TV host's brutal takedown of Boris Johnson after he revealed Queen Elizabeth had bone cancer

An Australian TV host has hit out at Boris Johnson for using the late Queen Elizabeth II's private health information in a bid to 'sell books' ahead of his memoir being released

An Australian TV host has slammed Boris Johnson for revealing that the late Queen Elizabeth II had bone cancer.

In his upcoming memoir, Unleashed, the former prime minister said he became aware of the monarch’s condition for more than a year before she died at the age of 96 on September 8, 2022. However, her cause of death was publicly recorded as ‘old age’ on her death certificate.

Recalling his final meeting with the Queen two days before she died - in which he officially resigned after being fined over the ‘partygate’ scandal during the Covid lockdown - he said that despite her illness, the Queen’s mind remained sharp.

But Boris’ revelations haven’t gone down well across the pond – with Australian morning show presenter Natalie Barr accusing the ex PM of revealing the private medical information in a desperate bid to sell books.

In a brutal two-word put down saying exactly what she thought of the move as Boris continues the publicity tour of his new book, Sunrise TV host Natalie said: “Dog act, Boris.” She continued: “If the Royal Family or the Queen had wanted to release that [information], they would have. They would all have known. So, to sell a book. I think that’s appalling.”

Her co-star Matt ‘Shirvo’ Shirvington agreed Boris was wrong to break royal protocol by revealing the Queen’s private medical matters and said: “To break the Queen’s confidence in that way... just horrible.”

In his memoir, Boris writes he visited the Queen at Balmoral to formally resign as Prime Minister on September 6, 2022 – the same day the last photograph of the Queen was taken, as she invited Liz Truss to become the next PM.

Elizabeth II died aged 96 two days later. In Boris’ book Unleashed, which is being serialised by the Mail on Sunday, he said he had known ‘for a year or more’ that she had bone cancer.

He said: “I had known for a year or more that she had a form of bone cancer and her doctors were worried that at any time she could enter a sharp decline. She seems pale and more stooped, and had dark bruising on her hands and wrists, probably from drips or injections.”

Yet despite her ill health, he said the Queen’s mind was ‘completely unimpaired by her illness’ during their meeting. And the monarch even offered his some friendly words of advice as his political career came to an end.

Boris wrote: "She was surprised by the general lack of bitterness, given what had happened at Westminster, but she approved. There's no point in bitterness,' she said, and amen to that. If everyone in politics - and life - could see that as clearly as she did, the world would be a much, much happier place." The Mirror has reached out to Boris’ reps for further comment on this story.

The Royal Family have not confirmed that cancer attributed to the Queen’s death. However, former politician and TV host Gyles Brandreth – who was a close friend of the Queen’s husband Prince Philip – appeared to say she had died from myeloma, which is a form of bone cancer.

In his biography, Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait, he said: “I had heard that the Queen had a form of myeloma – bone marrow cancer - which would explain her tiredness and weight loss and those ‘mobility issues’ we were often told about during the last year or so of her life.

'The most common symptom of myeloma is bone pain, especially in the pelvis and lower back, and multiple myeloma is a disease that often affects the elderly. Currently, there is no known cure, but treatment—including medicines to help regulate the immune system and drugs that help prevent the weakening of the bones—can reduce the severity of its symptoms and extend the patient's survival by months or two to three years.”

Bone marrow cancer is mostly diagnosed in adults over 60. It doesn’t usually cause a lump or tumour. Instead, it damages the bones and affects the production of healthy blood cells. There is no known cure for it, but treatment can help control it for several years, according to the NHS.

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