Kate Middleton Lazy — Or Jealous? May Snub Wedding Of Prince William’s Ex-Flame Olivia Hunt
Kate Middleton, and her apparent reluctance to attend friends’ weddings, has caused raised eyebrows among royal watchers in recent weeks, particularly after the Duchess of Cambridge took an unexplained pass on the nuptials of socialite and pal Daisy Dickson, who got hitched to real estate mogul Bear Maclean.
Middleton sent her sister Pippa in her place to sit at the side of her husband, Prince William, at the recent wedding.
And now, royal watchers report Kate Middleton may deliver another high-profile wedding snub — this one in an even more emotionally-loaded situation. Though a date has not yet been announced, the Prince’s ex-girlfriend, the stunning blonde Olivia Hunt, 32, has announced her impending big day with superstar lawyer Nicholas Wilkinson as the lucky groom.
Hunt was the object of Prince William’s affections before he had even met Kate Middleton, when both the future king and Hunt — then an aspiring writer, now a hotel executive — were students at elite St. Andrews University.
Hunt was the girlfriend tossed aside by the Prince in his university days when Middleton appeared in his life, and Kate was always wary of her competition.
“William was seeing Olivia when he met Kate, and when Kate came on the scene Olivia moved off pretty quickly,” said a friend of Prince William, speaking anonymously to The Daily Mail newspaper. “Kate was jealous of other girls at St Andrews.”
But William and Olivia Hunt have reportedly remained close over the ensuing 14 years, and now that the former princely flame is about to tie the knot herself, the royal couple are expected to be high on the priority list to receive an invite in the mail.
“A date hasn’t been set yet, but the Cambridges will be on the guest list. William has stayed friends with Olivia,” said one royal insider.
Whether or not Kate Middleton will attend has not yet been determined either, but given her recent pattern — missing at least three high-profile weddings since the last one she attended, which was back in 2013 — royal watchers find it doubtful the Duchess will trouble herself to attend the Hunt nuptials either.
While some sources have told the press that Middleton is simply focused on her duties as a mother of two small children, including four-month-old baby Princess Charlotte, the pattern of skipped weddings also fits another pattern in Middleton’s performance of her royal duties.
Namely, Kate Middleton has proven to be the laziest member of the British Royal Family when it comes to attending to her job, which, for royals, consists of attending public and social functions.
Of the 15 adult royal family members whose schedules are public information, Kate Middleton took on the lightest workload, attending just 76 official events — that’s about one-third as many as her grandfather-in-law, Prince Phillip, who is 93 years old and in ill health but still attended more than 200 events. The Queen herself at age 88 and despite reducing her official workload also put the 33-year-old Duchess to shame, getting to 375 public appearances.
[Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images]
