Prince William “went very quiet” when he split from Kate Middleton in 2007. Former royal butler Grant Harrold told In Style, “I didn’t see a huge amount of him. I didn’t ask him. I didn’t say anything. I just knew he wasn’t himself 100 percent. I knew he wasn’t himself.” Harrold had worked for the royal household in August 1997.
He suggested that the media pressure could be the reason behind their breakup. “Kate was struggling, and I wondered if it was to give a breathing space,” he said. “That’s just my view. I had no information.” At the time, pressure on William and Middleton to get engaged had become “so bad,” according to the former royal butler.
Harrold also recalled thinking, “I wonder if they hadn’t really split up, they just had a bit of time apart [because of] the media.” The couple’s breakup lasted only a few months. By June 2007, the two were reportedly seen kissing and dancing at an Army party.
Middleton then joined William at the Concert for Diana on July 1. Meanwhile, during their brief split, Harrold quietly hoped for their reunion. “I kept hoping that was the case and they would get back together, and I secretly wanted them to get back together,” he added. When they did, Harrold was “thrilled.”
His belief in them never changed. In his 2025 book, The Royal Butler: My Remarkable Life in Royal Service, Harrold wrote, “Kate was always the one.” He also remembered 2000s Middleton as very different from her current quiet public image.
“Lovely, very bubbly, very talkative,” he said of her. “What’s funny, people think she’s shy,” Harrold continued. “She’s not shy at all.” Harrold sometimes knew about stories involving Middleton from newspaper headlines, too.
Still, he never brought them up. “I always made out that I had no knowledge,” he noted. “So I would kind of say, ‘What have you been up to, and what have you done?’ She was always lovely.” Harrold revealed that the Princess of Wales also didn’t wait around for staff to serve her.
He added that getting drinks for people in the house formed part of a royal butler’s job. Yet Harrold shared that Middleton handled things herself. “She wouldn’t let me do anything,” he said. “‘Can I get you a drink?’ She’d be in the fridge getting a drink. ‘I’ll get you a plate.’ She’s already got the plate. You know what I mean? She did everything herself.”
Speaking to The Mirror, he also described her as “a nice girl.” Harrold added that “she is also a bit of a joker as well, she’s got a sense of humor. It’s a royal cavalcade with her. She’s pretty easy going, she’s just got a little bit about her.”
Notably, William and Middleton first met at the University of St Andrews in 2001. They started as friends and eventually ended up as a couple before graduating in 2005. The pair married in April 2011 at Westminster Abbey.
Two years later, they became parents for the first time when Prince George was born in July 2013. Princess Charlotte was later born in May 2015. They welcomed their third child, Prince Louis, in April 2018.
