Prince William and Kate Middleton’s love story is one for the ages. The pair studied at St Andrews University together, and though they started as friends, their feelings grew stronger until the day they decided to call themselves a couple.
The Prince and Princess of Wales had many things in common, with one being a great sense of humor. Not long ago, an old friend of the couple from their university days shared quite the story about the period in time after they had just met – and Kate pretended to have been his girlfriend.
Prince William and Kate Middleton will become king and queen in the future. For William, the throne has always been his destiny, but such a grand and glorious position can’t have been in Kate’s plans when she was a little girl.
Things changed at the beginning of this millennium when she and William began studying at St Andrews University together. They initially forged a relationship as friends, until a fashion show in 2002 changed everything.
William had bought a front-row ticket to a charity fashion show that Kate was to feature in, reportedly splashing around £200 for the seat. In the now-legendary see-through dress, Kate took to the catwalk, revealing her underwear underneath. By that point, William felt she wasn’t just a friend anymore but someone he had developed feelings for.
In the fall of 2002, William and Kate moved into 13A Hope Street, an off-campus apartment, with friends Fergus Boyd and Olivia Bleasdale. However, it wasn’t a given that the prince would even be allowed to move into the apartment. In 2023, landlady Charlotte Smith recalled when William was to move in, the apartment had a strict no-boys policy.
“We’d had an unfortunate experience with some boys in the flat once before, and we were determined not to have young men there again. Broken furniture, broken windows – there was a lot of damage, so that put us off, really. I said to this young lady we’d really rather not have more boys and she said, ‘What if I were to tell you that it was Prince William?’” Smith told the Daily Mail.
Prince William & Kate Middleton’s love story
Smith’s husband convinced her that the future king could move into the flat. It turned out that William and Kate were “ideal tenants.”
“We arranged to meet Kate Middleton, Fergus, and Olivia before they moved in, but we thought we’d better not ask to see Prince William because we thought his credit rating must be quite good. But he insisted on meeting us,” she continued.
The now-Prince and Princess of Wales paid around £400 monthly at Hope Street. In their engagement video, William elaborated on their time in university. “We moved in together as friends because we were living together, we lived with a couple of others as well, it just sort of blossomed from there really,” he said. “We just saw more of each other, hung out a bit more, and did stuff.”
William tried his best to be romantic, and has previously revealed that he cooked dinner for Kate. She admitted that “he would always come with a bit of angst and a bit of anger if something had gone wrong” and that she “would have to wander in and save something that was going.”
“When I was trying to impress Kate, I was trying to cook these amazing fancy dinners, and what would happen was I would burn something, something would overspill, something would catch on fire and she would be sitting in the background trying to help, and basically taking control of the whole situation, so I was quite glad she was there at the time,” William recalled.
Kate Middleton ‘lied’ about being Prince William’s girlfriend, a former friend says
William and Kate started as great friends, but it appeared they were destined to be together from the very start. In an interview with Fox News, Laura Warshauer, who met William and Kate when she arrived at the Scottish school in 2001, revealed that the now-Prince and Princess of Wales had a connection long before the famous fashion show, which always has been seen as the starting point of William and Kate’s relationship.
Warshauer claimed the couple’s chemistry was evident long before that and explained how, at a “Harry Potter-themed party” at a castle, Kate was part of a charity where people could bid to win a date. According to their former friend, William bid 200 pounds to make sure it was he who had the chance to take Kate out.
Although she can’t recall details about the date, Warshauer recalled how calm Kate was when she understood that the future king had won the bidding. Also, another time, Kate helped William escape an awkward conversation by faking that she was his girlfriend.
“I remember someone was chatting Will up… [It was] this girl at a birthday party,” Kate’s former dormmate, Laura Warshauer, told Fox.
“He was being very polite, but it was obvious he was trying to figure out how to get out of the situation. And Kate just walks across the room and puts her arms around him. It enabled him to turn to this girl, and he was just like, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I have a girlfriend.’ And then he turns to Kate, and he’s like, ‘Thank you!’”
“I knew Will and Kate as extremely down-to-earth”
She continued: “That was so early on in the year, I don’t even think they were dating. They had pretty much just met and formed a friendship. But I remember even thinking at that moment that was just so natural the way that she did that.”
Laura was studying art history like Kate at St Andrews, and the two became good friends. She further stated that there was “instant chemistry” between William and Kate, and he described it as if they had “known each other forever.”
“My initial impression was that of someone beautiful inside and out,” she continued. “I feel like that’s what the world has gotten to experience… I knew Will and Kate as extremely down-to-earth, relatable people that you could talk about anything with. At that time, it was shockingly normal… We all lived in the dorm together. [And] they were just really kind, compassionate people. It was refreshing.”
Warshauer became great friends not only with Kate but also with Prince William. Just as her female friend, the future king was very welcoming, she told Fox.
“I remember Kate and I were supposed to share a taxi to the airport. Will offered Kate a ride, so I got in it as well. I remember the radio was on and Will’s like, ‘Laura, you can sing with the radio. Nobody else sings. You’re the one with the voice.'”
Prince William made “people feel at ease” around him, friend says
“He would ask about my music. And for my birthday, I remember we all had a fun dinner. Will gave me this cute seal with a little heart backpack from Tesco. I just remember seeing how grounded and how normal he was – that left a big impression on me,” Warshauer continued. “I remember I came back from the States, and I’ve got this big luggage that I’m wheeling around. He offered to help me bring it to my dorm, I just remember that kindness, that normalcy. He would make people feel at ease around him. He bought my first Jack and Coke at a pub!”
Of course, William was already very well-known at the time. As a result, he knew that any budding romance involving himself would have the paparazzi press drooling. He wanted he and Kate’s relationship to remain as private as possible for as long as possible. However, that was more easily said than done.
Not wanting her to become the center of the media’s attention, William tried to help protect Kate’s privacy for as long as possible. Sadly, that didn’t last – when news of their relationship finally became public, William was furious.
In April 2004, William and Kate’s romance became public knowledge. The now-Princess of Wales had joined her boyfriend on a family skiing holiday – and as they cozied up on the slopes, a camera caught them. The next day, pictures of the pair were all over the British newspapers, leaving William enraged.
Prince William was furious when relationship with Kate became public
Speaking on Channel 5’s documentary William & Kate: Too Good To Be True, royal expert Rebecca England said: “Unfortunately for them, a paparazzi photographer took pictures of William and Kate clearly very close on the ski lift together. A red top tabloid newspaper slashed it all over their front page.”
She continued: “William was furious, and he was also genuinely worried for Kate and her family about what this would now mean for them.”
Prince William and Kate Middleton seemed as if they were meant for each other. As their relationship grew more serious, they, of course, met each other’s families. For Kate, that meant heading to Buckingham Palace, but although that might sound very cool, for William, visiting Kate’s parents in a house that wasn’t one of the biggest and most prestigious castles in the world was very refreshing.
Sadly, in 2007, it appeared as if their love story had reached its end, as the couple split for a while. Luckily, it wasn’t long before their romance was back on. As the couple had been dating for quite some time, Kate’s mom, Carole, started worrying that William wouldn’t propose to her daughter. According to royal expert Katie Nicholl’s book Kate: The Future Queen, Carole decided to have a secret meeting with William to learn his intentions.
“Perhaps it was the constant references to Waity Katie which got to William,” Nicholl wrote. “Possibly it was the words of his soon-to-be mother-in-law which rang in the prince’s ears. Before Christmas 2009, Carole Middleton had anxiously asked him when he planned to make an honest woman of her daughter.”
Prince William was afraid of asking Kate’s father for her hand
William assured Carole he would propose to Kate, which he did while the couple was in Kenya. Some argue that – traditionally at least – a man should ask the bride’s father for her hand, and William thought along the same lines. Ultimately, he didn’t talk with Michael, Kate’s father, beforehand; instead, he told him after he had already proposed.
“Well, I was torn between asking Kate’s dad first and then the realization that he might actually say ‘no’ dawned upon me,” William told ITV News. “So I thought if I ask Kate first then he can’t really say no. So I did it that way round. I managed to speak to Mike soon after it happened really, and then it sort of happened from there.”
Still, Queen Elizabeth II was the one who had to permit William to marry Kate. With that, the future prince asked Michael to keep the secret of their proposal a secret until she had. We all know that the now-late queen said yes, and in 2011, Prince William and Kate Middleton tied the knot at Westminster Abbey.
Michael and Carole Middleton attended to watch their daughter get married, and their relationship with William had grown very close over the years. For William, the Middletons weren’t just Kate’s parents. Ever since that tragic day in 1997 when Princess Diana passed away in a car accident in Paris, the prince hadn’t had a mother figure.
Kate MIddleton’s mother has become a “second mother” to William
To him, the Middletons became his family, and Carole like a second mother.
“Carole relieved William of such burdens by accepting him for who he was rather than what he was,” royal expert Angela Levin told The Sun. “She made him feel secure, comfortable and protected and he didn’t have to worry about what he said or be responsible for her emotions.”
William and Kate thereafter tied the knot and welcomed three children: Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis. They have been seen as the face of the monarchy heading into the new generation, and in the future, William will take the throne with Kate at his side as queen.
Their love story has been ongoing for more than twenty years, and hopefully, there will be many more happy days to come.
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