Prince William Claims to Remember a Wedding He Was Famously Not at and People Are Confused

Kate Middleton shared the story of how she met the Queen for the first time. Prince William added to the story, implying he was there for the meeting, when he was in fact in Africa at the time.

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You know how sometimes, if you hear a story enough, it starts to feel like you were there—even if you weren't? Well, that seems to have happened to Prince William, who claims to remember something that happened at a wedding he was never at.

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The wedding in question: The wedding of William's first cousin, Peter Phillips, to Autumn Kelly in Windsor, England in 2008.

The something that happened: Kate Middleton met Queen Elizabeth for the first time ever.

Where William actually was: At another wedding on the other side of the world, in Kenya.

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So, yeah. How is this even possible? It's hard to say. The invented memory came to light during Will and Kate's joint engagement interview in 2010. During the interview, Kate was asked to reminisce about the first time she met the Queen. Kate was very chill about telling the story.

"Well I first met her at Peter and Autumn's wedding and again it was in amongst a lot of other guests. She was very friendly, and yes, it was fine," she said, according to Hello! Magazine.

The Wedding of Peter Phillips to Autumn Kelly

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At this point, Will, eager to get a word in or maybe thinking that Kate was nervous and wanted some back up (who honestly knows, except Will himself?), jumped into the conversation with some details of his own. His addition starts out harmless enough, just peppered with information he could have gotten secondhand from Kate or from his grandma. Then, he swerves left and implies he was personally there for the conversation.

"She was very welcoming," he said. "She knew it was a big day and everything was going on with Peter and Autumn, she had wanted to meet Kate for a while, so it was very nice for her to come over and say hello, we had a little chat and got on really well."

This is confusing, of course, since Will was not anywhere near England when this meeting happened. He was in Africa, attending the wedding of his ex-girlfriend Jecca Craig's brother (he remained close to the Craig family after his and Jecca's breakup).

And, while it might seem kind of messed up that Will sent Kate to meet the literal queen alone, his decision to send her to the wedding in his place was actually a huge landmark for their relationship—it sent a public message about how serious things were.

Kayleigh Roberts
Contributing Editor at Marie Claire

Kayleigh Roberts is a freelance writer and editor with over 10 years of professional experience covering entertainment of all genres, from new movie and TV releases to nostalgia, and celebrity news. Her byline has appeared in Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, ELLE, Harper’s Bazaar, The Atlantic, Allure, Entertainment Weekly, MTV, Bustle, Refinery29, Girls’ Life Magazine, Just Jared, and Tiger Beat, among other publications. She's a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.