Kate Middleton Had A Secret Meeting With A Billionaire. What We Know About Their Talk

After completing preventative chemotherapy for her cancer in 2024, Catherine, Princess of Wales has been slowly but surely easing back into her old routine. Kate Middleton has not only started making appearances again but also hit a major post-treatment milestone when she got back into exercising. There have been some hiccups in her post-chemotherapy journey, such as her decision to back out of the Royal Ascot in June 2025, which sparked a new wave of concerns and speculation about her health. But as earlier reported, Kate planned to stay low-key in 2025 and strike a healthy balance between her royal duties and recovery, so missing an engagement here and there should be no cause for concern.

Kate proved this a few days following the Royal Ascot 2025. Along with her husband William, Prince of Wales, she secretly met with Melinda French Gates at Windsor Castle. The royal couple did not post about the philanthropist, who has a staggering net worth of over $30 billion as of 2025, nor the meetup on their official social media pages, so it's unknown why exactly they invited French Gates to the royal residence. However, a listing on the Court Circular — the official record of the activities of the members of the British royal family — indicated that the meeting was related to Kate and William's roles as patrons of their charity, The Royal Foundation, whose projects focus on early childhood, homelessness, mental health, and environmental protection. They may have discussed their work with French Gates, who has dedicated over 20 years of her life to tackling issues related to health, poverty, and education as former co-chair of The Gates Foundation, and eventually founded her own investing and philanthropic firm, Pivotal Ventures, to back women-led businesses and a variety of initiatives.

Melinda French Gates' meeting with Catherine, Princess of Wales and William, Prince of Wales came just a month after all three made it onto Time magazine's list of the top 100 influential philanthropists in the world for 2025, which also included Dolly Parton, Mariska Hargitay, Oprah Winfrey, and Warren Buffett, among many others. It's unclear if this recognition led to French Gates' visit to Windsor Castle, but the meeting wasn't the first time her philanthropic work gave her the opportunity to meet and work with royalty. 

During a 2014 ceremony, Prince William gave the billionaire the Chatham House Prize in honor of her work with the Gates Foundation and shared very kind words for her, saying (via Express): "No one could provide us with a better example of the impact such organizations can have, when led with vision, commitment and unstinting generosity, than this year's Chatham House Prize winner, Melinda Gates. With her equally remarkable husband Bill [Gates], Melinda set up the Gates Foundation to change the world. And change it she has, transforming the lives of women, the poor, the sick and the disadvantaged in Africa and elsewhere."

A decade later, French Gates teamed up with Kate Middleton and William's sister-in-law Meghan Markle and Winfrey to back an initiative launched by Girls Inc. and #HalfTheStory, focused on interactions with the digital world. "This new educational initiative will equip girls with the essential tools to thrive in the digital age while fostering healthier, more balanced relationships with technology," read a statement on the website of Meghan and Prince Harry's Archewell Foundation in October 2024.