Wales made her first speech since announcing her 2024 cancer diagnosis, she took the stage donning a deeply meaningful ring stack that gave a sweet nod to Prince William and his mother Princess Diana.
Indeed, Kate attended the Future Workforce Summit in London Nov. 18 sporting her late mother-in-law’s sparkling blue sapphire and diamond engagement ring, her gold wedding band, a gemstone eternity band and a diamond pavéd band.
Kate first showed off the eternity ring—the Etincelle de Cartier band featuring 19 brilliant-cut diamonds and sapphires, respectively—during a video for the 2024 Paris Olympics’ Closing Ceremony in August, following her chemotherapy treatments.
She topped off her stack with her all-diamond band—which she began wearing after welcoming her and William’s first child Prince George, 12, in 2013—that sat above her striped ring.
The 43-year-old—who also shares kids Princess Charlotte, 10 and Prince Louis, 7, with William—attended the event in London in a gray pantsuit over a white blouse featuring a billowing ruffle cascading down the front.
Kate—whose Royal Foundation Business Taskforce for Early Childhood hosted the event—urged the business executives at the summit to support children and families as early as possible.
“The love we feel in our earliest years fundamentally shapes who we become and how we thrive as adults,” she told the audience. “Love is the first and most essential bond. But it is also the invisible thread, woven with time, attention and tenderness, through consistent, nurturing relationships, which creates the grounded and meaningful environments around a child.”
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“It is this texture, the weave of love, which forms a child’s emotional world and becomes the foundation, the very fabric of resilience and belonging,” she continued. “We believe that we must do all we can to create the conditions for love to flourish. That is how we invest in our future.”
The royal’s public appearance comes two years after she last took the stage in November 2023 for her Shaping Us campaign to advocate for early childhood development. Just two months later, Buckingham Palace shared that she had undergone planned abdominal surgery and was recovering privately.
By March, she and Prince William confirmed that she had been diagnosed with cancer and was in the “early stages” of preventative chemotherapy. Following the news, the family shared health updates along the way until Kate confirmed that September that she had completed her chemotherapy.
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“Doing what I can to stay cancer-free is now my focus,” she shared in an Instagram video. “Although I have finished chemotherapy, my path to healing and full recovery is long and I must continue to take each day as it comes. I am, however, looking forward to being back at work and undertaking a few more public engagements in the coming months when I can.”
She added, “Despite all that has gone before, I enter this new phase of recovery with a renewed sense of hope and appreciation of life.”
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