The Duchess of Cambridge has surprised fans and viewers alike with her upcoming surprise appearance on popular children’s TV show, CBeebies Bedtime Stories, which will air in full this Sunday night, February 13.
The Duchess will read the children’s storybook The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark for Children’s Mental Health week, a story that represents the program’s chosen 2022 theme of ‘Growing Together’.
The story follows Plop, a barn owl who is afraid of the dark until he meets a number of characters that help him realize the dark isn’t as scary after all.
Kate Middleton wore a casual outfit for the recording, sporting light-washed blue jeans paired with a high-necked Fair Isle sweater. She wore her down in elegant waves and featured a wide bright smile as she read the story.
The Duchess is not the first famous guest to take part in the popular BBC children’s show, having seen guest appearances from celebrities including Dolly Parton, Reese Whitherspoon, Elton John, Orlando Bloom and more.
Kate launched the Children’s Mental health Week with children’s charity Place2Be in 2015, and in 2019, made a guest appearance on the British kids’ TV show Blue Peter. Her seven-minute feature on the show saw her use her time to encourage children to spend more time enjoying the outdoors, using her three children as an example.
“Rain or shine, they’re dragged outside. It’s great,” she said.
“It encourages creativity, confidence and even a short amount of time – 10 or 15 minutes – makes a huge difference to physical wellbeing but also to our mental wellbeing.”
The Duchess will reportedly soon travel to Copenhagen for The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood, an organisation she launched in June last year. According to Nine, she will meet with the Crown Princess Mary and Queen Maragrethe II before visiting a crisis shelter for women “where there will be a presentation of the Mary Foundation’s efforts for the approximately 2000 children who come to crisis shelters with their mothers each year.”
The Duchess is well-known for her kind, caring and hard-working nature, so it is no surprise to some that she is taking part in yet another venture to encourage mental and physical well-being in children and families.