How Did Prince William Meet Kate Middleton? What’s Fact & Fiction On The Crown

How did Kate Middleton and Prince William meet?

In their engagement interview with ITV, Prince William revealed that the two met at St. Andrews University.

“I went bright red when I met him and kind of scuttled off,” she recalled. “It took quite a bit of time for us to get to know each other.” After their freshman year, the two moved together in a flat as friends and eventually culminated in a relationship. “We lived with a couple of others as well, and it just sort of blossomed from there, really,” William said. “We just saw more of each other, and you know, hung out a bit more and did stuff.”

“There isn’t really any information about their getting together at that time. Which is quite nice, because you can make it however you want to make it, like a normal relationship. We know they get together. We were trying to put as many barriers in front of that as possible,”

Did Kate Middleton's mom set her up with Prince William?

In The Crown, a young Kate and her mom Carole visits a charity donation drive with Princess Diana and Prince WIlliam. Carol gives her a couple of pounds for a donation to Princess Diana and pushes her to the front. “That’s very generous,” Diana says to Kate. “What’s your name?”

“Catherine,” Carole says.

“Kate’s fine,” she retorted.

The young Will and Kate exchange glances. “Say thank you to Kate,” Diana says to William. Right when Kate gets home, she plasters a photo of William on the wall. Later in the episode, her mom suggests she go to St. Andrews University once they learn that William was set to go to the Scottish university.

Though it was depicted in the show, the whole scenario was fictional. Kate Middleton confirmed that she never met Diana in April 2023 when she was talking about her engagement ring that was once owned by the former Princess of Wales.

“It’s the same ring and it’s exactly the same size as when I tried it on,” Kate said. “It’s very special. What an honor to be able to wear it. I never, sadly, got to meet her,” she continued, but said she’d be a “brilliant” grandmother. “We miss her every day.”

When Kate was applying for colleges, she initially had her eyes set on another university. “When the news was announced in 2000 that Prince William would be spending his university years at the small Scottish university of St. Andrews, Kate suddenly bailed out of Edinburgh University 50 miles away and reapplied at St. Andrews,”  Jasper Selwyn, the careers advisor at Middleton’s boarding school, told royal expert Katie Nicholl “Andrew Neil, a former rector at St. Andrews, told me it is not uncommon for students to apply for both universities and decide at the last minute, often depending on where friends are going.”

What did Kate Middleton and Prince William think of The Crown?

According to royal expert Omid Scobie, Kate Middleton doesn’t appear to be “bothered” by the show. “I often don’t believe it when a celebrity says, ‘Oh, I don’t read what’s written about me,’ or, ‘I don’t look at that,’ because we all know, especially being journalists on the receiving end of those calls from publicists, that they’re all looking,” the author told Elle. “But I do believe that with Kate, definitely, she truly isn’t looking. I mean, when people say she doesn’t look, I’m told that she doesn’t even read the news. She just stays out of the loop. That’s clearly the way it works for her. And given that she’s in such a unique and difficult way of life, I don’t blame her for taking that approach to it. So, I can’t imagine her being particularly bothered about what’s in The Crown.”

However, with Prince William, it’s another story. “Ultimately, it’s the portrayal of his mother. We know from that moment after the [controversial Princess Diana] Panorama [interview] documentary was removed from the public domain that William and Harry had very different opinions on how their mother came across in that and the things that she said. I would imagine that there was always going to be some care or even concern about how she might be portrayed in a TV show. But by the sounds of it, no one’s actually watching it within the royal family at the moment. In the same way that many of them ignored Harry’s book [Spare] and relied on the coverage in newspapers or what their aides told them about it, same with the Netflix series [Harry & Meghan].”

It was confirmed by Olivia Colman who played the middle-aged Queen Elizabeth in the show that the Royals don’t dabble in the Netflix show. “He asked what I was doing at the moment before he quickly added, ‘Actually, I know what you’re doing,’ ” Colman revealed on The Graham Norton Show. “I was so excited and asked, ‘Have you watched it?’ ” she continues. “His answer was a firm, ‘No.’ But he was very charming and very lovely.”

According to some insiders to Us Weekly, Kate prepared to spice up her public image before the show depicted her life. “Kate spoke with her team and people she works with, including stylists [about changing her image],” the source said, noting they all wanted to play up Kate’s “relatability” and “ability to connect with people.”

“Kate wants people to see her as a strong leader, someone who’s capable of taking the title of queen into a new generation,” the source continued. “She’s been wearing pants, more casual shirts and less high-priced clothing, and she’s ditching the long dresses and heels [in favor of] more accessible pieces.”

The Crown is now streaming on Netflix.