When Prince William first met his wife-to-be Kate Middleton at St Andrews university in Scotland, he was known as a somewhat shy and aloof type of character – a far cry from the charismatic senior royal we know today.
After tragically losing his mum Diana, Princess of Wales when he was just 15-years-old, the Prince had already come to shoulder an impossible amount of trauma at such a young age.
However, after meeting Kate a royal expert has revealed that he started to come out of his shell and become the charismatic and doting husband and father we all know so well today.
Duncan Larcombe, a royal biographer and former newspaper royal editor, explained how there was one specific thing about Kate that he fell in love with – and it isn’t what you might expect.
“It’s easy to underestimate the role the Middletons have played in William’s life,” he told OK!. “Yes, he fell in love with Kate at university, but frankly he fell in love with the Middleton family as well.”
He added: “They were the family he has never had – the mum, dad and three kids spending time together and going on family holidays. It was a new world he’d not experienced before.”
It was William’s willingness and keen desire to ingratiate himself to the Middletons that first captured Kate’s attention, as it showed a keen desire to accept both the woman he loved and her family, which are very dear to her.
This in turn, really helped to cement their bond, with both William and Kate bringing out the best in each other.
Duncan added: “William was really very starry-eyed about Kate and they brought out the best in each other in many ways. William is quite shy and can be reserved around new people. He’s very cautious, and in that way they are quite similar characters. Their relationship blossomed on spaghetti Bolognese and rain-swept beaches.”
This taste of normality, was also a huge appeal to Prince William as it differed greatly from his own upbringing in the spotlight alongside King Charles and Princess Diana.
Reflecting on and how the Middleton’s offered a stable kind of normality to the Prince, Royal expert Hugo Vickers told OK!: “We’ve always been told that Prince William found the Middleton household very convenient, in the sense that he felt it had a sort of a normality that his own upbringing hadn’t particularly had.”
Keen to continue the tradition of stepping out of the spotlight for the sake of their children, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, the couple have also adopted a similar approach to their private life in an attempt to shield them from the public gaze.
Just as they did in Anglesey, the Wales’ have tried to keep up an ‘informal’ household with minimal staff and more focus on doing things as a family.
