It’s hard to imagine, but there was a time when Prince William aristocratic friends did not believe Kate Middleton it was good enough for the future king. In fact, the prince’s friends believed that she was a social climber who didn’t deserve to enter her social circle, which led to ruthless bullying – and there was a particular cruel nickname that they gave her and her sister, Pippa Middleton, As a result. Read on to find out what it is and for much sweeter names these royals gave each other, check out William and Kate have catchy and embarrassing nicknames for each other.
Kate’s rapid rise from her (and very comfortable) upper-middle-class upbringing as the eldest daughter of Carole and Micheal Middleton was helped along with her parents’ successful online mail order and party supplies business, Party Pieces. The family’s upward mobility allowed the duchess – as well as Pippa and her brother, James – to attend exclusive private schools and, finally, sent Kate to St. Andrew’s University, where she met William in 2001.
Kate and her younger sister have always been each other’s best friends and were among the young London socialites who frequented the city’s most chic clubs and parties before the future Duchess met William (and again, during her brief break-up in 2007) . And to find out more about who wanted this to happen, check out This Royal Once Encouraged Prince William to Break Up with Kate Middleton.
Kate and Pippa’s omnipresence earned them the harmful nickname “wisteria sisters” in the British media, which sarcastically argued that women were “highly decorative, terribly scented and with a fierce ability to climb.” The name stayed with William’s friends who thought that Kate was not in the “right class” to date a future king.
Kate certainly looked the part (her modest style echoed a young man Princess Diana) when she started dating William. His predilection for the basic items in the “Sloane Ranger” wardrobe – Philip Treacy hats worthy of Ascot, tailored blazers, long DVF dresses and Barbour jackets – has not stopped with criticism. In 2008, the society’s chronicler Vicky Ward wrote in Vanity Fair that Kate was the target of vicious “criticisms”, writing: “There are many snobbish insults from people who, despite Middleton’s obvious attributes, believe that the monarchy needs to stop marrying ‘outside’ its class.” Ward noted that some people compared Kate and Pippa to Jackie Kennedy and your sister, Lee Bouvier, because of the “obvious desire to ‘marry well'” (Jackie became the first lady of the United States after marrying John F. Kennedy; Lee married Prince Stanisław Albrecht “Stash” Radziwił and became a princess.) And to learn more about Kate’s youthful years, check out Kate Middleton being bullied at school for being “too thin and tame”.
The criticisms of William’s friends extended to Kate’s parents, mainly aimed at her mother. The future Duchess was well aware that some of William’s friends were laughing at Carole’s “Doors to Manual” past (she has already worked as a flight attendant at British Airways). Ward noted that one of William’s snobbish friends even commented on the Middletons’ driveway to his family’s home, saying, “Her parents have an asphalt [paved] drive, for God’s sake. “In the UK, a” paved “drive is considered by some to be” new money “, as opposed to gravel drives from large properties.
Biographer Andrew Morton he also wrote about how William’s friends treated Kate “abominably” in the early days of their romance. “Although she was seen as a ‘pretty and sensible’ girl, there were those in royal and aristocratic circles who believed that the Middletons were too mediocre for the House of Windsor,” he noted. And for more real news delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe to our daily newsletter.
With only a few months to go before the tenth wedding anniversary of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, it is clear that Kate silenced her critics and became one of the most popular royals. It is also considered the family’s secret weapon as they faced Megxit’s double crisis and pandemic.
The offensive names that William’s friends once scoffed at have been replaced by another that is beyond reproach: the future Queen of England. And to find out more about how she’s preparing to fill that role, read Why Kate Middleton’s relationship with the queen is “stronger than ever”.
Diane Clehane is a New York-based journalist and author of Imagining Diana and Diana: The Secrets of Her Style.