You don’t have to be a royal expert to know that Camilla Parker Bowles and Kate Middleton have very little in common. Sure, they are connected by their famous family and by their titles: Camilla is currently the Queen of England and Kate is the future Queen. Aside from that, they seem like very different people, and depending on who you talk to, Camilla has beef with Kate that stretches back for the better part of two decades.
That’s why it was so surprising that the two women recently developed a much better relationship. As Camilla has been helping King Charles with his cancer and Kate has dealt with her own cancer diagnosis, the two have come closer together and discovered some crucial things they have in common.
Just what are the most surprising things that Kate Middleton and Queen Camilla have in common, and how has this changed their relationship? Keep reading to find out!
Bonding over health issues
It’s easy to think that you don’t have much (if anything) in common with members of the Royal Family. However, the people behind these famous faces are only human, and that means they bond with others through shared experiences. And one reason why Kate and Camilla have become closer is that they are now bonded via the health issues affecting their families.
For example, King Charles getting diagnosed with cancer has caused Camilla to step up and take care of more of his duties, both official royal responsibilities and housekeeping duties around the house. This was enough to help William and Camilla bond (more on this soon), but it also helped Kate see Camilla in a different light as the older woman took care of her spouse in the same way that William had to take care of Kate.
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Camilla became a role model for Prince William
You may not be surprised to hear that Prince William has not always had a great relationship with Queen Camilla. After all, he is Princess Diana’s son and grew up seeing Camilla as the other woman…a homewrecker that drove his parents apart. While their relationship has warmed up in more recent years, some reports now suggest that William sees her as a role model.
At least, that’s what royal expert Ian Pelham Turner recently told Fox News Digital. He claimed that William was impressed by Camilla’s ability to handle things both publicly and privately while Charles recovered. That would make a woman he once had serious reservations about into an unlikely role model for the future King of England.
Kate Middleton once had to play peacekeeper between William and Camilla
Still not convinced that Prince William and Queen Camilla didn’t always see eye to eye? One person who can shed some light on their previous contentious relationship is, ironically enough, Kate Middleton….at least, according to a royal insider who decided to spill the tea to Us Weekly.
According to that source, William and Camilla had a very frosty relationship when Kate entered the picture. Once she became an official part of the Royal Family, the source insists that Kate wasted no time playing peacekeeper. “It was really Kate who warmed William to Camilla,” the source said. Her motivations were very straightforward here: according to that same insider, Kate has always looked up to Camilla.
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Kate has always looked up to Camilla
The same royal insider who spoke to Us Weekly had some great insight into how Kate Middleton views Queen Camilla. According to the source, Kate has “never been dismissive of Camilla and always treated her with kindness.” The reason for this is that when you scratch away their surface-level difference, Kate and Camilla have more in common than most people realize.
The source (who is a family friend of Camilla’s) claims that Kate “likes [Camilla] because she brings a real-life relatability into the family.” Furthermore, “She’s not all about the courtiers waiting on hand and foot. Camilla’s real like Kate is.”
Everything sounds royally copacetic between these two women now. However, those with long memories may remember a time when Camilla seemed like one of Kate’s most vicious enemies.
Did Camilla try to split Kate and William up?
What do we know about the early relationship between Kate Middleton and Queen Camilla? Royal expert Christopher Andersen once told the Daily Beast that the relationship was fairly contentious, although the animosity was mostly one-sided. The author claims that Camilla was instrumental in breaking up William and Kate back in 2007, though they famously got back together and subsequently got married.
Why did Camilla want to break them up? Andersen theorized that it was a class issue: “She did not look at Kate as someone who was worthy of joining the royal family.” As he noted, “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.”
That may sound bad, but it could be worse. As The Sun reports, Anderson previously claimed that Camilla doubted Kate’s intelligence. According to him, she saw the younger woman as “pretty, but dim.”