Catherine, the Princess of Wales, has endured the toughest year of her life since her heartbreaking cancer announcement last March, but she resumed her public engagements towards the end of 2024. In light of the princess’ health battle, Channel 5 is looking back on her royal career – from her middle-class roots as Kate Middleton from Bucklebury in Berkshire to her wedding to Prince William, and being “no longer on speaking terms” with sister-in-law Meghan Markle.

The two-part series Kate, which speaks to royal commentators, PR experts, and former royal staff, explores how the 43-year-old became one of the most influential women in the world – and how her cancer rocked the royals. In March 2024, after weeks of speculation about her absence from public life, Kate announced that she was in the early stages of preventative chemotherapy after receiving a cancer diagnosis. This followed King Charles’ statement a month earlier that he had been diagnosed with cancer himself.

Channel 5 is looking back at the royal career of Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales, in new documentary Kate ( Image: Getty Images)

“This had never happened before,” journalist Richard Kay says in the documentary. “These were very dangerous times for the monarchy.”

Kate had begun a romance with Prince William 22 years earlier, after meeting at the University of St Andrews. However, her royal future was predicted in a school play, when 13-year-old Kate’s character was told by a fortune teller that she would marry “a handsome, rich gentleman” who would take her to London.

“When you look back on that footage of her in the play, of her being told that she’s going to marry a rich gentleman – who turns out to be called William – and you see Kate going, ‘Oh, my,’ it is quite remarkable,” says royal correspondent Katie Nicholl. “But of course, pure coincidence.”

Kate’s time at school wasn’t always easy – with the future princess being “quite badly bullied” at Downe House School. She had been enrolled at the private girls’ school in 1995 after her mother’s party supplies company Party Pieces became a financial success for the Middletons.

Kate with Prince William, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis ( Image: Will Warr))

“She didn’t fit in. She was looked down on and given a hard time,” Katie says, adding that she was pulled out of the school a year later and sent to Marlborough College. “Undoubtedly, with her own experience at the hands of bullies, it makes sense when you look at her work today promoting mental health awareness.”

Soon after meeting at university in 2001, Kate and William began dating. However, with the couple being subjected to overwhelming press attention after finishing their studies, Prince William ended the relationship in April 2007.

Kate didn’t let the break- up get to her, though, with Queen Elizabeth II’s former press secretary, Dickie Arbiter, revealing that she was “as stoic as ever”.

“She wasn’t going to let that little blip interfere with her life, she was going to carry on and hang on to her anger,” he says. “She went out on dates and she went to parties.”

Meanwhile, William was desperately missing his ex. “He was quite sad at that time and a bit lonely,” Grant Harrold, a former royal butler to King Charles III, says. “Everybody loved Kate being around. It was always fun and jokey. We used to sit with William and Kate in the kitchen and it was always really good fun hanging out with them – suddenly all that changed.”

Kate will be raising the royal children in her own way, a commentator has said ( Image: Getty Images)

Just two months later, the couple were back together and after William’s proposal in October 2010 with his mother, Princess Diana’s £47,000 ring, the pair wed the following year at Westminster Abbey. Despite the royal family’s traditional ways, Kate hasn’t been afraid to put her own stamp on her and William’s life. From tearing up the palace’s proposed wedding guest list and doing her own wedding make-up to recuperating at her parents’ home in Bucklebury after Prince George ’s birth, Kate has forged her own path.

Richard adds that Kate has adopted the same attitude to raising her children – Prince George, 11, Princess Charlotte, nine, and Prince Louis, six. “Everything with Kate goes back to what she learnt around the dining room table with parents Carole and Michael,” he says.

“The royal family orders are sent down on high and you’re expected to follow them. But with Kate, I think we’re going to see a very different monarchy later in this century. It’s very easy to describe this as the ‘middle class-ation’ of the royal family and I think it’s a less remote, more integrated family.”

Unfortunately, that would later be torn apart by Prince Harry and his wife, actress Meghan Markle. While Kate and Harry had shared a “close relationship” since her introduction to the royals, this would take a turn after Harry married Meghan in May 2018.

“Before Meghan arrived, William, Kate and Harry were working very closely together,” says Dickie. “So when the fourth figure arrived, this put the cat among the pigeons.” Richard adds, “It was the Kate and William show and suddenly this force of nature takes over. These four young people are no longer on speaking terms.”