Jamie Lee Curtis called for an end to the "bull**** conspiracy theories" about Catherine, Princess of Wales just hours before her shock cancer diagnosis was revealed

Shortly before the announcement, 'Freaky Friday' star Jamie Lee, 65, had taken to social media to call for an end to the speculation of the princess' whereabouts and then later sent her "best wishes" to her and her family once the news had broke.

She wrote on Instagram: "Can we please just STOP with this bull****conspiracy theory? This is a human being with young children, and clearly some sort of a health issue. That is a private matter. Do we not have better things to do and more important things to think about and be concerned about than this? It's a really low point in our society when there are SO MANY crucial issues that need our attention.

In a follow-up comment, the Oscar-winning star said: "And now Princess Kate has told us about her health and now we should send nothing but our best wishes to her and her family and focus on our own lives and the lives of people directly related to us, and the myriad life-threatening issues to our children that we can focus on."

Catherine announced her diagnosis during a televised address on Friday evening.

She said: "I wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you personally, for all the wonderful messages of support and for your understanding whilst I've been recovering from surgery. It has been an incredibly tough couple of months for our entire family. But I've had a fantastic medical team who've taken great care of me for which I'm so grateful.

"In January, I underwent major abdominal surgery in London. And at the time, it was thought that my condition was non-cancerous.

"The surgery was successful. However, tests after the operation on cancer had been present.

"This of course, came as a huge shock. And Wiliam and I have been doing everything we can to process and manage this privately for the sake of our young family."