Camilla Confesses the Private Reason She’s Been ‘Weeping’ After Report Charles Is in ‘Agony’ Over a ‘Distressing’ Health Update

Ever since King Charles was diagnosed with cancer, royal observers have speculated about the role Queen Camilla plays in helping him keep a positive attitude amid his treatment. Questions have also popped up about what it means for their marriage and if they even still get along.

During a new BBC documentary, The Book That Changed My Life, Camilla opened up about a habit that she and Charles share: reading. The problem? He sometimes gets very into his reading, to the point that his reactions can get distracting, per RadarOnline. Camilla, it seems, prefers silence while reading.

“My husband and I actually read before dinner,” she said. “We just like sitting quietly and reading. He loves biographies and PG Wodehouse.”

She continued, “I occasionally, when I’m deep in a book, hear him roaring with laughter about something. It’s very off-putting. I can’t get back into my book, or I’ll suddenly start weeping, but it’s a lovely, quiet time.”

It’s a pretty rare look at Charles and Camilla’s routines. Additionally, the documentary focuses on Camilla’s love of reading, which she credits for essentially educating her.

“I left school quite young because in my day women didn’t go to universities. So I think reading has been most of my education,” she revealed in the documentary. “We must have been very, very young when my father started reading to us. I think that’s where my love of reading came from. We were transported into all sorts of other worlds.”

Among the queen’s childhood favorites are Treasure Island, Peter Pan, The Scarlet Pimpernel and A Tale of Two Cities. She also spoke about reading Lady Chatterley’s Lover in secret as a teenager.

“It was the moment of Lady Chatterley under our pillows, reading that by torchlight,” she explained. “The minute something’s forbidden, you want to get hold of it.”

Camilla has done a lot of work promoting literacy through The Queen’s Reading Room, an organization founded five years ago and that now reaches approximately 12 million people across 183 countries.

Her confesson about Charles comes after other sources said the king was very concerned about his friend, English explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes. The adventurer has been out of the public eye since being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2019.

Related: Charles Reportedly in ‘Agony’ After Devastating Health Update as Sources Reveal the 1 Thing Causing Him to Be ‘Especially Distressed’

“The King cares enormously about Ran and was genuinely troubled and in a bit of agony when he heard what was happening,” a source told RadarOnline in early October 2026. “This isn’t somebody he knows casually – there is a friendship stretching back decades. It’s especially distressing with Charles fighting cancer. He has developed the feeling that he wants no one in pain.”