Why Kate Middleton Won’t Be Attending Princess Diana's Statue Unveiling

The Duchess of Cambridge will not be in attendance at this week's commemorative statue unveiling for Princess Diana in the Sunken Garden at Kensington Palace, BAZAAR.com can confirm.

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Attendance for the upcoming event, which will see Prince William and Prince Harry together again for the first time since Prince Philip's funeral in April, has been scaled back for precautionary measures as the COVID-19 delta variant continues to affect the United Kingdom. According to an official Buckingham Palace press release, the only people in attendance for the statue unveiling will be the two princes; close family of the late Princess of Wales; members of the statue committee; the statue's sculptor, Ian Rank-Broadley; and garden designer Pip Morrison. The honorary statue will make its debut on July 1, on what would have marked Diana's 60th birthday.

A royal source tells BAZAAR that William will bring his wife, Duchess Kate, and their three children, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis, to view the statue for a private family moment sometime before the official unveiling. Harry is understood to still be in quarantine when the Cambridges embark on their private visit.

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"It was always going to be the two brothers," a royal source tells BAZAAR of the duchess's absence from the public event.

Harry, who now resides in Santa Barbara, California, with his wife, Duchess Meghan, and their two children, Archie and Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor, has arrived in the U.K. ahead of the anticipated event. Meghan is unable to attend the statue unveiling, because she just gave birth to the couple's second child earlier this month.

This article first appeared in Harper's BAZAAR US