She still displays that strength of character today.
Prince William and Kate Middleton are 15 years into a successful marriage—but part of their romantic lore is their brief breakup in 2007, which is said to have devastated both of them.
Though neither were happy about the split, Kate—then 25 years old—put on a brave face when asked about William after they parted ways, showing her stoicism even then. Kate and her younger sister Pippa Middleton stepped out for a book launch event in May, roughly one month after the breakup. While there, Kate chatted with the late Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, a socialite and television personality who died at just 45 years old in 2017.
Palmer-Tomkinson was friends with both William and Prince Harry, befriending them in childhood. At the book party, she asked Kate how she was feeling post-breakup, and Kate’s strength shone through: “Fine,” she said, simply.
After Palmer-Tomkinson pushed the matter further, Kate doubled down. “Really, it’s fine,” she said. After this, the conversation turned to “happier” subjects.
William, for his part, “celebrated their breakup with an alcohol-fueled night at the Mahiki nightclub in Mayfair with his close pals,” royal biographer Robert Jobson wrote. “‘I’m free!’ he shouted, as he slipped into a drunken version of the robot dance. He then told his friends that they should all ‘drink the menu,’ which they more or less ended up doing.”
Kate was supported by her tight-knit family. “Carole Middleton acted swiftly, taking her heartbroken daughter for a break in Dublin—a welcome respite from media scrutiny,” Jobson wrote. Though William had that initial night out, during their roughly three month split, Kate went out on the town much more, with William spending most of that time period “holed up in his barracks.”
Eventually, the two met up at a party that summer and reconciled. In July, Kate attended the Concert for Diana—marking 10 years since Princess Diana’s death in 1997—confirming publicly that they were back together.
At the party where they rekindled their romance, “Fellow guests said as soon as William and Catherine set eyes on one another, it was clear their love had not extinguished,” royal biographer Russell Myers wrote in his book William and Catherine, The Monarchy’s New Era: The Inside Story. “The couple peeled off from the rest of the party and spent hours locked in deep conversation.”
“As the cocktails flowed and the dance floor filled, they only had eyes for each other,” Myers wrote.
Despite his initial proclamations of being “free,” William was “struggling” through the split, Myers wrote. “William was more than just crestfallen and worried about whether he was throwing away the one constant in his life,” he added. “He was, according to one well-placed source, ‘completely broken.’” According to Jobson, William “realized he’d made a big error and he had to woo her back.”
Elsewhere in her conversation with Palmer-Tomkinson that night in May 2007, the socialite reportedly asked Kate, “Do you want him back?” Kate explained that she still loved William, to which Palmer-Tomkinson advised her to “Keep your chin up. Say nothing, do nothing, and you’ll be fine, and he’ll come back.”
After William and Kate got engaged in late 2010, both spoke about their breakup during their engagement interview. “We were both very young,” William said, adding, “it was very much trying to find our own way, and we were growing up.”
Kate, for her part, said of their split, “It was just sort of a bit of space and a bit of things like that, and it worked out for the better. I think I—at the time wasn’t very happy about it, but actually, it made me a stronger person.”
“You find out things about yourself that maybe you hadn’t realized,” she added. “Or I think you can get quite consumed by a relationship when you are younger, and I really valued that time for me as well, although I didn’t think it at the time.”
