Prince William Plays with Puppies for 43rd Birthday Portrait After “Brutal” Year

Dog dad.

The Gist

• Prince William turned 43 years old on June 21, his first birthday after what he called a “brutal” 2024.
• Much has happened for the positive since June 21, 2024 and his 42nd birthday, namely that his wife Kate Middleton completed cancer treatment in September of last year and announced this past January that she is in remission.
• To mark the occasion, a photo of William playing with puppies was shared with happy birthday wishes included.

It’s quite remarkable the difference a year can make—for his 42nd birthday last June 21, Prince William was still very much in the throes of watching his beloved wife, Kate Middleton, endure grueling cancer treatment following her diagnosis earlier in 2024. Since then, the Princess of Wales announced in September that she had completed cancer treatment and shared in January that she is in remission from the disease.

Now, as he turns 43, the royal family is celebrating him with a very sweet new photo. The portrait, which was shared on Instagram, sees the prince sitting on the grass in a green shirt and blue jeans, gazing into the eyes of a very cute puppy as two other puppies and the family's dog Orla play around him. "Happy birthday! Love C, G, C, L, Orla and the puppies! 🐾" read the caption.

The Prince of Wales spent his birthday in 2024 attending a Taylor Swift concert at Wembley Stadium with his two eldest children, Prince George and Princess Charlotte. To mark the occasion of his birthday, Kate took a photo of William and kids George, Charlotte, and Prince Louis jumping in the air during a beach day in Norfolk, where their country home, Anmer Hall, is located. The foursome had huge smiles on their faces—which didn’t portray the difficulty of the year they’d faced so far. 

“Happy birthday Papa, we all love you so much!” the caption alongside the photo read. It was signed Cx, noting it was written by Kate (whose formal name is Catherine) and an x likely symbolizing a kiss.

2025 has already been a much brighter year following 2024, which William called “brutal” in a November 2024 interview. “Trying to get through everything else and keep everything on track has been really difficult,” he said while in Cape Town, South Africa in support of his Earthshot Prize Awards.

William and Kate’s former private secretary Jason Knauf told 60 Minutes Australia of both Kate and William’s father King Charles’ cancer diagnoses last year that it was the “lowest” he’d ever seen the future king.

“The last five years have been a nightmare for them in every possible way—the past year even more so,” royal historian Amanda Foreman told People of William and Kate. “That either crushes a marriage or it brings them together. And just in time, frankly—if there was ever a time when the country required stability, this is it. The international stage is so unstable, it is rather extraordinary to see how both have risen to the occasion.”

In a recent piece on William for The Times, a source said that “Three words come to mind when I think of William. Normal, private, control. These are the things he wants: as normal a life as possible; private time for his family; and control over how he organizes his life and work.”

Of his 14-year marriage to Kate, the insider added, “In that glare of publicity and scrutiny, they are very tight, very close, very strong, and cancer has made them closer and stronger, which is very common in families facing these challenges.”