William and Kate in "The Crown" - How true is their love story?
The prince finds his princess: the final season of "The Crown" (part two from December 14 on Netflix) shows how Prince William (41), heir to the British throne, fell in love with his Kate (41). A fashion show at which Kate wore a see-through dress played a decisive role - in the Netflix series and in reality. This is how William and Kate are said to have found each other in real life ...
Did William and Kate know each other earlier than expected?
William and Kate are said to have met for the first time at St Andrews University in Scotland, according to the popular story. Royal expert Katie Nicholl, however, assumes that the two had met before. Before university, Kate Middleton attended Marlborough College from 1995 to 2000. When she was in sixth grade, she is said to have met the prince through mutual friends, Nicholl once said on a show hosted by Katie Couric (66), citing Kate's entourage at the time. In her book "Kate: The Future Queen", the author also reports on field hockey games in which Kate allegedly saw the future prince during her school days, according to other media reports.
Together and yet apart at breakfast
At St Andrews, where they both studied from 2001, Prince William and Kate Middleton apparently often met for breakfast in the mornings. An acquaintance from back then told "E! News" in 2011: "They sat at separate tables, he with the boys and she with the girls. But they would have noticed each other there because not many people got up for breakfast at 8am."
However, this did not make William and Kate a couple, on the contrary: he was laughing at someone else! Her name was Carly Massy-Birch. However, the relationship was short-lived, a "perfectly normal university romance", as Massy-Birch recounted in Nicholls' book, according to Vanity Fair.
The famous see-through dress
William apparently took a closer look when Kate Middleton walked down the catwalk in a see-through dress at a university fashion show. At a party afterwards, the royal is said to have made an approach, which she apparently did not respond to. The two became friends and lived together - purely platonically - in a shared flat.
A former fellow student later told People magazine how Prince William's budding love made itself felt at the time. The chemistry between William and Kate was "definitely right", explained US-American Laura Warshauer. She had lived in the same dormitory as the couple in the early 2000s. "Whenever Kate was in the room, Will's attention was obviously focused on her," she explained. It was incredible "to see how naturally" the conversations between the pair developed over lunch together in the canteen. "They had so much to say to each other." Looking back, there were "all those little moments" when Warshauer thought to herself: "Wow, this could really be something."
Friendship as a "good foundation"
William later explained in his engagement interview on ITV News: "When I first met Kate, I knew there was something very special about her. I knew there was possibly something there that I wanted to explore. We ended up being friends for a while and that was just a good foundation. Because I'm now generally convinced that being friends with each other is a great advantage. And it just went from there." Kate said: "I actually think I turned bright red when I met you and kind of ran away because I was very shy. But we became very close friends early on."
Engagement in 2010, wedding in 2011
Eventually, their friendship turned into true love in the course of 2002: after a few short separations, William asked for Kate's hand in marriage on a trip to Kenya in 2010, followed by the big fairytale wedding at Westminster Abbey in London on April 29, 2011.
The couple's first son, Prince George (10), was born in July 2013. In May 2015, they became parents to a daughter, Princess Charlotte (8), and in April 2018 to another son, Prince Louis (5).
At their wedding in 2011, the couple were given the title "Duke and Duchess of Cambridge" by Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022); on the monarch's death, they took over the title "Prince and Princess of Wales" from King Charles III (75).
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Source: www.stern.de
