King Charles' Relationship With Carole Middleton Explained

Cast your mind back to the first time you can recall your mother and father's respective parents being in the same place. There's a chance you were the reason both sets of grandparents were on hand, coming together to celebrate their shared descendant. However, you're likely not a member of the British royal family. And, when there's only so much room in the spotlight, jealousy can sometimes rear its ugly head — especially when newcomers join the fray by marriage. To that end, while King Charles III seems to have a good relationship with Carole Middleton, his son Prince William's mother-in-law, that reportedly wasn't always the case. And it reportedly had everything to do with King Charles feeling a bit shown-up as a grandparent.

Charles is certainly no stranger to jealousy. He was said to be quite jealous of his late ex-wife Princess Diana, due to her immense popularity during their marriage, and even William, Prince of Wales, and his own wife, Catherine, Princess of Wales, allegedly had the king seething on account of their star outshining his, as well. But in the case of Kate's mother, Carole, Charles was mostly just jealous of how much time she was spending with their shared grandchildren. In August 2016, a purported friend of then-Prince Charles told the Daily Mail that the royal "feels very much that the Middletons get more than their fair share of time with George and Charlotte" (Prince Louis hadn't been born yet at the time). The source added that, while Charles had recently attended Prince George's third birthday party, he wasn't particularly thrilled that the event was a Carole Middleton production. "Charles feels rather left out," they said.

While rumors of a rift between King Charles III and Prince William have ramped up in recent times, they're also nothing new. After all, given King Charles' reported feud with William's in-laws around the mid-2010s, it only stands to reason that William himself would be involved in one way or another. And according to the king's alleged friend in that 2016 Daily Mail piece, while Charles' main issue was not seeing his grandchildren as often as he wanted to, he was missing his son quite a bit, too. "He certainly feels William spends more time with the Middletons than he does with his own family," they said, adding that Charles was likely being distant towards Carole and Michael Middleton as a way of expressing this frustration.

According to royal biographer Tom Bower in his 2018 book "Rebel Prince: The Power, Passion and Defiance of Prince Charles" (via People), things got especially bad after Prince William and Kate Middleton chose to spend Christmas with Kate's parents, rather than William's family. Charles' icing-out of Carole at other family gatherings apparently became such a problem that William had to ask his since-deceased grandmother Queen Elizabeth II (Charles' mother) to intervene. As Bower tells it, in an effort to make up for Charles snubbing Carole, Queen Elizabeth invited Carole to go on a drive around her Scottish estate. We have to assume the Middleton matriarch enjoyed being driven around the property by the queen more than King Abdullah of Saudi Arabi did several years prior (if you know, you know).

By the mid-2020s, it seemed that King Charles III had well and truly put any hard feelings about Carole Middleton and her husband behind him. As for what spurred this on, it seems like the struggles the royal family faced in 2024 — more specifically, King Charles and Kate Middleton's respective cancer diagnoses — made everyone realize what's really important. "The Middletons have been very, very welcomed into the royal fold ... I think there's a good relationship between the King and the Middletons," royal expert Katie Nicholl said on The Sun's "Royal Exclusive" show in December of that year, adding, "The Middletons have been so pivotal and important this year."

What's more, Charles and Carole were spotted talking and laughing together while both attending the Royal Ascot in June 2025, which had royal watchers elated (per The Mirror). Later that December, Carole and husband Michael Middleton were on hand for the royal family's annual Christmas Eve celebration at Sandringham House. In other words, it seems Charles has come full circle since feeling left out of William and the Middletons' Christmas plans years prior.