Queen Camilla Reportedly Played A Large Part In William And Kate's 2007 Split
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Cast your mind back to 2007 and you may remember a brief period when William, Prince of Wales and Catherine, Princes of Wales went their separate ways. The young couple first met in 2001 at St. Andrews University, and it's thought their friendship turned into a romance the following year. The two were going strong for quite a while after that. So much so, in 2006, they made it very clear just how serious they were by attending Laura Parker-Bowles' (the daughter of William's stepmom, Queen Camilla) wedding together.
However, it wasn't too long after when things fizzled. In April 2007, news broke that William and Kate had split. There was a lot of speculation about why the two had gone their separate ways, with BBC's royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell suggesting long distance may have hindered the two as Kate had been living in London while William moved to Dorset, over 120 miles away. "One must suspect ... that it is more his decision than hers," Witchell speculated at the time. "I am led to believe that there is no one else involved and that it is a decision they have come to mutually."
However, though there was no suggestion that either had met someone else, there have since been rumblings someone else could have been involved — Queen Camilla, who supposedly may not have thought Kate was the right fit for the royals.
Queen Camilla reportedly wasn't Kate Middleton's biggest fan
Though Princess Catherine and Queen Camilla appear to have a good relationship today, there have been rumors suggesting King Charles' wife once didn't think Kate Middleton had the stature to one day be queen. At least, that's according to royal expert Christopher Andersen. Speaking to Daily Beast in 2016, Andersen claimed it was Camilla's apparent snobbery that made her think William should marry someone more aristocratic than Kate, a commoner. "She did not look at Kate as someone who was worthy of joining the royal family. Kate is the first working-class woman to be accepted into the royal family. She is descended from coal miners and her mother was a flight attendant," he said. "So for all those reasons Camilla never really felt that Kate Middleton as an individual and the Middleton family as a whole were going to be worthy of entering into the royal family."
Andersen even went as far as to claim Camilla supposedly laid the groundwork with her husband to encourage William to decide his future with Kate. Royal expert Katie Nicholl also claimed that sit-down happened in her book, "The Making of a Royal Romance," but wrote the late Queen Elizabeth II was involved in the chat. "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," she wrote.
Kate Middleton has admitted the breakup was good for her
If Queen Camilla really was behind William, Prince of Wales, and Catherine, Princess of Wales' split, it didn't work. In March 2008, The Telegraph reported the twosome had gotten back together after they were spotted together on a ski vacation. It seems as though Kate and Camilla have buried any hatchets following the possible doubt in the earlier days of their romance, too. Kate and Camilla have been photographed looking close on multiple occasions, and a body language expert even told the Mirror that their body language toward one another suggests they're on great terms now.
Whoever or whatever instigated the breakup, it sounds like even Kate agrees it had to happen. William too, for that matter. Both spoke about their few months apart in a 2010 interview after confirming their engagement, with William explaining, "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 ... and it soon worked out for the better." Kate added, "I, at the time, wasn't very happy about it but actually it made me a stronger person and you find out things about yourself that you maybe hadn't realized."