The Prince and Princess of Wales were asked about a period when they split up early in their relationship, after William dumped Kate by phone at the end of 2006.
Their reaction to the question—during their engagement interview in November 2010—was one of a number of clips that resurfaced on social media platform TikTok.
The montage begins with a snippet of Kate and William learning to do first aid, followed by William joking about needing to put his hands in his pockets as well as a radio appearance, all from separate royal engagements.
The post goes on to show a moment from their pooled engagement interview in which journalist Tom Bradby asks: “You split up, famously, all over the papers, what was all that about?”
The TikTok post was liked 4,200 times and viewed 57,000 times and focuses on a particular moment when Kate said “it wasn’t all bad,” before William replied “phew.”
In reality, their answers were quite a bit longer in the full interview, in which Prince William said: “We did split up for a bit but that was just, you know, we were both very young.
“It was at university and we were sort of both finding ourselves as such and being, you know, different characters and stuff.
“And I think I at the time wasn’t very happy about it,” Kate said. “But actually it made me a stronger person you find out things about yourself that maybe you hadn’t realized or I think you can get quite consumed by a relationship when you’re younger and you know I really I really valued that time for me as well.”
Robert Jobson described William and Kate’s brief break up in his book Catherine, the Princess of Wales: “As Catherine approached her 25th birthday in January 2007, he unexpectedly cancelled plans to attend a New Year gathering in Dundee, arranged by the Middletons.
“She sensed something was wrong. It certainly wasn’t helping that newspapers were confidently predicting a royal engagement. Soon afterwards, seemingly out of the blue, William—now a 2nd Lieutenant in the Blues and Royals—telephoned her to suggest that they split up.
“He told her they both needed ‘a bit of space’ to ‘find our own way,’ and he was unable to promise her marriage. In an emotionally charged 30-minute conversation, they both acknowledged they were on ‘different pages.’
“It was a devastating blow to Catherine, who felt doubly let down at being dumped over the phone. Though it wasn’t the first time William had called time on their relationship, it felt final.”
