There have been conspiracy theories about the royal family all throughout history.
Human nature inclines people to speculate and theorize when they don’t have all the answers, and since the royal family often follows the “never complain, never explain” rule, the somewhat mysterious nature of their personal lives is fodder for rumors that, sometimes, spiral into royal PR disasters.
Kate Middleton and Prince William have been at the center of a large number of rumors throughout their relationship — people have spread stories of affairs, break-ups, and more. Usually, the couple doesn’t respond to such talk, likely because of the family motto. But that’s not always the case. For instance, as the KateGate conspiracy theories had celebrities weighing in on her absence from the public eye in early 2024, the princess announced to the world that she was undergoing cancer treatments.
Although, many other rumors about the Prince and Princess of Wales haven’t had any official comments from Kensington Palace, or the royals themselves, some of them seem to have officially been debunked as false based on other sources.
Kate Middleton did not have posters of Prince William as a teen
One of the false narratives surrounding Kate Middleton is that she was something of a Prince William fangirl before they got together. However, she has denied one rumor that would solidify her supposed fandom. During William and Kate’s iconic November 2010 engagement interview with Tom Bradby at ITV News, he asked, “There’s a story that goes around that you had a picture of him on your wall as a child.” Bradby didn’t bring up who started the poster rumor, but it was most likely Jessica Hay. According to The Daily Beast, Hay was a frequent tabloid source for fake stories about Middleton’s youth thanks to her claim that the two were close friends in boarding school. However, when it was discovered that Hay and Middleton never went to school together, Hay’s credibility went out the window. The stories, however, persisted.
Middleton denied the poster rumor with some cheeky banter after William quipped, “It wasn’t just one. There was like 10, 20.” She playfully fired back, “He wishes, no. No, I had the Levi’s guy on my wall, not a picture of William, sorry.” Middleton apologized again and patted William’s knee with a chuckle, and he joked, “It was me in Levi’s obviously.”
Based on her joke-filled denial, it’s unlikely that Kate Middleton’s final weeks before becoming a royal required carefully hiding posters of William from years past.
Kate Middleton and Prince William did not separate in 2022