Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has claimed Queen Elizabeth II had “a form of bone cancer” during her final years. Johnson made the claim in his forthcoming autobiography, Unleashed, of which excerpts were shared by The Daily Mail on Monday. The 60-year-old American British politician and journalist, who became leader of the Conservative Party and UK Prime Minister in 2019, was in regular contact with the Queen during his three-year tenure.
He visited her frequently at Balmoral Castle and maintained weekly phone calls, especially as the COVID-19 pandemic spread. In an excerpt from Unleashed, due for release next month, Johnson wrote that he had “known for a year or more” about the Queen's illness when he officially left office in September 2022, just two days before her passing. As is tradition, Johnson spent the final hour of his premiership with Queen Elizabeth.
"The date was September 6, 2022, more than two months after I had resigned as prime minister, and under our system, I had been required to stay on and mind the shop while the Conservative Party got on with choosing a new leader," Johnson wrote. When Johnson and his wife, Carrie, arrived at Balmoral Castle, they were informed by the Queen's private secretary, Edward Young, that the monarch had "gone down quite a bit" over the summer. Johnson explained that he immediately understood what Edward meant, noticing the Queen appeared "pale and more stooped" with "dark bruising on her hands and wrists," .