Prince William and Kate Middleton Broke Up Because of a Row That Made Them “Reevaluate Their Relationship”—and Now We Know What It Was About

Kate Middleton and Prince William in 2007

(Image credit: Getty Images)

published 15 October 2023

This was many, many moons ago, and—spoiler alert—everything turned out just fine between Prince William and the then Kate Middleton. (They have been married for 12 years, are parents to three children, and seem extremely happy together.) But when the couple of roughly five years split in April 2007, many royal followers couldn’t figure out why—was it because Kate was ready for marriage, and William wasn’t? Or the other way around? The Mirror reports that “one of the reasons behind the decision was William’s decision not to spend New Year’s Eve with the Middletons in 2006.” (The Middletons are Kate’s family, comprised of parents Michael and Carole and younger siblings Pippa and James; they’re famously tight-knit, and always have been.)

William’s choice to not spend the holiday with Kate’s family “reportedly prompted the couple to reevaluate their relationship and ultimately decide to take a break,” The Mirror writes. (William actually broke up with Kate over the phone while she was at work, with the now Princess of Wales taking the call “in the office car park in London,” The Mirror reports.)

“It was clear it was William—and definitely a tiff,” Kate’s former colleague said of the 2007 breakup. “Around the middle of the day, she was pacing the car park outside the office on her mobile. A few people noticed, because it’s a pretty unusual thing to do. She’d deliberately gone outside to take the call because she didn’t want to be overheard.”

They added “Kate was walking up and down and looking upset as if she was having an argument. But she didn’t cry. Word went ‘round that it was William, and they were having problems. Now it’s clear what it was all about. When she came back to the office, she didn’t say a thing and disappeared for the rest of the day. We didn’t think anything about it at the time. But looking back, the call was definitely a girlfriend-boyfriend tiff.”

The story ends well: after a brief split, William and Kate were back together by July 2007, about three months later. During her engagement interview in 2010, Kate said of their breakup “At the time, I wasn’t very happy about it, but actually it made me a stronger person.”

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Rachel Burchfield is a writer, editor, and podcaster whose primary interests are fashion and beauty, society and culture, and, most especially, the British Royal Family and other royal families around the world. She serves as Marie Claire’s Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor and has also contributed to publications like Allure, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, People, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and W, among others. Before taking on her current role with Marie Claire, Rachel served as its Weekend Editor and later Royals Editor. She is the cohost of Podcast Royal, a show that was named a top five royal podcast by The New York Times. A voracious reader and lover of books, Rachel also hosts I’d Rather Be Reading, which spotlights the best current nonfiction books hitting the market and interviews the authors of them. Rachel frequently appears as a media commentator, and she or her work has appeared on outlets like NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN, and more.