{"id":394820,"date":"2025-09-03T15:09:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T15:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/394820\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T15:09:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T15:09:11","slug":"inside-the-dinner-where-kate-middleton-and-prince-william-cemented-their-partnership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/394820\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the Dinner Where Kate Middleton and Prince William Cemented Their Partnership"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2007, Kate Middleton<\/strong> and Prince William<\/strong> ended their relationship. The breakup was announced in the tabloids, with no protest from the palace, nearly five years after their romance began. But before too long, the future King and Queen of England reunited. Former royal butler<\/a> Grant Harrold<\/strong>, who worked for Prince Charles<\/strong><\/a> at the time, tells the story of how they came together again in a new book called The Royal Butler: My Remarkable Life in Royal Service.<\/p>\n

In 2008, a year after the breakup, Harrold says found himself in charge of a very special meal. His mission? Organize a private dinner for two at the royal residence of Highgrove House<\/a>. The guests? Kate and William, who were celebrating the revival of their relationship.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just the two of them,\u201d the former butler recalled to People<\/a>. \u201cIt was really nice, really special.\u201d Despite the intimacy of a meal designed for them, he added, they took care to \u201cinteract a lot\u201d with him. He saw how the dinner\u2019s atmosphere reflected their newfound camaraderie.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore, they weren\u2019t [really] holding hands\u2014it was very much William\u2019s friend. After that, when they got back together, it absolutely changed, and it was very much them as a couple. Something changed, and you knew they were a couple, and from then on, it was very much a waiting game,” he said. \u201cAfter they got back together, I was convinced they would get married. We didn\u2019t know how long it would take.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harrold compares the Wales couple\u2019s love to that shared by the late Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip<\/a>: \u201cWhen you saw them together and see them get on as friends, although they were in love, they are also absolutely best friends,\u201d he said. \u201cThey were best friends who worked together as a team.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the 2007 breakup could have been final. Kate spent much of that year waiting for her prince, who was on one mission after another as he trained for the military and to be a helicopter pilot. Each time he returned to London, he partied hard with his friends. At the time, The Guardian<\/a>\u2014 quoting The Sun\u2014reported that \u201cthe couple have seen each other no more than once a week\u201d and \u201ctheir relationship has been on a downward spiral.\u201d The tabloid quoted a close friend of both: \u201cAs far as Kate is concerned, William simply hasn\u2019t been paying her enough attention. She is stuck in London while he is living in an officer\u2019s mess in Dorset. Kate feels hugely frustrated that their relationship just seems to be going backwards at a rate of knots.\u201d Paparazzi footage showing Prince Harry<\/strong>\u2019s brother flirting with other young women didn\u2019t help the situation.<\/p>\n

According to Robert Jobson<\/strong>, author of a biography devoted to the Princess of Wales, the breakup took place over the phone, and William was the catalyst. \u201cWilliam telephoned to initiate a split, telling her that he felt they needed \u2018a bit of space\u2019 to \u2018find our own way,\u201d Jobson said. \u201cWilliam admitted his inability to commit to marriage.\u201d The phone call reportedly lasted half an hour, enough time for them to both acknowledge being on \u201cdifferent pages.\u201d The eldest son of Prince Charles and Princess Diana was said to have drowned his sorrows in parties. He even shouted \u201cI\u2019m free!\u201d to his friends in a Mayfair nightclub<\/a> before buying a round.<\/p>\n

Prince William et Kate Middleton en 2007 au Cheltenham Festival.Mark Cuthbert\/UK Press via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Kate, for her part, returned to live with her parents<\/a> for a while, before a family holiday in Dublin and a vacation in Ibiza. Rather than run away from the paparazzi, she used the cameras to project the image of a radiant young woman enjoying her freedom, too. A few months later, the exes reunited at a party organized by a mutual friend. Rumor has it they made up on the dance floor. Eighteen years on, Kate and William are the parents of three children\u2014Prince George, Princess Charlotte, Prince Louis<\/strong>\u2014and continue to represent the Crown as they await becoming sovereigns in their own rights.<\/p>\n

Originally appeared in Vanity Fair France<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2007, Kate Middleton and Prince William ended their relationship. The breakup was announced in the tabloids, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394821,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[7709,7714,7713,533,2832,532,2831,7710,519,448,7711,7712],"class_list":{"0":"post-394820","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-royals","8":"tag-british-royal-family","9":"tag-catherine","10":"tag-catherine-middleton","11":"tag-kate-middleton","12":"tag-prince-of-wales","13":"tag-prince-william","14":"tag-princess-of-wales","15":"tag-royal-families","16":"tag-royal-family","17":"tag-royals","18":"tag-uk-royal-family","19":"tag-william"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115141002163166921","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}