“I didn’t forget her!!!!”
On Sunday, July 13, Kate Middleton, her husband Prince William, and two of their three children, Prince George and Princess Charlotte attended the final round of the Men’s singles tournament at Wimbledon.
As Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz fought for the coveted title of Wimbledon champion, the royal family watched on alongside thousands of fans from all around the world, including Father Jim Sichko of Kentucky.
After Sinner was declared the winner in four sets, the Princess of Wales took to the court to present the 23-year-old tennis star with the Challenge Cup.
As she made her way toward the center of the court, the crowd around her cheered while she shook the hands of the young ball boys and girls who took part in the tournament.
But in a moment of brief silence, love filled the stadium as the priest from Kentucky shouted out four simple words, “I love you, Kate.”
Father Sichko attended the men’s single’s final with a small group of people, including his sister. He shared a video of the moment on his X page, formerly known as Twitter.
“I HAD TO DO IT,” he wrote alongside the video. “I apologize to anyone I scandalized,” Father Sichko added, telling Mod Moms Club that the moment was “just very spontaneous.”
“There was just this energy. I mean, there really was in the stadium,” Sichko tells Mod Moms Club of how the now viral moment came to be.
“It's very intimate,” he said of Wimbledon. “People think that Wimbledon, you know, even I thought Wimbledon was this huge stadium. It’s not. It’s very, very intimate. There was just this energy I could feel. And I just did.”
“I just blurted it out,” Sichko explained. “I said, ‘I love you, Kate,’ and I didn't even see her reaction. I didn't see anything because it was so fast.”
But other people saw Middleton’s reaction. According to People, after Sichko told Middleton that he loved her, a moment of levity fell over the stadium as fans laughed alongside Middleton.
“The energy was just there,” Sichko said as he got swept up in the princess’s “warmth and kindness.”
Although Sichko doesn’t know Middleton personally, nor does he follow the Royal family closely, he praised the princess for her “grace” and “humility,” understanding from experience what she has gone through over the last year and a half.
Like Middleton, Sichko is also a cancer survivor.
“I think that was what connected me to her,” Sichko admitted. “It was this sense of knowing that she has had to experience a diagnosis with cancer. I've had to experience a diagnosis with cancer. You learn very quickly that it can be overwhelming, that you can have the best doctors and the best treatment, but you also got to have that mindset … It’s a choice.”
“I do connect with her as a cancer survivor,” he continued. “We don't even know exactly what she has gone through, but it is obviously that she has had intense treatment, that she did have surgery, and to show the world that you keep going, you keep moving, and you don't allow that to rob you of the joy and of your heart.”
“You know, she could have done many things” in response to his loving call out, Sichko tells Mod Moms Club. “She could have not responded. She could have even looked in disgust. She could have just continued, but she didn’t. She acknowledged it. It made her laugh. And you know that just shows you the type of individual that she is.”
“So it is obvious to me that she really is one who is very much down to earth. And I pray to God, I really do, I wish her great health and great recovery because I believe what she has experienced was not easy at all.”
Sichko hopes that their moment of humanity encourages others to also “follow your heart and follow your gut.”
“What I screamed out, or what I shouted out, I think was what was in the hearts of 99.9% of the people (also in the stadium),” Sichko tells Mod Moms Club. “I verbalized what everyone else around me was either thinking or feeling in their heart at the exact same time.”
“I think my vocalizing what other people were thinking and feeling really resonated with her and yes, the sense of surprise, but at the same time, she seemed very gratified and humbled by it,” Sichko continued. “I don't know her, she doesn't know me, but there was just this connection.”
“You've got to trust your instincts,” he encouraged others. “You really do. And what I mean by that is, is sometimes our mind says no, but our heart says yes. And I believe that in our world today, we need to be saying yes to our heart a lot more. I believe that, if anything in our world today, our world today needs more heart and more spontaneity.”
