Camilla Didn't Think Kate Middleton Was "Worthy" of Being a Royal

Kate Middleton Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall — (Image credit: Getty Images)

Surprise, surprise: Members of the Royal Family sometimes think in terms of social hierarchies. I know, I'm just as shocked as you are.

Back in 2016, royal expert Christopher Andersen claimed that Camilla Parker-Bowles had been the driving force behind Prince William and Kate Middleton's 2007 breakup. Why? Because she didn't think the young woman was noble enough.

"I was in London when the breakup [of William and Kate] occurred. I was shocked, completely stunned, everyone thought it was only a matter of time before William was going to ask Kate to marry him. And then people started telling me that Camilla was behind it," Andersen told The Daily Beast (via Express).

He explained, "Camilla is a bit of a snob," adding, "She’s an aristocrat, she has always been moving in royal circles. She had always thought of herself as the heiress to Alice Keppel, her great-grandmother, who was the mistress of Edward VII.

"She was very proud of that connection, she boasted about that as a child and as an adult and that’s what she intended to be; part of the royal circle in the role of mistress to the future King, and then the King."

O...K? Anyway, because of this opinion, Camilla apparently didn't think that Middleton was good enough for Prince William

"She did not look at Kate as someone who was worthy of joining the Royal Family," Andersen claimed.

"Kate is the first working-class woman to be accepted into the Royal Family. She is descended from coal miners and her mother was a flight attendant."

(BTW, to call Princess Kate a "working-class woman" is a stretch and a half. Not only does she have aristocratic ancestry, but her family is exceedingly wealthy in its own right, and she was educated at a series of exclusive private schools.)

Regardless, the now-Queen Consort apparently still felt Middleton's heritage was insufficient. "So for all those reasons Camilla never really felt that Kate Middleton as an individual and the Middleton family as a whole were going to be worthy of entering into the Royal Family," Andersen said.

"I was told at the time of the breakup, and later on as well, that Camilla basically whispered in Charles’s ear that it was really time to make—to force—William to make a decision one way or the other.

"It has been since confirmed publicly that Charles did suggest to William that he either make a commitment to Kate or basically set her free, as it were. Now, his motives for doing that may have been pure but Camilla’s…not so much. She was the instigator of this."

So that's fun?

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Iris Goldsztajn is a London-based journalist, editor and author. She is the morning editor at Marie Claire, and her work has appeared in the likes of British Vogue, InStyle, Cosmopolitan, Refinery29 and SELF. Iris writes about everything from celebrity news and relationship advice to the pitfalls of diet culture and the joys of exercise. She has many opinions on Harry Styles, and can typically be found eating her body weight in cheap chocolate.