Kate Middleton

Some Lesser Known Facts About Kate Middleton

• She was born the eldest of three children to Carol and Michael in Berkshire, England.

  

• She grew up in a modest home in Berkshire, where her family ran a party supplies business.

• Kate’s mother, Carole Middleton, grew up in a family with little money, but she started up her own business from scratch, from her own idea.

• In 1986, at the age of 4, she was enrolled at St Andrew’s School (a private school in Berkshire).

  

• At the age of 13, she went to the Marlborough College in Wiltshire, where the annual fee was £15,000.

• It was rumoured that at Marlborough College she had a poster of her future husband, Prince William on her wall. However, she quashed speculation by revealing it was, in fact, the “Levi’s guy.”

• Since her childhood, Kate is a photography enthusiast.

  

• In the mid-1980s, when she was still a child, Kate and her family lived for a few years in Amman, Jordan (a Middle East country).

• During a gap year in her studies, Kate spent time studying at the British Institute in Florence.

• While taking a break from studies, Kate also crewed on Round the World Challenge boats in The Solent.

  

• In 2001, enrolled at the University of St Andrews, Fife, from where she graduated with a 2:1 in History of Art in 2005.

• While studying, Kate was considered a good athlete and also turned out for the university’s Hockey Team.

  

• In 2001, it was at St Andrews, where she first met her future husband, Prince William. According to reports, the couple started dating in 2003.

  

• Kate’s link-up with Prince William made her an overnight celebrity.

• In October 2005, Kate complained about the media for harassing her. She said that she had done nothing significant to get publicity.

• In 2006, after completing her graduation, Kate also worked as a part-time buyer for the clothing company Jigsaw Junior in London, where she worked until November 2007.

• On 15 December 2006, she attended Prince William’s Passing Out Parade at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.

  

• On her 25th birthday in January 2007, the media attention increased. However, several noted newspapers refrained from publishing her photographs to avoid legal action.

• Until January 2011, Kate also worked at Party Pieces (her family business), where she worked in the areas of catalog design & Production, Marketing, and Photography.

• In April 2007, Kate Middleton and Prince William split up. The break-up took place during a holiday in the Swiss resort of Zermatt. However, the newspapers couldn’t gather any concrete reason behind their break-up. They were subsequently seen together on a number of occasions, and news sources reported that a reconciliation had been established.

  

• On 17 May 2008, Kate attended the wedding of Prince William’s cousin Peter Phillips to Autumn Kelly. Prince William didn’t attend the wedding.

  

• In October 2010, during a 10-day trip to the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya, Kate and William became engaged. The engagement ring belonged to William’s mother Diana (Princess of Wales).

  

• On 24 February 2011 (2 months before the wedding), Kate Middleton was formally introduced to the public life during a lifeboat-naming ceremony in Trearddur, Anglesey, in North Wales.

  

• On 29 April 2011 (St. Catherine’s Day), Kate Middleton and Prince William married in Westminster Abbey. The day was declared a bank holiday in the United Kingdom. On her wedding day, Kate wore Queen Elizabeth II’s Tiara. It was made by Cartier in 193 and was gifted to the then Princess Elizabeth by her mother, Queen Elizabeth (The Queen Mother), on her 18th birthday in 1944. According to sources, more than 300 million global audiences witnessed the wedding, whilst more than 26 million watched the wedding live in Britain alone.

• London Mayor Boris Johnson gifted a tandem bike to The Royal Couple as a wedding gift.

• In May 2011, the Duchess’s 1st official engagement was with Barack Obama (the then US President) and First Lady Michelle Obama.

  

• In October 2011, Commonwealth leaders pledged that they would amend the British Royal Succession Law to adopt absolute primogeniture, meaning that the 1st child of the Duke and Duchess (whether boy or girl) would be next in line to the throne after their father.

• In March 2012, after becoming a member of the Royal Family, she gave her 1st public speech during a visit to the East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices facility in Ipswich.

• On 3 December 2012, St James’s Palace announced that the Duchess of Cambridge was pregnant with her 1st child and on 22 July 2013, she gave birth to a baby boy. On 24 July 2013, Kensington Palace announced the baby’s name as George Alexander Louis.

  

• On 8 September 2014, Duchess’s 2nd pregnancy was announced, and on 2 May 2015, she gave birth to a daughter.

  

• On 4 September 2017, Duchess’s 3rd pregnancy was announced.

• In January 2013, Duchess’ 1st Official Portrait was unveiled by artist Paul Emsley at the National Portrait Gallery.

  

• Kate Middleton is quite prominent for her fashion style & has been placed on several “Best Dressed” lists.

  

• Kate Middleton holds 3 titles — Duchess of Cambridge, Countess of Strathearn (when she’s in Scotland), and Lady Carrickfergus (when she’s in Northern Ireland).

• She is 6 months older than Prince William.

• She has twice been listed as one of the most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2012 and 2013.

• In June 2016, for the first time in her life, she consented to a magazine shoot, appearing in a 10-page spread for Vogue’s centenary issue.

  

• Kate Middleton is an official ambassador for Team GB and Paralympic GB.

• Kate prefers vegetarian food.

• On 7 September 2017, Kate and William’s son, Prince George (4 years old), attended his first day of school at Thomas’s Battersea School, a private school in Battersea, South London. The Duchess of Cambridge was too ill with morning sickness to take young Prince George to his first day of school. Helen Haslem, the head of Thomas’s lower school, met George, 4, as he arrived at the school, holding his father Prince William’s hand, and escorted him inside.

• Ahead of her 4oth birthday in 2022, royal photographer Arthur Edwards recalled the first time when he caught a snap of Kate, admitting,
  

  I didn’t know who on Earth she was.”

  

  In the 2005 photograph shared by the photographer, Kate is dressed casually in jeans, a green jacket, and a scarf, with her hair tied back into a low ponytail. According to Edwards, Kate had been invited by Prince William to spend a weekend at Sandringham along with a group of friends. Edwards added,

  Back then you would never have credited that the young woman who walked through those gates would turn out to be our future queen.”

• In July 2022, her husband, Prince William, started trending on Twitter after an anonymous post created a spark on social media about the alleged affair of the British Royal. Although the post didn’t name Prince William, it hinted toward his alleged affair with a long-time friend named Rose Hanbury. The post further claimed that Kate didn’t mind the alleged affair. ^[1]The Economic Times

• Kate loves to enjoy alcoholic beverages on various occasions.

  

• In June 2024, a US news portal reported that Kate had been diagnosed with cancer and was in the “early stages” of preventative chemotherapy. According to the report, she was unlikely to come back to her royal duties after her cancer treatment.