Did you know that royal family members (except Prince Harry, for some reason) are supposed to go by their full names only? This is why Kate Middleton asking her friends to call her “Catherine” instead of “Kate” before her engagement to Prince William is headline-worthy.
Per People, in a new book, Catherine, the Princess of Wales, author Robert Jobson writes that in 2008, Kate wrote her friends a “humorous email,” in which she asked them to start calling her by her full name. This would imply that, perhaps, Kate was already preparing for her new royal life before she was engaged. Prince William actually proposed, as far as we know anyway, in 2010. Or maybe she just wanted to go by her full name for personal reasons. Either way, it clearly didn’t take.
Anwar Hussein Collection/ROTA
The new biography also contains other nuggets of information about the princess, who’s been under more than the usual amount of scrutiny since her six-month absence from public life. For instance, Jobson claims that Kate Middleton wasn’t sure she wanted to be the Princess of Wales.
“In marrying the elder son of Prince Charles, Catherine was aware she’d one day have to tread in her late mother-in-law’s footsteps—but the prospect of becoming the Princess of Wales held little appeal,” Jobson wrote. “She knew she’d inevitably be compared with Diana, whose untimely death had provoked such a tsunami of anger and grief. And she was right.” It’s no secret that becoming a princess comes with a lot of downsides. But, so far, Princess Kate hasn’t shown any signs of wanting to pull a Meghan and Harry and quit royal life altogether.
