William and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales, have been a couple for many years. The two met while studying at St. Andrews University, and it didn’t take long before the newspapers figured out that she was the girlfriend of the future king.
But while the two enjoyed a loving relationship, in 2007, the two split. Several events led to the two breaking up, and once they did, it appeared William wasn’t too sad about it. Luckily, not long after, the prince and princess reunited. Today, they have been married for more than a decade and have three lovely children.
We will probably never fully understand what caused the breakup between William and Kate. But according to author Tina Brown, Kate, who worked as a fashion buyer at the time, found out about it in the most unusual place.
When Prince William and Kate Middleton met at St. Andrews University and fell in love, it didn’t take long before the newspapers were all over her. While she had no skeletons in the cupboard, it didn’t stop the newspapers from coming after her in the most cruel way possible.
Despite hailing from a middle-class background – with her parents making millions via a party supply company they owned – Kate was labeled “a commoner.”
Indeed, before she and William announced their engagement, Kate was nicknamed “Waity Katie” and “Lazy Katie” because Middleton had recently quit her job to “prepare for her future life.”
Still, Kate Middleton did not care what was written about her. Behind closed doors, William did his best to prepare his then-girlfriend for what happened when being within the royal sphere.
In private, William is said to have extensively helped Kate prepare for life as a royal, according to royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams.
“It was very sensible in the circumstances for Kate and William to get to know each other over the length of time that they felt appropriate. But it can be hurtful seeing those headlines and obviously very stressful,” he said.
From the outside, William and Kate’s relationship appeared to be perfect. It seemed like the future king had found his future queen, but sadly, that was not the case at the time. 2006, their relationship declined, and two significant incidents surely were a factor. It began with Christmas.
Usually, royal tradition states that unmarried partners aren’t to participate in Christmas celebrations at Sandringham (sure, one can have different opinions about whether it’s reasonable).
Back in 2006, however, the royals made an exception. According to royal expert and author Tina Brown, Kate was invited to the Christmas party at Sandringham in 2006.
Kate reportedly declined Christmas invite to Sandringham
Naturally, one might have assumed that Kate would be overjoyed and would have canceled all other plans and traveled to Sandringham immediately.
Instead, she said no.
“Before graduation [from The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst], William had issued his girlfriend the coveted invitation to join him at the Queen’s annual Christmas house party at Sandringham,” Tina Brown wrote in the book The Palace Papers.
“Kate, reflecting the confident mood of her Philip Treacy hat, maintained her resolve that she would not go to such a significant Royal Family gathering unless she had a ring on her finger.”
Brown added: “She declined. William met her decision with silence.”
So, Kate, then age 24, decided not to travel to Sandringham to be with her then-boyfriend and meet the royals. Instead, she “retreated to Scotland to stay with her parents, who had rented a house in Perthshire for the holidays.”
Meanwhile, historian Robert Lacey wrote in his book Battle of Brothers that the Christmas party invite wasn’t the only thing Kate declined. The royal author claims that Queen Elizabeth had also extended an invitation for the traditional Christmas lunch.
As Tina Brown explained, Lacey argued that Kate, in fact, wanted to be engaged and “have a ring to prove it” before committing to any royal Christmas festivities.
So in 2006, Prince William and Kate Middleton didn’t spend Christmas at Sandringham. They were supposed to celebrate New Year’s Eve with one another days later, but with very short notice, William canceled, according to royal expert Katie Nicholl.
“William had been having second thoughts”
In her 2011 book The Making of a Royal Romance, Nicholl claimed that Kate was left in a flood of tears and feared for the future of their relationship. William had promised to meet Kate and her family but backed out with a call on Boxing Day. Instead, he decided to stay with the royals.
As the future king didn’t know what to do, he sat down with the Queen and his father, Charles, and spoke about his feelings. They had a clear answer.
“William had been having second thoughts and sat down with his father and his grandmother to have a frank discussion about his future with Kate. Both advised him not to hurry into anything,” Nicholl claimed in her book.
When William and Kate split in 2007, rumors about what had happened spread quickly.
Some royal experts claimed Prince William decided to split up with Kate because he felt the “fun” had disappeared from their relationship. Meanwhile, Kate was said to have been left “desperately upset” as she had already pictured how they would marry.
Shortly after the breakup, William allegedly roamed London nightclubs and saw several other girls.
Kate, of course, was left angry. According to reports, “harsh words” were exchanged as Kate thought she had been “humiliated” by William’s behavior. She also felt that he was “cheapening her image.”
“It was the first such warning she had dished out over the course of their four-and-a-half-year relationship,” a report read.
“Kate had had enough, and words were exchanged. Kate told William that he was making her look bad, one of her friends explained. She has coped for years with girls flinging themselves at her boyfriend, and for a while, she found it humorous and even flattering.”
Kate Middleton said split made her a stronger person
Judy Wade, a former royal correspondent for Hello Magazine, disclosed a new theory some years ago.
According to Wade, Kate started to realize how big of a lifestyle change it would entail to become a senior Royal Family member.
“She might have realized the awful burden she would have taken on. It’s a life sentence marrying a royal,” Wade said.
William was stationed with the Household Cavalry in Dorset while Kate was living in London. As a result, they often spent time apart. William and Kate opened up about their 2007 split in their engagement video.
“We did split up for a bit,” William admitted in their engagement interview. “But that was just; we were both very young, it was at university, we were both finding ourselves and such and being different characters and such.”
“I think I, at the time, wasn’t very happy about it, but actually, it made me a stronger person,” Kate added.
“You find out things about yourself that maybe you hadn’t realized. Or I think you can get quite consumed by a relationship when you’re younger. I really valued that time for me as well although I didn’t think it at the time, looking back on it.”
Today, we all know that William and Kate didn’t stay apart for long. They got together and engaged, and in 2011, they celebrated their union by tying the knot in a massive wedding ceremony at Westminster Abbey.
The Prince and Princess of Wales spoke briefly about their split in their engagement video. But in her book The Palace Papers, author and royal insider Tina Brown revealed new details of what happened the day the two split.
Kate received William’s split-up decision in a carpark
In April, Kate and William had what Brown dubbed a “let’s get it over with” phone call while she worked as a fashion buyer at the Jigsaw office. William dropped the bomb he wanted to split up, and Kate left the office.
Instead, she went to a nearby car park.
“She had to excuse herself from a meeting and pace around the parking lot for an hour-long heart-to-heart that left her in pieces,” Brown wrote.
Previously, a former, unnamed colleague of Kate’s revealed how Kate Middleton left work when she had ended the call with William and never came back. The colleague said she looked upset but didn’t shed any public tears.
“A few people noticed because it’s a pretty unusual thing to do. She’d deliberately gone outside to take the call because she didn’t want to be overheard,” the unnamed colleague told the Mirror.
“Kate was walking up and down and looking upset as if she was having an argument. But she didn’t cry. It was clear that she was talking to William on the phone, because her behaviour was so unusual. When she came back to the office she didn’t say a thing and disappeared for the rest of the day. She hasn’t been back to work since.”
The person continued, “When someone asked where she was, they were told she was sick. Yet she hasn’t been marked sick in the book. We didn’t think anything about it at the time. But looking back, the call was definitely a girlfriend-boyfriend tiff.”