Did the BBC publish an article about King Charles III being in "critical condition" on March 18, 2025? No, that's not true: Neither live nor archived versions of the BBC website contained that report. Buckingham Palace did not make the purported announcement on that day. The claim was spread on X by a self-described "troll account".
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on March 18, 2025. It opened:
I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS. I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS. I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS. I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS. I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS.
The post contained what seemed to be a screenshot of a March 18, 2025, BBC article titled:
King Charles III in critical condition.
The text from the image continued:
King Charles III, the UKs current-serving monarch, is in critical condition, according to Buckingham Palace.
The Royal Palace has released statement after King Charles was left in a sudden critical state. According to the statement, Charles was wearing comically large socks, and attempted to slide down the royal 4th hallway, losing balance and falling down flights stairs.
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Tue Mar 18 18:54:50 2025 UTC)
The account that published the claim on X (archived here) described itself as a "troll":
(Source: X screenshot taken on Tue Mar 18 19:56:36 2025 UTC)
The language that appeared in what looked like a screenshot of the article -- "comically large socks", "attempted to slide down the royal 4th hallway" -- was more consistent with trolling than BBC news coverage of the royal family.
A Google search across the materials published on the BBC website on March 18, 2025, for the precise title of the supposed article did not produce exact matches:
(Source: Google screenshot taken on Tue Mar 18 18:57:31 2025 UTC)
As of this writing, the BBC's feed containing all reports mentioning King Charles III (archived here) did not show that report, either:
(Source: BBC screenshot taken on Tue Mar 18 19:03:33 2025 UTC)
Lead Stories additionally reviewed three versions of the BBC's front page from March 18, 2025, previously saved on the Internet Archive here, here and here. None of them mentioned the monarch's purported "critical condition". Contrary to the claim, three versions of the saved BBC's front page showed report (archived here) about King Charles III meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney (archived here) at Buckingham Palace. A photo of the event appeared on the official account of the Canadian Prime Minister on X (archived here) on the evening of March 17, 2025.
Unlike the "screenshot" from the post on X, the real BBC story about the meeting showed the name of the royal correspondent below the publication's date.
The purported BBC article cited a statement released by "the Royal Palace", but searches across the news section (archived here) of the official website of the British royal family (archived here) did not show any announcements about a recent deterioration of the king's health, as of this writing:
(Source: Royal.uk screenshot taken on Tue Mar 18 19:21:28 2025 UTC)
(Source: Royal.uk screenshot taken on Tue Mar 18 19:34:26 2025 UTC)
Lead Stories reached out to the BBC for additional comments. If we receive a response, the article will be updated as appropriate.
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Other Lead Stories fact checks about the U.K. can be found here.
