EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Princess Michael of Kent breaks each wrists in fall at palace after present process coronary heart surgical procedure
This has been a traumatic year for several members of the Royal Family – and none more so than for Princess Michael of Kent.
I hear that Marie Christine is unable to use her hands this Christmas after breaking both her wrists in a fall down the stairs at Kensington Palace, where she lives with her husband, Prince Michael, a beloved first cousin of the late Queen Elizabeth.
She attended King Charles’s pre-Christmas lunch at Buckingham Palace on Thursday with her wrists encased in splints. The accident comes ten months after the death of her son-in-law and while she continues to recover from heart surgery.
She was carrying an armful of overcoats when the accident happened. Luckily, she fell into the coats but broke multiple small bones when she put out her hands out to break her fall.
‘So many things that you rely on being able to do, like cleaning your teeth, are impossible,’ says the princess, 79, an author. ‘I can type with one finger on a mobile, but I can’t use a laptop.’
She adds: ‘I am told that, after an accident like this, if you do one wrong movement on top of the unhealed bones, you are back where you started.’
Nicknamed ‘Princess Pushy’ because of her supposedly assertive personality, Marie Christine also reveals that she underwent heart surgery a year ago.
Marie Christine is unable to use her hands after breaking both her wrists in a fall down the stairs at Kensington Palace, where she lives with her husband, Prince Michael
Prince and Princess Michael of Kent leave after attending King Charles III’s Christmas lunch at Buckingham Palace, London.
‘It shocked me,’ she tells Majesty magazine. ‘I still have to rest every afternoon.’
The princess’s serious health problems come after the tragic death of her son-in-law, Thomas Kingston, who was found dead in February.
He died aged 45 from what was described as a traumatic head wound. A gun was found near his body at his parents’ Cotswolds home.
Marie Christine says she had no indication that he was unwell. ‘Tom was a lovely man, so kind and so thoughtful,’ she says. ‘They were very happy together.’
She attended King Charles ’s pre-Christmas lunch at Buckingham Palace on Thursday with her wrists encased in splints.
Marie Christine also reveals that she underwent heart surgery a year ago, saying she still has to rest every afternoon
Referring to her son, Lord Frederick Windsor, his wife, the actress Sophie Winkleman, and their two daughters, Isabella and Maud, the princess says: ‘We often had them here with Freddie and Sophie and the girls for Sunday lunch. We never had any inkling anything was wrong.’
Lady Gabriella told the inquest earlier this month that her husband shot himself in an ‘impulsive’ decision caused by an adverse reaction to a cocktail of prescribed drugs.
She insisted that there had been ‘no suicidal indicators’ from her husband and blamed the powerful drugs he was taking for a number of health issues.
