Prince William and the Princess of Wales’ (formerly known as Kate Middleton) love story began during their college days in the early 2000s when they both attended St. Andrew’s University in Scotland. They dated for several years before tying the knot in a grand royal wedding on April 29, 2011.
The couple then went on to welcome three children–Prince George in 2013, Princess Charlotte in 2015, and Prince Louis in 2018. But some may forget that their relationship hit a snag before they said “I do” as William and Kate actually broke up more than once.
Now, a new documentary explores not only the princess’s role as a member of the royal family but also touches on one of the pair’s brief splits putting that subject back in the headlines.
Kate was ‘stoic’ during split, William was ‘sad’ and ‘lonely’
Express noted that the documentary titled Kate revisits April 2007 when Prince William broke up with his then-girlfriend.
Queen Elizabeth II’s former press secretary Dickie Arbiter described the princess “as stoic as ever,” during that time saying: “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. She went out on dates and she went to parties.”
On the other hand, Grant Harrold, who was King Charles’ butler for seven years and also looked after William and Kate whenever they stayed at Highgrove House, remembered how the prince couldn’t hide how much he missed Kate. He recalled that William was “quite sad at that time and a bit lonely.”
Harrold added that other staffers in the household felt it as well, sharing: “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.”
However, within a few weeks, William and Kate were back together.
That wasn’t the first time the prince and princess broke up
The 2007 breakup wasn’t the only time William and Kate called it quits for a bit.
In the book titled The Duchess of Cambridge: How Kate Middleton Became A Future Queen, author Jessica Jayne wrote that the couple also separated in 2004 because the prince was feeling “claustrophobic” in the relationship.
But former Sun editor Duncan Larcome believes that there was a different reason behind the 2004 breakup.
In his book William & Kate: The Journey, he opined that the fact that Kate’s mother, Carole, was once a flight attendant did not sit well with some in William’s inner circle. Duncan wrote that because of her mother’s one-time profession, people would call Kate “doors to manual” whenever they saw her and eventually urged the prince to break up with her.
That split though was also very brief and the pair discussed their breakup during their joint interview following the announcement that they were engaged.
“We were both very young,” William said. “It was at university, we were sort of both finding ourselves as such and being different characters and stuff, it was very much trying to find our own way and we were growing up.”
Kate chimed in adding, “I think at the time I wasn’t very happy about it, but actually, it made me a stronger person.”
