Prince William and Kate Middleton’s romance bubbled away before most people realised… as royal author reveals secrets about their early relationship

‘Wow, Kate’s hot!’, Prince William said to his Eton classmate Fergus Boyd as he watched his future wife strut in a sheer dress and black underwear. 

In April 2002, Kate Middleton took part in the DONT WALK charity gala at Fairmont St Andrews Hotel when she decided to wear what was originally a skirt – designed by textiles student Charlotte Todd – as a mini-dress. 

William had covertly paid for his £200 front row seat through a friend, so few people knew that he would be there. 

Kate’s risqué catwalk appearance is often lauded as the moment William stopped seeing her as the girl next door and realised he had feelings for her.

But according to claims in Sean Smith’s 2025 book, Sophie: Saving the Royal Family, William and Kate were already quietly dating at the time.

He wrote: ‘Kate had been introduced to William because they were on the same course, History of Art, and in the same student block, but had yet to have a chat.

‘That changed when he discovered she knew about rugby and could have a decent conversation about it. She became the only girl in his set of well-to-do public school types who always sat together at lunch and dinner.

‘They started dating in the Christmas holidays and were already a discreet item by the time William publicly commented on how fit she was at the now-famous charity fashion show in which she sashayed down the runway in a transparent dress revealing black underwear.’

This goes against previous reports that both Kate and William were dating other people at the time.  

William was said to have made a clumsy pass at Kate at the show’s after-party, to which he was rebuffed. 

The details of Kate and William’s early relationship are often disputed due to Buckingham Palace striking a deal with the media to ensure that he was able to have a private time at St Andrews.

William wanted to be treated the same as everyone else, and at St Andrews, he was. 

The media had agreed to leave the Prince in peace after he granted the world’s press a brief interview and photo call the day he arrived. 

William and Kate first met when they moved into St Salvator’s halls of residence, often called Sally’s, in September 2001.  

They’d reportedly gotten on well, and it’s believed that William relied on Kate’s advice when he was going through a difficult period personally, and debating whether or not to drop out of university.    

The two had already crossed paths previously when William would come to Kate’s boarding school, Marlborough College, for inter-school tournaments.

This was during a time when both the media and teenage girls were obsessed with the young prince, a period dubbed ‘Willsmania’.

Despite crowds of students at Kate’s school swarming the young prince, Kate was apparently more interested in playing hockey.

And it seems that Cupid’s arrow was set as hardworking Kate had just finished a gap year and applied to St Andrews, turning down her offer from the University of Edinburgh.

William and Kate both joined St Andrews as History of Art students, although William later switched to geography.

William would frequently run into a brunette girl and took immediate notice of her – after all, the future Princess of Wales had been honoured as the ‘prettiest girl at Sally’s’ in freshers’ week, according to Vanity Fair.

Kate recalled in their engagement interview that she ‘turned bright red and sort of scuttled off’ when they met, ‘feeling very shy about meeting him’.

The future couple quickly started a budding friendship after realising how much they had in common – they both enjoyed skiing and had both been on a gap year travelling around the world.

William joined the water polo team and would swim with Kate most mornings at the Old Course Hotel.

William and Kate then moved in together with friends before moving into a farmhouse near the university campus. 

He moved with Kate, Fergus, later Prince George’s godfather, and Olivia Bleasdale into a two-story, top-floor apartment, 13a Hope Street, in the centre of town for £100 a week.

Despite the bombproof doors, bulletproof windows and high-tech laser security system, the flat gave the Prince the relative normalcy of a private student life with his friends, despite the girls who tried to spot him at the local Tesco.

A modern listing for the property shows that it now has five bedrooms, one bathroom and a kitchen and a utility room.

William loved to ‘impress’ Kate with his cooking skills while they were at university, she once told Mary Berry for a BBC royal Christmas special in 2019.

‘In university days, he used to cook all sorts of meals,’ she told the baking legend.

‘I think that’s when he was trying to impress me, Mary! Things like Bolognese sauce, and things like that.’

Asked if he still cooks for her, Kate replied: ‘He sometimes does actually – he’s very good at breakfast.’

Over the next three university years, their relationship deepened. One of their circle, Michael Choong, who played rugby with William and is these days a property developer in Scotland, recalls, ‘They never showed any affection in public. Kate was good for him.

‘She was very loyal and did not gossip. William was naturally gregarious – he’d always get a round of beers in at the pub – but Kate was less so and hated having her picture taken.’

Although their relationship remained low-key, there was a slight slip when Kate’s mother, Carole, told her brother, Gary Goldsmith, of the romance at Christmas in 2003.

Kate’s uncle then apparently passed a note to a colleague during a meeting that read: ‘I think I’m going to be the uncle of the future Queen of England!!!’

As for Kate’s catwalk ‘dress’, Ms Todd sold it at auction to a private buyer for £78,000 in 2011.

The outfit only cost £30 to make from scraps of material for a project, according to the Daily Mail at the time.

Ms Todd went on to launch her own short-lived fashion brand. Her debut collection included 12 updated versions of Kate’s tube dress in six colours.

The charity gala was reimagined in the Netflix series The Crown with actress Meg Bellamy playing Kate.

Bellamy said she found it difficult to depict a young Kate as there was ‘no footage’ of her walking or talking in her university era. 

She said she attempted to pitch her voice higher to make Kate appear more youthful, ‘like myself’.

Bellamy described how she underwent intensive training with movement and voice coaches – and even took costumes home.

‘I could bring home an outfit of Kate that really felt like her so I just kind of walked around the house and felt her,’ the actress explained.

Perhaps for William and Kate, the fact that much of their early romance is shrouded in mystery for the general public makes their love story even more special. 

Regardless of when they began dating, the charity gala remains an iconic moment in pop culture.