Stephen Colbert addressed the controversy surrounding jokes he made about Kate Middleton’s relationship and whereabouts, prior to her revealing her cancer diagnosis on Friday.
“We do a lot of shows. I tell a lot of jokes. I tell jokes about a lot of different things, mostly about what everybody is talking about,” Colbert said on Monday’s episode of “The Late Show.”
“For the last six weeks to two months, everybody has been talking about the mystery of Kate Middleton’s disappearance from public life,” he continued. “Two weeks ago, we did some jokes about that mystery. When I made those jokes, that upset some people…even before her diagnosis was revealed. I can understand that a lot of my jokes have upset people in the past and some of my jokes will upset people in the future, but there’s a standard that I try to hold myself to, and that is I do not make light of somebody else’s tragedy.”
Stopping short of an apology, the 59-year-old comedian did offer his sincere well-wishes and hopes for a speedy recovery for Middleton, on behalf of his entire show.
On a March 13 episode, Colbert had joked about an online theory which suggested the Princess of Wales hadn’t been seen in recent weeks because she’d been dealing with a cheating scandal involving her husband, Prince William.
“According to tabloid, when Kate supposedly confronted him about it, he laughed it off, saying there was nothing to it. Always a good response when your wife accuses you of cheating,” Colbert quipped during the segment.
But Colbert is not the only celebrity to have made light of Middleton’s disappearance, nor the first to apologize.
Actress Blake Lively offered a statement of regret on Friday, after she had joked about the heavily scrutinized “Photoshop fail” from March 11, when Middleton shared a photo that was quickly proven to be digitally altered.
“I’m sure no one cares today but I feel like I have to acknowledge this,” Lively wrote in a note on her Instagram Story. “I made a silly post around the ‘Photoshop fails’ frenzy, and oh man, that post has me mortified today. I’m sorry. Sending love and well wishes to all, always.”
Kim Kardashian, who posted a photo to her Instagram on March 16 and appeared to joke about Middleton in the caption — writing, “On my way to go find Kate” — has not yet apologized despite mounting pressure in her comment section.
News of Middleton’s diagnosis came in the form of a video announcement posted to her social channels, in which she explained that tests conducted after her previously planned abdominal surgery revealed she had cancer.
“My medical team therefore advised that I should undergo a course of preventative chemotherapy and I am now in the early stages of that treatment,” the 42-year-old British royal said in the video.
It marked the first time Middleton directly addressed the public since being checked into the London Clinic back in January.
