Prince William and Kate Middleton Attending Major Public Event After 2-Year Hiatus

Prince William and Kate Middleton are set to hit up one of the United Kingdom’s most high-profile events. Deadline reported that the Prince and Princess of Wales will attend the 2023 BAFTA Film Awards. This will mark their grand return to the BAFTAs after missing the last two ceremonies. 

The BAFTA Film Awards will take place on Feb. 19 at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall in London. William, who has been the president of the BAFTAs since 2010, and Kate are confirmed to be in attendance at the event. They will not only watch the ceremony but will also greet category winners and EE Rising Star Award nominees after the show. The pair have traditionally attended the event every year and appeared on the red carpet. However, they’ve been absent from the past two ceremonies.

William was scheduled to deliver a speech virtually in 2021 since he could not attend the event in person. But, his plans were altered when his grandfather, Prince Philip, died. 2021 marked the first time since his appointment as president of the organization that he wasn’t at the awards show. Even though they did not attend in person in 2022, William did deliver a video message that time around. In his speech, he praised the nominees for highlighting issues such as climate change in their programming, per the Daily Mail. 

“Now more than ever, programme makers have a unique opportunity to ensure climate change and sustainability remain at the forefront of our collective consciousness. By creating innovative, educational and emotive content for television, writers and producers are playing a unique role in ensuring the future of our planet is something that we all want to talk about,” William said. “Over the past year, we’ve seen some fantastic examples of this across a wide variety of programmes and genres. I hope you will all continue to carry on your invaluable work, keeping environmental issues high up on the agenda of programming in the years ahead.”

Of course, William and Kate’s appearance at this year’s BAFTAs ceremony will come amid a trying time for the royal family. Over the past few months, there has reportedly been a significant amount of strife amongst the family due to the apparent feud with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have made a series of allegations about the royal family in their Netflix docuseries, Harry & Meghan, and the prince’s memoir, Spare. Amidst all of the drama, there’s been talk about whether Harry and Meghan will attend King Charles III’s May coronation. While the king is reportedly on board with them attending, William is said to be less keen. So, time will only tell whether the royal family is able to make it work for the big day.