Prince William Would Rather Walk the Dog Than Play Cards With Kate Middleton’s Family
Remember the shots of Prince William, Kate Middleton, and their family playing cards with the Middletons in the Princess of Wales’s September 2024 cancer update video? Well, the Prince of Wales, according to the Princess of Wales’s brother, James Middleton, is known to avoid playing cards with his in-laws. Why? Because of their desire to “win at all costs.” Instead, William much prefers to pass the time with the family pets.
William didn’t mind losing at cards with the ‘fiercely competitive’ Middletons
In a Daily Mail excerpt from James’ new memoir, Meet Ella: The Dog Who Saved My Life, Kate’s 37-year-old brother revealed how William’s not a fan of competitive card games with the Middleton clan. (Kate has a sister, Pippa Middleton, in addition to her brother, as well as their parents, Carole and Michael Middleton.)
Instead, he preferred to get away from it by spending time with James’ dog, Ella. “William would flinch at our ruthless determination to win at all costs,” James said, noting “he’d be delighted to be the first out.”
“I know, too, that Ella gave him a good excuse to escape the fiercely competitive nature of the Middleton family, which emerged every time we played our favourite [sic] fast-paced card game, Racing Demon.”
William preferred taking James Middleton’s dog for a walk
James continued, sharing that when William was “no longer compelled to take part” in the card game, he’d quietly “slink” away to cuddle with Ella. Or, “better” yet, he’d get out of there.
“‘James, does Ella need a walk?’ he’d ask before we’d even started dealing the cards,” James recalled William asking. At that, the three Middleton siblings would “exchange a knowing glance: William, for all the competitive rigour [sic] of his military training, was happy to be a loser at cards.”
“It helped, of course, that William was so genuinely fond of Ella,” James wrote in his book, noting it was love from the start. “When he first encountered her as a tiny puppy at Bucklebury, he was smitten.”
It went back to, in his opinion, William’s childhood dog. “He’d had a black Labrador, Widgeon, as a boy, and when Widgeon died, he left an empty space,” James said. “I felt William was pining for a dog when Ella was around.”
William and Kate have since owned multiple black cocker spaniels. Their current dog, Orla, joined the Wales family after Lupo’s death in 2020.
William and Kate get competitive playing tennis
The future king may have shied away from engaging in a spirited game of cards with the Middleton family, but William’s known to have his own competitive streak.
There’s a competitive edge in his and Kate’s marriage, which they’ve both touched upon. In a 2023 podcast interview alongside Princess Anne and her daughter and son-in-law, Zara and Mike Tindall, Kate and William revealed it’s not often they finish a game of tennis.
Described as “uber competitive” by Mike, Kate shared that she and her husband haven’t “actually managed to finish a game of tennis, the two of us.” Their time on the court usually, William explained, becomes a case of “who can out-mental each other.”
And, as the Princess Royal noted, a certain level of competitiveness is already starting to show up in the pair’s kids, Prince George, 11, Princess Charlotte, 9, and Prince Louis, 6.
