Kate Middleton Was Actually More on Board With Mom Carole’s Prince William Match-Making Plan Than Depicted on ‘The Crown,’ Historian Says
Apparently, The Crown’s depiction of young Kate Middleton wasn’t entirely true to real life. According to a historian, the now-Princess of Wales didn’t have reservations about her mother, Carole Middleton’s plan to get her and Prince William together. Unlike her character played by Meg Bellamy, Kate wasn’t “resisting” Carole’s idea of dating the now-Prince of Wales.
Kate didn’t appear entirely on board with Carole Middleton’s wish for her to date William in ‘The Crown’ Season 6
The final installment of The Crown saw the introduction of Kate as she, along with William (Ed McVey), headed off to college at Scotland’s University of St. Andrew’s.
Before crossing paths on campus, however, varying scenes showed everything Kate’s mom, played by actor Eve Best, did to get her daughter there with William.
As Kate told her mother in one scene, she’d ditched her plan to attend the University of Edinburgh for St. Andrews after the announcement William would be going there.
She also noted how she took a gap year at her mother’s urging to further align her own educational timeline with William’s.
At one point, Bellamy’s Kate even expressed her frustration with Carole’s match-making plans, saying she wanted to date someone other than William. “If that’s OK with you because you’ve always had your sights on someone else for me [William].”
Kate and Carole Middleton ‘decided together’ that Kate should date William
Getting together with William wasn’t all Carole, according to royal historian Clare McHugh. Contrary to The Crown Season 6, Kate did play a role in determining her romantic future.
“The two of them were as one all along,” McHugh told OK of Kate and her mother. “What is interesting to me is that The Crown did not shy away from showing Carole as insistent that Kate kept going. I think the only part where they faltered was when they had Kate resisting a bit.”
McHugh added she was “quite sure” that “psychologically, Kate did not resist.” Instead, she and Carole “decided together.”
So, contrary to Kate pushing back against her mom’s wish that she date William — Bellamy’s Kate brought home a different boy from St. Andrew’s University for dinner with the Middleton family on The Crown — the soon-to-be 42-year-old (Kate’s birthday is Jan. 9, 2024) actually agreed.
What Kate and William have said about their first meeting
In their 2010 engagement interview, William and Kate sat down for the first time to publicly talk about their relationship. They discussed everything from how they got engaged (on vacation in Kenya) to dating for nearly a decade. And, of course, their first meeting.
“When I first met Kate, I knew there was something very special about her,” William said. “I knew there was possibly something that I wanted to explore there.”
“We ended up being friends for a while, and that just sort of was a good foundation,” he explained. “Because I do generally believe now that being friends with one another is a massive advantage. And it just went from there.”
As for Kate, she recalled being somewhat flustered in William’s presence. “I actually think I went bright red when I met you and sort of scuttled off, feeling very shy,” she recalled. “But we did become very close friends from quite early.”
The Crown Seasons 1-6 are streaming on Netflix.
