Welp, here we go again! Rose Hanbury is on the official guest list for King Charles’s coronation, which means you can expect the internet to once again been inundated with (very likely false) rumors about an alleged affair with Prince William.
We first dealt with ~this whole thing~ in 2019, when tabloids became obsessed with a “falling out” involving Kate, William, and Rose—who happens to be the Marchioness of Cholmondeley (which is somehow pronounced like “Chumley”). Then a separate 2022 @DeuxMoi tip revived royal cheating allegations and caused #PrinceOfPegging to start trending on Twitter (I’ll give you a moment).
The Cambridges have never commented publicly on the ordeal, but if you’re confused about these rumors and where they originated, we’ve got you.
Okay, first things first—some background on the initial rumor
In Touch, an American publication, reported back in April 2019 that William may have had an affair with Rose, and that when Kate supposedly confronted him about it, he apparently “laughed it off saying there was nothing to it.” 😬
Again, nothing was confirmed, and there is no actual public evidence that William cheated, so these reports were shaky at best. And according to the Daily Mail’s royal reporter Richard Kay, it’s all fake news. He wrote:
“Both sides have considered legal action, but because none of the reports have been able to offer any evidence about what the so-called dispute is about, they have chosen to ignore it….These hurtful rumors of a fallout are simply false.”
So, who is Rose, exactly?
She’s a former model and current marchioness who lives with her husband, film director David Rocksavage, in Norfolk, England. (For the uninitiated, Google says a “marchioness” is the wife of someone who ranks just below a duke in the British peer system.)
Rose’s home is pretty close to Kate and William’s Anmer Hall country estate, and they run in the same social circles. Since Rose lives in the countryside, that’s likely why British tabloid The Sun started referring to her as Kate’s “rural rival” once things allegedly turned sour.
So what went wrong between Rose and Kate if it wasn’t that affair rumor? Back in March of 2019, The Sun reported that Kate was upset about a story that claimed she told William to have Rose “phased out” of their circle because she and Rose supposedly had a falling-out. Other than that, it’s unknown!
What’s with that @DeuxMoi tip, you ask?
Basically, a tipster wrote into the gossip account and alleged (emphasis on alleged—as @DeuxMoi is the first to point out, these tips are completely unverifiable and are sometimes baseless) that a member of the British royal family’s extramarital affair is an “open secret,” and the reason for the affair is the royal’s “love of pegging.” Hence #PrinceOfPegging trending on Twitter.
Obviously, this (a) could have been completely false and (b) even if true, could have been about a different member of the royal family. But the internet seemed to immediately focus on our dude William, likely because he was plagued with the false “rural rival” affair rumor before.
Tell me more about this legal action…
Even though Richard Kay said there was no legal action happening from the royals, theDaily Beast claimed otherwise. In a report, the outlet said they “understand that pressure was applied by the Palace” to get affair rumor claims removed from staff writer Giles Coren’s Twitter. If you’re wondering what Giles of the Times of London’s tweet said, it reportedly went a little something like this: “Yes, it is an affair. I haven’t read the piece but I know about the affair. Everyone knows about the affair, darling.”
The Daily Beast also alleged at least one British publication had “been served with legal warnings after publishing details of the rumors by the royals’ lawyers of choice.” According to the Daily Beast, one of the letters from the royals’ lawyers allegedly stated:
“In addition to being false and highly damaging, the publication of false speculation in respect of our clients’ private life also constitutes a breach of his privacy pursuant to Article 8 of the European Convention to Human Rights.”
So what’s the truth?
Nobody but William, Kate, and Rose really know what actually went down in their friendship—if anything—but when the royals hosted Donald Trump at the palace, Rose was there! (She went to an event with her husband, because going to events like these is basically his job.) Kate and Rose didn’t sit together, but being in the same room is obviously a good sign that there are no hard feelings between them. And the fact that Rose is invited to King Charles’s coronation presumably means there continues to be nothing amiss.
Anyway, a source ended up telling Us Weekly, “The affair rumors turned out to be a good thing for them in the end. Kate finds the rumors hurtful, obviously, and hates the thought that one day her children will be able to read about them online….It forced her and William to sit back and examine their relationship, which they realized they should have been doing more often.”
